Why U.S., Canadian journalists differ: military, news cultures vary across the border.

There was a conspicuous absentee from the ranks of the "willing" nations when the U.S.-led coalition struck Iraq: Canada.

The issue deeply divided Canadians, some of them unlikely instant enthusiasts of the unpopular and soon-to-retire Prime Minister Jean Chretien, some furious about insults to the United States from within Chretien's Liberal government itself, some embarrassed by failure to stand by a staunch ally, some fearing economic retaliation--and some humiliated that many Americans didn't know or care about Canada's choice to stay on the sidelines.

As the strike against Iraq approached I asked fellow NCEW members if they had military experience and whether it had been useful to them as journalists.

The responses--fascinating in themselves--showed differences between both the military and journalistic cultures of the two countries.

Few Canadian journalists today, even the middle-aged, have had any military service. In contrast, many of their American counterparts have, and for most of the respondents the memories are vivid and the experiences formative:

Ed Williams, editorial page editor of The Charlotte Observer in North Carolina:

"Someone discovered I could type and add and subtract. At that point I became clerk for a Nike Hercules training battery. I learned to appreciate the ability of a command structure with clearly defined goals to shape young men and women into capable soldiers. I learned to appreciate types of intelligence that didn't involve book-learning. I learned that while the higher-ups had the authority, the middle managers ran things. I learned that when the bouncers in topless bars said it was closing time, they didn't mean you could hang around until you finished your beer."

Syndicated columnist Austin Bay, in Austin, Texas:

"Is the experience (four years active duty and 25 in the Army Reserves) relevant and useful? Absolutely. Von Clausewitz and Machiavelli are instructive, they're genuises, but having led (more or less coherently) 30 heavily armed 19-year-olds 15 kilometers at night through a forest and swamp in a sleet storm (even in training) puts flesh and poetry on theory. You know damn well there are no Rambos."

Van Cavett, a retired journalist living on Lookout Mountain in Tennessee:

"I was drafted in the fall of 1953 ... a most unsoldierly soldier, but a lucky one. I did 15 months in Germany as a clerk in the replacement depot, which had the best enlisted men and worst officers in Germany. My sergeants had earned their stripes in Korea. I respected them for what they had gone through. They didn't whine about the hardship of combat and the fact that they were there while I was in college. In fact, I overheard one of them say, "Cavett would make a damn good officer." That was, to me, one of the greatest compliments I've ever had. The end of the draft--and, with it, the end of military service as an obligation for young men--has deepened the rift between the civilian ranks and the military ranks. With war in Iraq, a crash course in military basics would be in order for all journalists, particularly those under 50 who have never been exposed to the military in ways that the WWII, Korean, and Vietnam generations were."

Phineas Fiske, assistant editorial page editor of Newsday on Long Island, New York:

"I was in the service for two years, 1959 to 1961. The obvious benefit to me is that the Army put me through clerk-typist school, so I got out knowing how to type with more than two fingers. It gave me a trade, I like to say. But more substantively, and as with anything else, being there gives you a perspective on things that would be unavailable otherwise."

Geoff Seamans, associate editor of the editorial page, at The Roanoke Times in Virginia:

"A draft notice in the fall of 1968 propelled me to Fort Sill, Oklahoma, where I auditioned to be an Army bandsman. Incredibly, I was accepted. My second duty station, for 10 months, was at Camp Eagle, near Hue, in Vietnam. During my time there the camp occasionally came under rocket and mortar fire, but nothing intense. I went in thinking the war in Vietnam was a stupid, deplorable blunder and left thinking it was worse than that. I did come to see more clearly that civilian policymakers in both the Lyndon B. Johnson and Richard Nixon administrations, rather than the military itself, bore most of the blame for the stupidity. I also came to respect the military for being the closest thing in U.S. society at the time to a genuine meritocracy."

