Antarctic Rescue
Oct 23rd, 2008 by Nick
Antarctica, distant and exotic, yet cold and lifeless, is a place built for media fibs. Any small inconvenience, paired with a tantalizing subzero temperature (usually including the wind-chill for dramatic purposes, even if you’re inside), is enough to drive the hometown papers bonkers with stories of their American sons and daughters braving the harshest conditions on earth for the good of all humanity.
Us brave conquistadors who visit the ice soon learn that the professional media has no pragmatic ideas about the place at all, so it is easy to feed them back their own ideas of heroism at the end of the earth, skipping over the small comfortable details that just so happen to make the place amenable for Quality Assurance Representatives and cubicle workers, as well as those who occasionally fear for frostbite.
And some love playing it up more than others.
Here is a recent story by the Seattle Post-Intelligencer that highlights many of the surreal collisions of fact when an enthusiastic journalist, with romantic ideas of the Antarctic, receives information from an enthusiastic Air National Guardsman who considers a discussion with the media merely an opportunity for a heroic press release.
Here is the link to the full article, commentary is featured below:
AF C-17 Rushes to Antarctica Rescue
The 56-year-old National Science Foundation member required emergency medical evacuation for a possible cardiovascular condition deemed too risky to fly him unescorted from Antarctica to New Zealand. At last word, he was under medical care in Christchurch, the Air Force said.
The patient did not work for the National Science Foundation. Also, it is notable here that the patient was at risk for flying, but the United States Antarctic Program had the patient working until two days before he left Antarctica.
Capt. Greg Richert, the on-board flight surgeon, in a news release from Hickam said, “We took an oxygen setup, emergency airway kits, a defibrillator and emergency intervention kit, just to be on the safe side.”
Richert called his work “the best job in the world — deploying at a moment’s notice, and helping people.”
Captain Richert, whatever his virtues, did not, as he tells the media, deploy at a moment’s notice.
Long time and not a whole lot of material. It could be the slowed-down brain of a winter-over at the Pole, just searching for something to write today, besides reporting the lunch and dinner menus. I did hear a rumor all the way over in Denver (not from headquarters, but through mutual friends) that the powers that be were threatening your bonus because of the terrible subversive things that you say here. Any comments?
Isn’t it a bit disingenuous to rail on folks writing in small town newspapers about the Antarctic when you personally profit from doing the same thing with a blog and book sales? Additionally, use of this medium to complain makes the flavor of hypocrisy all the more complex.
Semi-true. Denver changed my Eval, but not my bonus. Details later, when I’m off vacation.
What’s for dinner at Pole tonight?
No.
I love it when folks write for their small town newspapers. I want more blogs, more books, more perspective from those on the ice.
But I’m not so warm to it when they lie, or omit the comforts of McMurdo and Pole, in order to promote their own heroism to dupe their relatives, or who rehash the classic Antarctic myths that were born almost a century ago and they repeat without even thinking.
Yes, it’s still cold, and hell awaits the precocious with all manner of wounds and, in the end, death. But if you know what you’re doing, that probably won’t happen to you and you’ll end up eating Turkey Tetrazzini and watching Terminator 2 in the evening.
I think it is better “play up” the work and science support that gets done than the unbelievable drunken escapades and conspiracy theories that you seem to enjoy. With your reputation as a drunk and an jerk I find it utterly amazing that you would mock those that are here working and trying to get word of an amazing project back to the eyes and ears of the people in their community. This author is citing her excitement of going back to a wonderful place to work hard and see friends, and you mock. Maybe she should have written about how housing screws everybody and how her friend’s bonuses got taken. But wait, maybe she just has better more responsible friends than you do.
I am not sure what the issue with this reporter is. Jealous of the fact that she too has found a way to make money writing about Antarctica? I have read and reread this article and I am trying real hard to see the lies that you state. And yes Mcmurdo is a comfy place, even if we are burdened with man camp, or 5 roomies in 155. I am not too up on my math but saying probably won’t happen is a lot like saying could happen. Terminator 2 sucks.
That’s the spirit!
You’re right.
Robocop is much better.
I have to agree with Nick on this, some people simply cannot keep themselves from embellishing the facts. Having been in the military and again in war in civilian capacity, I can vouch that a great many people call home with ‘war stories’. He references a story on military.com that reeks of a bunch of hooey that seems to be todays calling card for gaining sympathy for those that have otherwise un-extraordinary lives in the military/gov’t sectors. Just because you ‘were there’ does not make you a fucking hero. Nick is a contractor on Antarctica, (and has experience in Iraq as well).
I like his take on this. The most interesting parts are the comments that came back to slam him from POV’s assuming fellow Ice Folk identities.
I once had another blog where I slammed the military and contractors alike for calling/writing home about how ‘dangerous’ it was… when none of these people experienced anything more dangerous than high cholesterol from the 4x daily buffet of all-you-can-eat DFAC meals. I would regularly get nasty grams about how insensitive I was to the war fighters.
One rather large group of correspondence was from the friends of a particular person that is now part of those fictitious Pajamas Media ‘experts’. He lied blatantly and embellished everything so bad that one blog entry claimed to have a mortar hitting next to his trailer when it was actually 4 kilometers away outside CP-1 (which I had to do the report on). He talked about having to endure the hardships of eating bland military food when he was actually only issued a single MRE for the flight over and had access to the Embassy chow hall at 4 meals a day…. and it was great food. I had his billeting info, his work schedule, his civilian work history, his palace office info & tasking, ..everything. I was not part of the RSO and the info was nonsecured. His was a social agenda – so was mine.
Even after calling out this supercool cat, his friends then slammed me for the act of ‘calling out’ instead of admiting their friend was a craptastic lier.
The military press is on a roll: