war conferenceby Dave Munger I am sitting in the office of Ron Lunsford, where he has called me to discuss plans for attending an academic conference later that week. Ron looks at me soberly and asks if I think the conference might be cancelled. Cancelled? I think. Of course it won't be cancelled--it can't possibly be cancelled. Could it really be cancelled? "No way," I reply. "There's just no way they'd cancel Four Cs." Four Cs, as everyone calls it, is the annual meeting of the Conference on College Composition and Communication, the biggest convention of the year in our field. I have spent the past week writing up my presentation, the result of a year's worth of research. I ask Ron if he actually thinks it’s that bad. He points out that the conference is in New York City, and that fact alone would make many participants reluctant to attend. It is obvious now that George Bush has given up on the diplomatic route, so war with Iraq seems inevitable. At the age of 36, I simply don’t have any memories of a war actually intruding on my professional life—to say nothing about my personal life. We talk for about twenty more minutes, discussing the inevitability of a war and our helplessness in doing anything about it. Ron makes a curious statement: he says he is a war agnostic; he honestly can't decide whether or not going to war against Iraq is the right thing to do. As I leave his office to head home and finish my preparations for the conference, I realize that I am a war agnostic as well. Unlike many people I have discussed the subject with, I don't believe there will be significant civilian casualties; I think the numbers will probably not even reach into the hundreds. However, as in the first gulf war, I do see the potential for thousands--or even hundreds of thousands--of military deaths (and, of course, the overwhelming majority of these deaths would be Iraqi soldiers). I simply can't see how the death of Saddam's conscripts is any less "bad" than the death of "civilians." If you are forced to fight against your will, does that make you more "guilty" than an "innocent" civilian? I don't want to see these people die. I don't want to see the devastation that would result from a U.S. military conquest of Iraq, and I am equally concerned at what might happen if the U.S. "easily" prevailed in the conflict. What statement would that make to the rest of the world? On the other hand, we know that Saddam is an absolutely ruthless dictator; he has killed thousands of his own people, and he'll surely kill thousands more if he's not removed from power. Wouldn't it make sense to try to stop him before things get even worse? That night on T.V., Bush gives his ultimatum: Saddam needs to leave the country in 48 hours. I make a quick calculation and realize that's the day I'll arrive in New York. The thought quickly leaves my mind as I begin to busy myself in preparation for the trip. I need to make sure my laptop is ready to go, and that I have a backup print version of my presentation. I need to make sure I get enough sleep. I need to say good bye to Greta and the kids. I arrive at the airport on the morning of Wednesday, March 19, fourteen hours before Bush's deadline. Sitting at the gate, I wonder what it might be like for the soldiers hunkered down on either side of the border between Iraq and Kuwait. I remember a news report from a week or so ago, about a band of Iraqis offering to surrender to British troops. The British had to tell them they couldn't surrender yet; the British were just training, not attacking. The miserable, ill-clothed "soldiers" had to shuffle back to their trenches and grimly await the inevitable. Meanwhile, bedraggled business travelers at the airport mutter at the inconvenience of having to remove their shoes to walk through the metal detector. Arriving in New York, I have finally managed to focus in on my work at the conference. My taxi takes me up New York's "Avenue of the Americas"--Sixth Avenue--past the Fox newsroom with its blaring news ticker, past Radio City Music Hall, past the Time and Life building, where I think CNN has a studio. Just another block or two to the conference hotel. I check into the hotel and lug my bags over to the array of elevators, taking a moment to locate the set of cars servicing my floor. As I go over my presentation in my head, the elevator doors open and I am greeted by a monitor blaring CNN News, announcing that the Bush deadline is only nine hours away. The exhausted conference-goers in my car chuckle to each other at the inanity of equipping hotel elevators with television. Normally when you ride in a hotel elevator you try to avoid eye contact or any communication with the people next to you, staying silent, facing forward, and doing your business, as if you are urinating in a public restroom. Today, however, the assembled rhetoricians can't resist the urge to make sense of the bizarre juxtaposition. As teachers of writing, we know the developing war is the ultimate "teachable moment." We all share guilt at leaving our families (and students) to attend a conference in the number one terrorist