'You look awful!'

'Covering a modern war, living in the Stone Age'


Martin Savidge reports from the field for CNN on major breaking news stories and has anchored several of the network's regularly scheduled newscasts.

Editor's note: In our Behind the Scenes series, CNN correspondents share their experiences in covering news around the world.

By Martin Savidge
CNN

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (CNN) -- "You look awful!" Those were the words of my wife heard over the warble of the satellite phone.

I'd just completed another "Live From Afghanistan" show (8 p.m. EST weeknights on CNN). She wasn't being mean. She was being honest, and she was concerned. Not only for me personally, but also for how I come across to all of you. Most of all, she was right.

I thought back on the last day or so. I'd been up nearly 24 hours straight when I finally was able to crawl back into my sleeping bag in the unheated airport terminal that serves as our media base.

In my absence, a television set had been mounted above my bed. It was the first TV that some of these soldiers have seen in almost two months. They were drawn like moths to a flame. I undressed before an audience of 30 heavily armed Marines who were killing time before their flight out.

I waved goodnight and wished them safe travels then pulled the bag over my head. The TV volume was loud to compete with the roar of the C-130 transport plane just outside my "bedroom."

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CNN's Martin Savidge reports that after nearly 19 days, largest battle of war against terrorism completed (March 19)

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EXTRA INFORMATION

Images from Operation Anaconda

Map of Afghanistan showing the location of the fighting

Savidge reports: The Battlefield

A reporter's reflections

The road home

Getting out

Mining snow

Sometime in the night, the plane went away but no one touched the volume. The movie "Twister" was on. I remember dreaming of being in an Afghani tornado. Screaming shouting, blowing, sirens -- and a telephone ringing -- and ringing -- .

It was no dream. It was the satellite phone by my bag. It was Atlanta and it was 4 a.m.

Back at CNN Center where it was 6:30 p.m., the wide-awake executive producer began a verbal download into my ear of latest developments and scripts. I had a hard time hearing him. Then I remembered to remove the earplugs that I sleep with.

He was already halfway through dictating the show's open as I struggled to find a flashlight and a pen that wasn't frozen. The temperature was in the teens. When he was finished, I looked at my note pad -- my hands had been shaking so severely and the ink-flow had been so intermittent that the writing looked like gibberish. The producer told me, "Go get a cup of coffee."

Building a fire for coffee break

I pulled on my same filthy clothes from the day before, happy that I couldn't see just how dirty they were in the darkness. I stumbled outside like the man from the Dunkin' Donuts commercial: "Must make coffee, must have coffee."

I coaxed our gasoline-fueled camp stove into life. As it started, I moved on to the next part of the morning routine: "Must have fire, must have heat." I looked for any scraps of wood for the campfire. I blew the embers until I nearly passed out. Finally, flames.

I had terminal bed-head. I had to face the world. I twisted the top off a bottle of water and poured it on my head. The effect in the cold did more to my system then any amount of caffeine. I was awake. My hair froze before I could get a comb through it. Where had the time gone?

I heard the producers over the intercom from Atlanta: "We need to see and hear Martin now! Where is he?!" I was in front of the lens and talking but something was wrong. The satellite engineer in Kandahar shouted over the din in my earpiece, "Everything is fine leaving here."

The minutes ticked down, voices started to get frantic. The problem was in London where our signal is relayed to Atlanta. Phone calls are made. More frantic voices.

"Go, Martin!!!" is all I hear in my ear. The show is under way. I can't help shaking the feeling that I look like a deer in the headlights. A deer with frozen bed head.

I'm not looking for pity. I feel bad that how I look may make a lot of hard work look bad. Many work hard here and in Atlanta and elsewhere, people you'll never know or see. I am glad to be here and wouldn't want to be anywhere else. I'll fight to stay.

I'm just a modern journalist covering a modern war, and living in the Stone Age.

Tomorrow: Savidge goes into the field with an Explosive Ordnance Disposal team -- EOD personnel destroy unexploded bomblets dropped by the United States, in an effort to clear their lethal threat from villages and countryside. "These days in Afghanistan, EOD business is booming ... ."