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Steven Noble
Editor, Internal Publications
p. 403.440.5692
e-mail: snoble@mtroyal.ca

Fred Cheney
Media Relations Officer
p. 403.440.5195
e-mail: fcheney@mtroyal.ca

 

A last-minute chance to play the role of an embedded journalist in an army training exercise at Suffield, AB, last spring proved life-changing for a Mount Royal Journalism student.

Once Edward Osborne, a third-year Bachelor of Communication — Journalism student, heard about the intriguing one-week opportunity from a fellow student last May, he jumped on it.

“It was fantastic,” Osborne says. “It was absolutely so much fun.”

Journalism student Edward Osborne was an embedded journalist during army training exercises.

His experience at Suffield left a lasting and positive impression. “It woke me up to what the military is actually like and what the guys are doing there,” he says.

“It’s far beyond the Hollywood image.”

In fact, Osborne now wants to try to become a real embedded journalist with the Canadian military in Afghanistan.

One of Osborne's fellow “mock media” was a war correspondent who had reported from Bosnia in the 1990s. Their introduction to the massive training exercise was dramatic. As they drove towards the base, two enormous American Apache helicopters flew just above them on a training exercise. The noise from the machines he calls “big black gunships” was incredible.

At that point, Osborne knew he was entering a very different version of the Canadian prairies — one that had become an imaginary war zone.

Unforgettable field experience

Both professional journalists and journalism students were playing the roles of embedded journalists. They had two functions — teaching soldiers how to deal with media and producing stories.

They covered two training operations or missions — Western Defender and Total Ram — which both involved combat operations exercises of varying sizes. The mock media participants visited several sites during the week to interview participants, a rather challenging assignment.

“One of the best ways I found to get (soldiers) to talk to me was to tell them I was getting paid by the Army,” Osborne says. “That meant I was part of the team.”

One adventure with a heavy weapons group on a “combat” mission proved memorable. “It was an experience and a half,” he says.

Riding in the back of a light armoured vehicle (LAV) in the middle of the night with soldiers in full gear as they crept toward a small “village” (essentially a collection of cargo containers) was a rush, Osborne says.

The team sat in the LAV waiting for orders, which at last came over the radio. “They start cheering, ‘it’s a hard knock!’” Osborne says. While a soft knock means simply knocking on doors with weapons down, a hard knock involves kicking doors in fully armed.

“These guys were wired,” he says. “It was a combination of exhaustion and adrenaline.”

As exciting as the build-up to that mission was, the result was a letdown. As they started moving in on the village, they were informed a bridge was out, meaning their mission was scrapped.

The team was frustrated but knew it was all part of their training — in not only combat manoeuvres, but in dealing with the unexpected.

The final mission, Total Ram, involved invading and occupying the nearby city of Medicine Hat — the real Medicine Hat, but not a real invasion.

Platoons of reservists drove into Medicine Hat just after dawn, jumped out of their medium lift vehicles and performed foot patrols around the city. Fortunately, city residents had been warned this would happen and the sight of uniformed soldiers on their streets as army manoeuvres are a common sight there.

Looking to the future

Today’s journalism student must look for work far beyond traditional print reporter jobs, which may soon be going the way of the dial telephone. Many are looking to the Internet to provide them with work. In fact, Osborne already writes for an international online video gaming website.

“My editor is in the Netherlands," he says. "It’s very small and focused, but I get 1,000 hits on the weekend when I release my article.

“There will always be a need for people with our skill sets, who can go out and gather real news,” he adds.

Whether this means print journalism, a stint as an embedded journalist or writing for the Internet, Osborne’s experiences with the Army will stand him in good stead when he graduates from Mount Royal.

— Rhonda Greenaway, Dec. 10, 2009