target on the planet. We have all managed to repress our doubts, reminding ourselves of our professional obligations. And now, here, in this crowded elevator, we are all being reminded of our shared cognitive dissonance, by--Paula Zahn? I have a feeling that it will get even more bizarre than that. In my room on the twenty-third floor, I instinctively turn on the television. Paula is in the CNN New York studio; I can see the busy midtown traffic streaming behind her. I can look out my window and see the same traffic on Sixth Avenue. Just for kicks, I switch to Fox News, where they have a "countdown," ticking away, second by second, to the moment when we can blast Saddam into oblivion. Back to CNN. Paula talking with Wolf Blitzer about when we might expect something to happen. Behind her, a businessman looks through the studio window, cell phone pressed to his ear, a slightly embarrassed grin on his face. You can almost see him mouthing the words "See honey, I'm on CNN! Say hi to the kids! Has the war started yet?" I've placed a lot of importance on attending Four Cs this year. I'm trying to interest other writing teachers in a new project, and it's critical for me to meet people, to connect faces with names I've seen online and in print. Tearing myself away from the T.V., I head downstairs to the Intellectual Property Caucus. In the elevator, Wolf reports that all is calm in Kuwait City. After a three-hour meeting where assembled scholars nodded in agreement about the travesty that is copyright law, I head back up to my room to change for dinner. Paula is still there, but she's beginning to look a bit droopy. Wolf is wide-eyed as ever--he must have taken must have taken a go-pill before getting on-air. I head back to the lobby to meet Charlie Lowe and his wife Natalie for dinner. I've conversed extensively with Charlie online, but this is the first time I've ever met him in person. For the Lowes, this is another first: the first time they've been away from their three-year-old son for more than a few hours. We find a cozy Italian restaurant and Charlie and I discuss strategies for showing our colleagues why they should be concerned about recent developments in copy protection legislation. Natalie does a good job pretending to be interested. After we're done meeting, Charlie and Natalie call their son, who's staying with his grandmother in South Carolina; they can barely hold back their tears at hearing his voice. We all decide to head back to our rooms early; Charlie and I both have papers to present tomorrow. Back in the room, the deadline has passed, but nothing has happened yet. I start to doze off. CNN broadcasts the live feed from Al Jazeera in Baghdad as reporters in the field pontificate over why nothing has happened yet. I get an odd feeling--is it a dream? Gradually, I begin to become hazily aware of something happening. Tracer fire is lighting up the sky over Baghdad. Apparently, the attack has begun. I bolt awake. The CNN ticker says that Bush will be speaking in a few minutes. After a few muffled explosions, the tracer fire begins to die down. If this is "shock and awe," it's very unimpressive. We were told the war would start with a massive bombardment, like the world has never seen. This isn't even Gulf War I level. I stay awake for Bush's brief announcement, stay awake in bed for a couple hours, again watching the pundits try to sort this one out. A Presidential Palace has been bombed. Was Saddam killed? Will the war be over before it has even begun? If Saddam was incinerated in this blast, how would we even know? Will terrorists strike America in retaliation? Fighter jets are patrolling the skies over New York and Washington, as well as dozens of other "primary targets" in the United States. Fighter jets are patrolling and thousands of scholars are nervously awake, watching television in their rooms and wondering if they should be rehearsing their presentations or scouting the building for fire escapes. I turn off the T.V. and try to get to sleep, calming myself by going over my presentation in my head. The next day I get up early and head down to the conference. In case I had forgotten, Paula reminds me in the elevator that a war is going on, and that she and I are sitting in the number one terrorist target on the planet. I attend panels on speech recognition, on alternative discourses, on how students' writing changes over the four years they spend in college. The panels are lightly attended--even many of the presenters haven't made it to the conference, and so their papers are read by colleagues. Everyone here assumes that everyone here is opposed to the war. Everyone "knows" that it's obvious that this war is wrong. Everyone wonders why nothing has happened yet. I meet Ron in the lobby at 3:00. He and Bill Bridges have arrived a day late, and the three of us will share a room for the remainder of the conference. Bill has already checked in. Paula, Ron, and I ride up the elevator to the 23rd floor. Bill and Ron are buddies from way back, from graduate school at Florida State. We find the room, and Bill is lying on the bed in a