A Report From the Front

Chris Ayres of the London Times is traveling toward Baghdad with the U.S. Marines. This is a nice account of an attack on the Marine column, strung out in the mud along Iraq’s unfinished Highway 1, in the middle of the night in a howling sandstorm, by Iraqi tanks. Ayers was understandably scared out of his wits, but his fear seems not to have been shared by the Marine officer perceived only as a “bass monotone” on the radio.