Kevin Dougherty on Kerrey Bridge
With respect to my time at Stripes, I worked for the paper from December 1990 until December 2013. A civilian journalist from the Chicago area, I joined Stripes shortly before the Gulf War started and was assigned to the copy desk in Griesheim, Germany. Starting in early 1992, I moved over to the reporters’ side and transferred to the Kaiserslautern bureau to cover U.S. Air Forces in Europe. Several years later, I returned to the Stripes HQ and shifted my focus to the Army. I also stepped in multiple times to help on the editing desk. Over the years, I deployed nearly two dozen times to hotspots, such as Somalia, Rwanda, Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq.
I used the Tandy 200’s predecessor in Somalia when Vince Crawley and I were dispatched to cover the downing of two UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters in Mogadishu in October 1993. The following year we replaced the TRS-80 Model 100 with the Tandy 200. Photo Editor Tim Baker and I took the Tandy 200 with us when we deployed to Uganda and Rwanda to cover the Rwandan genocide in 1994.
As for humorous or unique experiences, well, many come to mind. I do fondly recall the commemorations marking the 50th anniversary of the D-Day landings in Normandy, France. One especially poignant story was conveyed to me by a D-Day veteran as he and others stood near a bluff overlooking Omaha Beach one afternoon in June 1994. The tale he spun reportedly occurred several days after the 1944 landings, and it involved a Stripes reporter and a wooden wine crate.
Working on the harbor but with some downtime on their hands, the vet and a few other men ascended the bluffs and proceeded inland to look around. They soon happened across the reporter, who was sitting on the ground next to a wooden wine crate that he was using as a desk. As they bantered with the reporter, one GI casually inquired if there was wine in the box. The reporter surprised them by lifting the lid, reaching inside and producing a bottle of French wine. As they walked away and began passing the bottle around, the Stripes reporter cautioned them about making themselves too visible, referring to reports of German snipers in the area. This veteran – our storyteller – said not long afterwards, as one of them lifted the bottle to take a swig, the barrel of the vessel exploded in the guy’s hand. That sent everyone diving for cover. Apparently, they later figured, a German sniper opted against the kill in favor of denying them the wine.
A story involving yours truly occurred the day before the main ceremony, when about three dozen WW II paratroopers re-enacted their historic jump. I covered the event and the speeches that followed at an outdoor, makeshift venue a few miles from Sainte-Mere-Eglise, their next destination. The veterans were to be transported to the edge of town and dropped off so they could symbolically march into town and “liberate” it for the throngs of people who came out for the commemorative events.
Earlier in the day, I met a man who was escorting his dad, one of the veterans. Faced with a looming deadline, a story to compose, a countryside crawling with gendarme and several miles of countryside to cover with no car (photog for event had departed), I was in a bit of a predicament. Then my new friend and some vets offered me a ride in one of the vans transporting them. I readily accepted. When we reached the edge of Sainte-Mere-Eglise, the vans stopped to allow the vets to disembark and assemble for their march. I still had some ways to go before I could make a break for the media tent. So I fell into formation near the back of the pack and went with the flow. As we marched through a sea of onlookers, I saw a second Stripes photographer who was part of our coverage team. Dave Casey was staked out on a grassy slope snapping away. When he caught sight of me, he lowered his camera and cast the most bewildering “What The Hell?” look. Soon afterwards, I slipped away and made a mad dash for the media tent.