T-shirt, watching CNN, a glass of Scotch in his hand. Ron introduces me to Bill, who offers me a drink. "Ask me again in three hours," I joke. I think Bill likes me. I point out to Ron and Bill that Paula is actually just a couple of blocks away, on Sixth Avenue. At 4:30 I pack up my laptop and head down to the meeting rooms to make my presentation. At 4:45 two of the other panelists have arrived in our meeting room and we have set up our laptops. A fourth panelist has not shown up. Neither has our session Chair. About eight people, including Ron and Bill, are in the audience. The other panelists and I agree that we should start without the Chair; we will introduce ourselves. After I give my talk, entitled "The Future of the Internet as a Collaborative Environment: Utopia or Dystopia," Ron, Bill and I head back up to the room to share the promised bottle of Scotch. Paula looks like she could use some, too. It takes a lot of energy, explaining why Nothing has Happened, yet. It occurs to me that I could watch a particular car or truck passing behind Paula, then look out my window and spot the exact same car on Sixth Avenue. "How old do you think Paula Zahn is?" Bill asks us. "I don't know," I say. "She's been around for a while. She's got to have had at least one surgery." "She is forty-seven years old," Bill offers, with some satisfaction. I wonder why Bill might have remembered that particular fact. It is raining in New York. A deep, soaking rain. At 7:30 I meet more colleages in the lobby for dinner. We find a seafood place a couple blocks away from the hotel. Not many people in the restaurant tonight, but our group tries to make up for it, drinking plenty of wine and eating rather average fish. We don't talk much about the war, but we don't talk much about work either. We manage to joke and make small talk, but it doesn't feel quite right to be here. We drink more wine. When we finally leave the restaurant at 10:00, it is raining even harder. We share umbrellas for the quick walk back to the hotel. We say our goodbyes in the lobby, and I shuffle into the elevator, exhausted. A perky Paula gets me up to speed as I ride back to the 23rd floor. Apparently, the ground war has begun! I'm the first to arrive back in the room. I turn on the T.V. and help myself to some more of Bill's Scotch. Since I'm the junior roommate, there is no doubt that I'll be on the trundle bed. I set it up in the corner of the room, but sit on Ron's bed to watch the T.V. Some of the CNN "embedded" correspondents are on the move--they can't tell us where they are, but they have definitely crossed the border into Iraq. Embarrassed pundits wonder why we haven't seen "shock and awe" yet. Ron and Bill return from their dinner, and we share anecdotes about our day at the conference while the news of the war crawls along in the background. We're all fairly tired, so we turn out the lights around 11:30 after Ron and Bill have called their wives. I know Greta will think something is wrong if I call, so I don't call. The next morning I rise early and attend a few morning talks. Then I wander the neighborhood around the hotel looking for a Starbucks. They say there is a Starbucks on every corner in New York, but after walking six blocks, I have to settle for weak coffee from a deli. I grab a bagel for lunch and then head back up to the room. Ron and I watch CNN as the sun sets over Baghdad. As we chat about our plans for the afternoon, we hear Wolf Blitzer's emphatic voice begin to rise: more tracer fire in Baghdad on the Al Jazeera feed. Then, finally, a huge explosion. Then another, and another. This is it; this is "shock and awe." The CNN reporters almost seem relieved; finally there is a photogenic image to send home from Iraq. Huge, orange, Die-Hard-with-a-Vengeance explosions light up the screen; showers of sparks descend from the smoky plumes; great booms accompany each blast; Ron and I wince at each explosion. Then an even louder boom shakes our room. I quickly realize this blast hasn't come from the T.V.--this noise has come from the street outside our building. I feel almost sick to my stomach as I move to open the curtains and see what it looks like outside. My first glimpse out the window reveals a shiny black speck on the sidewalk of 53rd Street. An umbrella. A thunderstorm. My hand, still shaking, lets the curtain fall slack. "It's--it's just a thunderstorm!" I can almost hear my heart beating as I imagine what it could have been--a dirty nuclear bomb, a chemical attack, a truck bomb, another hijacking. Ron's face looks as pale as mine. Together we realize just how scared we had been. We turn back to the T.V. Within a few minutes, they are looping the same tape of explosions over Baghdad, again and again. So this is "shock and awe." An hour or so later, we're still watching T.V. The pundits haven't gotten over how thrilling it is to be showing actual video of actual explosions. Ron and I are just numb, but we, too, can't stop watching. Suddenly we hear a gentle whooping sound from outside the room. "Is that the fire alarm?" Ron asks. "That's not very loud, if that's what it