Ricardo Pimentel of The Arizona Republic:

"I was a U.S. Navy journalist from 1973 to 1977. In eight weeks, they gave us a crash course in newswriting, gathering, and interviewing. They also told us about the basics of being a military journalist. How the credo is maximum disclosure, minimum delay. Though short, it was a remarkably effective and thorough introduction to journalism basics and military PR basics. I couldn't wait to get out of the Navy. Those four years seemed like an eternity. But I wouldn't trade the experience for the world. Valuable personal and professional lessons rendered and absorbed. I'm a better journalist for it."

Carroll Wilson, editor of the Times Record News of Wichita Falls, Texas:

"By a stroke of incredible luck, I went through Defense Information School at Fort Benjamin Harrison, Indiana, and found the officers' course to be excellent. I served out my two years at Fort Harrison, doing my very best to avoid service in Vietnam. The military experience has probably had more impact on my career than I can actually perceive. Wichita Falls is home of Sheppard Air Force Base, the largest training installation in the Air Force. Sheppard employs 15,000 civilians. Thousands of our residents are retirees from the military. The fact that I served in uniform gives me and my newspaper a credibility, with these critical constituents that I simply would not have had I not served. I know the lingo. I know the attitudes. I know where they're coming from. My youngish staff has exactly one other military veteran on it (out of about 50)."

Mike Vogel, deputy editorial page editor of The Buffalo News:

"Add me to the list of those who disliked the years in uniform but have come to consider that time a great educational experience and, in retrospect, time well spent. I did my two years as an Army lieutenant in the waning years of Vietnam (my orders to that war zone were cancelled three days before my wedding).

"After passing on a chance to teach at the Defense Information School, I wound up spending my entire tour at First Army headquarters, adjacent to the National Security Agency and just outside Washington. My job was congressional liaison. Not only did that give me a different set of war stories, it had some pretty direct application to my current job. And even the military training came in handy, when I did a journalistic stint in the Persian Gulf during that war; nothing like understanding what you're looking at."

John Needham, editorial writer, Los Angeles Times:

"I did four years in active Navy Reserve during college, followed by two years of submarine duty (nuclear-powered, Polaris missile-carrying). Taught me how impressive a highly trained crew can be when it is drilled over and over and over on various scenarios (fires, collision, missile firing). Goof-offs were weeded out, both enlisted and officer. Taught me what the ranks are, what the different kinds of ships are, i.e., the terminology. Taught me there are materials that are classified and correctly so, and spilling national security secrets should demand prosecution. Later, as a civilian, saw there were any number of things that are wrongly classified to save higher-ups embarrassment or simply because it's easier to stamp 'confidential' on a paper than to decide if it should remain unclassified. Taught me that there were different cultures in the U.S. and to be wary of generalizations."

David Klement, editorial page editor of the The Bradenton Herald in Florida:

"I volunteered for the Naval Air Reserve in 1962 and was trained as a photo intelligence specialist interpreting aerial photos.... That same training has helped me understand current military issues when the secretary of defense says we know Iraq is turning out weapons of mass destruction. We know because the photos don't lie."

Tony Biffle, associate editor of The Sun Herald in Biloxi, Mississippi:

"As a journalist, the Army taught me the value of finding the strongest and weakest links in a chain of command. As an editorialist, the Army showed me that Sherman was right, 'war is hell.' There is no excuse for anything less than a first-rate military--and precious few excuses for using it."

James E. Fields, retired editor and professor in Knoxville, Tennessee:

"In 1948, as a young high school junior, I enlisted for three years in the National Guard but got an extra, involuntary 'Truman's year' when the Korean conflict began. When that hitch expired, I was drafted for active duty with the U.S. Army. When active duty ended, I was assigned to an Army Reserve unit for six more years.

So my overall experience was lots of discipline and training, better food than I had previously known, good medical care, personal broadening, some fatigue and exasperation, but no combat. I have only gratitude, and no regrets, about my military experience. And the GI Bill helped me get a college education including advanced degrees."

A retiree member of NCEW, Trevor Lautens has spent 49 years in journalism and, in 1952, two months in a Royal Canadian Air Force summer program. E-mail [e-mail]