I've read a lot of disaster novels in my time. I think it started because I liked reading science fiction, and some of the disaster novels fell into that category. Eventually I got hooked on reading disaster fiction, and I've read them all! So it is with great trepidation and a sense of the surreal that I listen to news reports of the SARS epidemic lately.

There are any number of disaster novels out there with the theme of humanity being almost wiped out by an epidemic which starts in a similar way to the path SARS is taking. Starting small, gettting bigger, spreading farther and faster through air travel, and usually with a virus that we've never heard of or have had no trouble with before. It is just eerie to see what's happening with SARS. In my opinion, which is not an expert opinion but more a somewhat informed opinion, the WHO and CDC are doing all the right things. I've been impressed by the actions they are taking to prevent spread of the illness. I've been dismayed by China's reaction, covering it up and only now coming clean about numbers of cases. I know that Canada is upset that WHO put out a travel advisory saying not to travel to Toronto, but I think they are doing the right thing. In a situation like this, what stops it from being a disaster is taking quick decisive action, limiting the spread of the disease. To err and not fully implement prevention policies is to set us up for more problems down the road.

Why are viruses the most scary thing? Because antibiotics won't cure the diseases they cause, unlike bacterial infections. We have no cure for SARS; all that can be done is to treat the symptoms. And prevent spread of the virus. And hope that's enough to keep us from appearing to mimic the plot line of a diaster novel.

Today's article in the NY Times about 12 Green Berets keeping the peace and rebuilding a town's infrastructure is another fascinating look at how our armed forces are expanding their skill sets to include the rebuilding of a country. "We train to take down governments, but I've never been schooled in building one back up," the captain who leads the team said. "This is new territory."

What is happening in Iraq these days is nothing short of historical. I have no doubt that our military is finding itself using expertise they never knew they had - which made me think, just how do they know what to do? Did we give them all classes in rebuilding a country? Are they all well-schooled in civil affairs? Not officially, but in truth, they have lived their lives in America which is one of the best training grounds they could have had for what they face now. Growing up and living in a democracy like America provides our troops with the background they need. Will they make mistakes? Sure. But do they understand the importance of freedom and democracy? Do they "get" why people protesting in Iraq is a good thing? Absolutely.

America is an idea, a living laboratory of the democratic experiment. Freedom of speech, religion, press, these are things that we take for granted after 200 years. These ideas are new to Iraq after 30 years of a brutal dictatorship. The NY Times article discusses how the Iraqis in this town appear to trust only the soldiers as "honest brokers" and seem reluctant to take up rebuilding efforts on their own. This seems to me like a psychological/cultural backlash from so many years of oppression. A backlash from years of trusting no one, of fearing betrayal from even family members.

In other words, this rebuilding effort is going to take time and patience. A democratic Iraq, a free Iraq, is an idea, an experiment that has only just begun.

Today I found an article at the Washingtonpost.com about the new "mayors" of Baghdad, the Marines who have been assigned sections of the city to police and try to restore order and services. Its a fascinating story, although I can't imagine some of these young men, who don't have the training for this assignment, handling such responsibility. Still, some kind of solution is required to stop looting, get the water and power back on, and build a bridge between Iraqi civilians and the US military. Reading the article I really felt for these young Marines, thrust into such a challenging role. Good luck to them!

Well, I've been pretty much glued to the TV screen since the war began. That doesn't mean I've sat here like a zombie watching it - no way! This news coverage has made me interact with my television more than any event in my history. Interact? Yes, talking back to news anchors who sometimes make me crazy with the idiocy of questions they have asked to embedded reporters. Yelling at news reporters who go on and on with huge lead-ins setting up an embed report. Hello guys - everybody knows by now where everyone is, you don't have to do these super-long setups.

It has been pretty funny sometimes to watch the smooth patter of the anchors and reporters who are stateside being thrown off by all the foibles of live war reporting. How many times have we seen an anchor clearly flustered by lots of breaking news at once, as they interview one person and are clearly hearing in their earpiece more news? Or as they juggle the new technology that allows us to see and hear 3 or 4 reporters at once in their own little boxes on the screen. Some of them handle it well, others (like Aaron Brown at CNN) seem so fascinated by the technology that it takes them a while to stop talking about how amazing all this is and get to the point of the story. I end up appreciating Shepard Smith at FoxNews because he treats the idea of talking live to a reporter in the middle of the battle like he is just having a regular conversation over the phone - even though sometimes that means he steps all over the reporters in the field due to the time lag. But he stays relaxed, which is helpful to the viewer.