is." I open the door to hear the alarm sounding much louder. Apparently our room is well-insulated. It sure sounds like a fire alarm. The housekeeper starts yelling down the hall: "Don't worree--eet's just a fire alarm test! Jyou can go back to jyour rooms!" She doesn't sound very convincing. Ron and I decide to leave, just in case. Somehow we feel safer wandering among the conference presentations in the hotel's meeting rooms. I don't remember much from the talks, though. Back in our room that night, we finish off Bill's Scotch. The next morning we all wake up early again. Bill heads off for breakfast with an old friend. I ask Ron if he’s interested in another search for one of New York’s “ubiquitous” Starbucks. As we get dressed, Paula apprises us of the latest from Iraq: Two British helicopters have collided over the Persian Gulf, killing one American and seven British soldiers. The toll is now fifteen British and seven American dead. Our ground troops have launched an all-out assault on Iraq, and two freak accidents have managed to do more damage than any Iraqi defense. In the elevator, behind Paula, Sixth Avenue shows little sign of life. Ron and I decide to stroll east towards Seventh, in search of the elusive Starbucks. We finally find a tiny store on 52nd Street. A fire truck races by as we sit at the bar drinking our double tall lattes. As we walk back toward Sixth, a steady stream of fire trucks passes, all headed in the same direction. Looking ahead, we can see them stopping just on the other side of Sixth Avenue, the racket from the sirens is so loud that it's difficult to carry on a conversation. I'm beginning to wonder whether I should really be walking toward whatever it is the fire engines are responding to. Still, we can't resist seeing what's up. We continue walking hesitantly in the same direction as the fire trucks. As we approach Sixth Avenue, we can see that literally dozens of emergency vehicles have surrounded a small building. In fact, it's a very large building, probably 40 or 50 stories tall, but it's dwarfed by the nearby towers of Rockefeller Center. We are relieved to see no visible signs of flames or an accident. The firefighters seem amazingly nonchalant about entering the building. We decide it's probably just a small interior fire or a false alarm--but the scale of the response has been enormous. Ron and I are still a little shaken up and don't feel like heading back to the hotel. We decide to walk down to see if we can find the CNN studio in the Time and Life building. At 51st street, the nondescript towers reveal few signs of a major television studio. Then we notice TV monitors bolted to the side of a building, showing familiar images of Iraq--this must be the place. We peer in the window of the studio and see the real Paula Zahn, sitting at her custom-made desk, just a few feet away from us. We see her in profile; the camera is oriented so that you have to be standing directly behind her to get on T.V. She's not on air now: the monitor is showing live scenes from Baghdad. "Can you believe that?" Ron and I ask, nearly simultaneously. Me: "Yeah--she has that same, vacant, earnest expression on her face, even when she's not on air." Ron: "No, that's not what I was noticing--it's that she's wearing pants under that desk. I never would have guessed she'd be wearing pants." Paula looks heavily made up, her clothes carefully pressed. She appears to move only at her waist, apparently afraid of wrinkling her jacket or mussing up her hair. She doesn't even turn her head from side to side, looking straight ahead as she converses with attendents on either side of her. There are two security guards standing outside the studio, apparently there to protect Paula from terrrorists and/or lunatic fans. The guards seem to be more interested in the fire trucks still arriving a block away and a little girl in a stroller than they are in the CNN anchor's safety. Paula appears especially vulnerable, sitting there at her desk, unable even to get up for a moment, even to change the expression on her face. Just as the war has intruded on our lives, now we are intruding on Paula's life, seeing aspects of her that aren't revealed on T.V. But does this intrusion really change us? Thousands of people are dying, and we continue to fly to our conferences, and give our talks, and watch T.V. And the world whirls by outside Paula's studio, and fire trucks come and go, and tourists mug in the studio window with their cell phones, and security guards flirt with little girls, and the morning sun peeks in between the skyscrapers, and Paula's expression doesn't change. And us, what does it change about us? You couldn't ask for a more pleasant day in New York. It's a Saturday, and the streets are not crowded. It's a beautiful day, a Saturday. I don't watch any more T.V. I don't attend any more conference presentations. I decide to go for a walk. I find a street vendor, I buy a gyro sandwich, with extra hot sauce. I sit in Central Park and watch the ducks swim across the pond. It's a beautiful day. |
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