Journal of Mass Communication at Francis Marion University, Fall 2007, Vol. 1, No. 2
My beat was the battlefield
By David A. Sacash
My first writing job was not in an air-conditioned newsroom and my tryout was not a writing test. First, I had to jump out of helicopters in Vietnam, patrol the Saigon River in Swift boats, get shot at from time to time and wade in water up to my neck with my M-16 rifle as a member of an all volunteer Army recon team.
Then one day it happened. My big break to get out of the field had arrived. The First Infantry Division, also known as the Big Red One, needed a writer for the division newspaper. My beat would be the battlefield. My office would be a bunker north of Saigon.
I was interviewed for the assignment by the Army brass. The interview took place in the battalion command center, a bunker with sandbags for a roof. My job was to convince a skeptical battalion officer that I could write. If I did not get the assignment, I would spend the rest my tour of duty on patrol. I was ready for the big question.
“How much news reporting experience do you have?” he asked. “I could write anything sir,” I confidentially told him. You might of thought I had won a Pulitzer Prize by the time I was done. I was light on experience but I talked a great show. There was no doubt I could deliver. I just needed a chance. The interview continued.
“Did you ever write a news story?” I was asked. “Lots of them sir,” I answered. The job was mine despite the fact that my writing experience was in the classroom at Kent State University. It also helped that the sergeant major was my biggest supporter. He had a lot of influence with the battalion commander. I didn’t disappoint either of them.
My assignment was simple, write stories. I was on the beat day and night looking for stories for The American Traveler, the Big Red One newspaper. I stayed up most nights writing because back then I was not the fastest typewriter in the bunker. We did not have fancy laptop computers. My fingers powered the typewriter. I was the most productive writer in the division. I had lots of drive.
One of my first feature stories was about a 239-foot long letter that was mailed to our base camp from Akron University in Ohio. More than 60 girls from Spanton Hall signed the letter. The college students wanted the soldiers to know they were not forgotten. There were some anti-war writers. They wanted the soldiers to know US should get out of Vietnam. The story ran with a photo showing the soldiers reading the long-letter from a lookout tower. The letter was draped down the sides of the tower while the soldiers read it. The editors loved it.
I was on a roll. I was a writer. It was great experience and may have saved my life. I came home alive. Many of my fellow soldiers did not make it back home, they were killed in the line of duty. The last day I was in the field as a member of our recon team, I watched as three members of our unit were killed. They were gunned down by rifle fire coming from an elaborate underground tunnel system.
When I was in field to cover a story, I carried a tape recorder, reporter’s notebook, camera, an M-16 rifle and 200 to 400 rounds of ammunition. Vietnam was still a very dangerous place and you never knew when you might become part of the story. There were times I would talk with war correspondents from CBS News, the wire services and other print and broadcast news outlets. Our base was a regular stop for the international press because we were working with the Vietnamese Army.
The job landed me the news clips I needed to get hired at the Willoughby News-Herald, a suburban newspaper east of Cleveland. I was hired as a part-time reporter. It was not long before I was full-time. The newspaper editor offered me a full-time position after I wrote an investigative story about traffic tickets in municipal court that was the talk of the courthouse and newsroom.
A portfolio is a must for any young writer looking for their first job. Without one your chances of getting hired are not the best because every job applicant will have one. Hiring editors and corporate communication executives want to see writing samples, a theme I remind my students of each year. I saved my Big Red One stories and used them when I marched into the News-Herald for my interview. There was less talk in this interview. The portfolio did the talking for me.
David A. Sacash is an assistant professor of mass communication at Francis Marion University and a graduate of Kent State University. He was an award-wining reporter for The Dayton Daily News. Sacash is the adviser for The Patriot, the student newspaper at FMU. He also worked as a marketing communications vice president for a Fortune 500 company.
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