If the title sounds somewhat enigmatic, bear with me. It should soon become obvious that I am not talking about that much-dreaded U.S. “military invasion” of Haiti.
While deployed overseas during my military days, sometimes the only newspaper in English, the only source of news from back home, was the venerable Stars and Stripes newspaper.
I say venerable with good reason, for Stars and Stripes has been providing service men and women—wherever they may be, including while in combat operations—with a much-needed sense of “home” since World War II. Today, Stars and Stripes readers number well over 350,000.
This daily newspaper, published for the U.S. military, Department of Defense civilians, contractors, and their families world-wide, must overcome some challenging “delivery” problems.
To provide reliable publication and delivery to the troops, wherever they may be, Stars and Stripes maintains news bureaus in Europe, Pacific and the Middle East and is printed in locations near where our troops are deployed abroad.
But getting the newspaper to our troops deployed in combat is no cake walk.
Nearly 70,000 copies of Stars and Stripes are currently distributed each day to troops downrange in the Middle East, carried along front-line routes that are sometimes so dangerous that contract workers have been killed trying to deliver the paper.
In a New York Times article, Terry Leonard, editorial director of Stars and Stripes, tells of a driver hiding papers under produce to get past a Taliban checkpoint in Afghanistan. “We have some of the most dangerous paper routes in the world,” Mr. Leonard said.
As I have written, the U.S. military started deploying thousands of troops to Haiti immediately after the earthquake struck. Today, nearly 20,000 U.S. troops are in or around Haiti performing recovery and humanitarian work.
As they always do, the Stars and Stripes publishers decided to follow the troops wherever they may go, including Haiti.
This proved to be easier said than done.
According to the Times:
The logistics of distributing any newspaper are daunting, but imagine not knowing, even a few days in advance, where the paper will be printed, who will deliver it, where the readers will be or how much danger they will be in.
That is what Stars and Stripes faces in a new military deployment, and helps explain why the first copies did not reach Haiti until Saturday, 11 days after American troops began to arrive there.
But in advance of war, there is usually time to make some arrangements, [Terry Leonard] said, while in a crisis like the Haiti earthquake, “part of what complicates this is there’s no advanced planning.”
There were some problems—you can read about them here and here—but thanks to the perseverance and ingenuity of Stars and Stripes personnel, our troops are now receiving Stars and Stripes in Haiti.
According to the Times, “The delivery will be sparse at first, with 800 to 1,000 copies a day making the trip, for about 12,000 troops in Haiti” But, according to U.S. Air Force Lt. Col. Autum Whalen, “we will be looking to increase that as the logistics even out.”
Now you know how (the) Stars and Stripes finally got to Haiti, one of the “Most Dangerous Paper Routes in the World.”
Image: Courtesy Stars and Stripes/New York Times
The author is a retired U.S. Air Force officer and a writer.