Jay and I were driven off in a friend’s car, our heads and arms popping out of the sunroof as we waved to the crowd.
We took a two-week honeymoon in Italy, my first time. I ate it up, literally, developing a lifelong obsession with prosciutto and melon, which somehow always tastes better at an outdoor café at dusk, overlooking a medieval square dotted with old ladies in shawls and nuzzling lovers. Rome was magical: St. Peter’s Basilica, the Colosseum, the Vespas darting down the narrow cobblestone streets…at CNN I’d met the fabled Sammy Cahn, who’d written the lyrics to “Three Coins in the Fountain,” so of course as soon as we got to the Trevi Fountain, I serenaded Jay while throwing spare lire over my shoulder.
We ended up speed-dating the Sistine Chapel the next morning before heading off to Pompeii, Florence, Siena, and the quaint town of Ravello on the Amalfi Coast, where we stayed at a palazzo Jay’s parents had discovered. We loved eating on the balcony, inhaling the scent of the lush lavender fields below. I have never had so much sex in my life, before or since, but that’s what honeymoons are for, right?
Along the way we made a detour to Monte Cassino, where Jay’s father had fought during World War II. He had told us stories of lying in dank trenches for days during a horribly bloody, drawn-out battle; more than 200 civilians seeking shelter in the 16th-century abbey were killed in a bombing raid after British intelligence wrongly determined that German soldiers were camped there. History, a family connection, an epic battle. For Jay, Monte Cassino was the trifecta.
Between the romantic dinners and sightseeing, I was determined to be ready for my new job at the Pentagon, so along with sundresses and comfortable walking shoes, I had packed homework: thick military manuals that would help me learn a new language of jargon and acronyms like IBS—not irritable bowel syndrome but inflatable boat, small. FAN—feet, ass, and nuts, to describe the smell of the barracks （who knew?）。 And, of course, snafu, which most civilians don’t realize stands for situation normal all fucked up. And I steeped myself in core military values about never making excuses or leaving a man behind; about the bedrock significance of esprit de corps and the Marine Corps motto Semper Fidelis （“always faithful”）。
And I drilled down on weapons of war so I could tell an M1 tank from an M1A1, a Chinook helicopter from an Apache, an F-16 from an F/A-18 by the time we got home. At flight school, Jay had learned how to land an A-6 on an aircraft carrier （his description of barely hooking it was so harrowing, I think he still had PTSD）， so he found my new obsession amusing. Then slightly annoying. Whizzing down the Autostrade as I bore into the page describing gun turrets on destroyers, he glanced down at my homework and said, “This isn’t exactly the kind of hardware I was hoping you’d be focused on.”
15
The E-Ring
JUST TURNING IN TO the parking lot of the Pentagon, the world’s biggest office building, was daunting. I’d passed it countless times on my way to National Airport; actually working there was a different matter altogether. Checking in at security and getting my laminated credentials made me feel so…official as I passed men and women walking briskly in uniform.
I loved working with Fred Francis, NBC’s senior Pentagon correspondent. Swarthy and raspy-voiced, with an easy smile, he had also toiled in local news in Miami. Fred was a fixture at the Pentagon and a damn good reporter. The walls of our cubby, right next to CBS veteran David Martin’s, were lined with soundproofing gray foam for when we tracked our stories. We’d grab one of the big mics on our desk and read a script while editors at the NBC mothership put the piece together.
“Hey, kid!” Fred would say when I walked in, twirling around in his chair to take a look at me. There was a ubiquitous smoky haze in the cubicle—he puffed Kools nonstop. At times it was so unbearable, my baffling default was to revive a habit I had occasionally indulged in at UVA fraternity parties: I’d grab one of his Kools and puff right along with him. If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em, my idiotic thinking went.
Naomi Spinrad was Fred’s longtime producer. She clearly disliked me and my eager-beaver shtick. She definitely did not think I was up to snuff.
The place was teeming with testosterone—at the time, you could count the female Pentagon correspondents on half a hand. And of course, the officials were almost exclusively stone-faced males, starting with Dick Cheney, the secretary of defense, and Colin Powell, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. In that world, a cute girl in a short skirt was a novelty. Sometimes David Martin would walk by as some public affairs guy was hovering around our cubicle and just shake his head. I think it drove him a little crazy that I was making inroads so quickly.