Some nights I have stayed up and watched riveting coverage late at night Eastern Standard Time, because so much happens live at that time since it is daylight then in Iraq. Last night was an example. I've never seen anything like what CNN carried last night with Brent Sadler venturing into Tikrit without any military support. It was a three-hour journey that I became caught up in, as we watched this intrepid reporter advance through two eerily empty military compounds, and eventually into the city itself, proclaiming at one point that it looked like Tikrit had fallen without a shot being fired...discovering shortly thereafter that he was under fire. I have to hand it to the guy - he was incredibly cool while being shot at by AK47s. It had been so weird watching him up to that point. Part of the time I was talking to the TV saying, "Get out of there Brent!" and "You're going to get yourself killed!" or "Are you crazy? Don't get out of the car!" and other times just watching with bated breath as at any minute I expected he would run into trouble. I was impressed by Anderson Smith, the CNN anchor, who let Brent talk and didn't interrupt this totally surreal travelogue. Anderson always does a great job with breaking news. Every time the camera had a slight glitch and we lost Brent for a moment was terrifying. Like a really scary exciting movie - but it was real. Reality TV up close and personal and actually real. Then when we heard the gunfire and Brent was saying "Under attack! We are under attack," and we heard him saying, "Anderson, are you still with us?" - well I could feel how much he needed to know that Anderson was there, that these phenomenal pictures and words were getting out to all of us, never knowing if he would even survive this. And when they finally escaped, blowing through a checkpoint while taking machine gun fire, and later discovering they were being followed and then were shot at again by pistols, I have to say I was as relieved to see them get away as if I knew these guys personally.

Sometimes I just have had to laugh out loud at the anchors and reporters getting flustered by the pace of this war, when their reading of the news is interrupted by live reports, when they suddenly lose contact with a reporter in the field. How many times have we heard, "Oops, we just lost Rick," or "We seem to have lost Ryan Chilcote," or my favorite - when the anchor has done this lead-in that seems to last forever, and they then ask the embed reporter to go ahead, only to discover that the phone connection was lost while they were blathering on!

There are nights when the speed of reports coming in is astounding. One of the best anchors at juggling all of it is Bianca Solerzano at MSNBC. She is able to keep cool and calm as interruptions happen and things change every minute. She doesn't have that strident voice so many of the anchors have, which drives me crazy by the way - we don't need them talking to us like they are announcing a horse race! Bianca doesn't do that. Sometimes she gets a bit of a monotone going, but never anything like Wolf Blitzer over at CNN. Mostly though, the way she presents all the news helps me to take it all in.

I've asked myself, why do I watch so much of the coverage? One answer is that we are seeing history being made. What is happening is important. Important now and important for the future. To not watch, to not try and get some understanding of it, seems strange. I watch the three main cable news channels, CNN, MSNBC, and FoxNews not just because it helps to be able to turn the channel when one of the anchors irritates the heck out of me, but also because I want to get different perspectives. In something so huge as a war, you need lots of sources of information to have any idea of the scope of it all. I also read online news reports by different news agencies in an attempt to get more of the big picture. I heard someone talking today on tv about how the U.S. was trying to control, take over, or secure an entire country. I'd never really thought about it that way. As we see pictures coming from Baghdad, or Mosul, or Nasariyah, or Basra, we see a very small slice of each city. But its not just about securing a bridge here or there, or turning on the water in another place, or stopping looting in this or that town. Its a whole country! This is not just a blip on the radar screen, this thing is massive. The fact that it has happened so fast is incredible. As citizens of a country that has gone to war, I feel that its my duty to try and understand as much as possible, to be aware of what is happening. If nothing else, just to do my part as a civilian while our military does so much more.

Yes, there have been light moments on the TV screen. There have been times to laugh, but also times to cry at what we have seen and heard. There have been episodes of fear and trepidation, intervals of anger, and lots of hours of feeling just so proud of our young men and women out there doing their jobs. War is not something that can be prettied up for TV news coverage. War is messy and big and harsh. If we don't watch, we don't have even a small concept of what going to war means. Yes, we have the best military force in the world, and yes, we have the best technology - both on the military side and on the journalistic side. But people, our friends and family and neighbors, still die, still get hurt. Iraqi civilians still die, still get hurt. Superior technology can help reduce some of the casualties, but it cannot eliminate them. To prevent war I think it is possible that we need to know what war really is, what it looks like, what it does. And the recent news coverage, flawed as it can be at times, has shown me a small piece of the reality of war.