Monday, November 08, 2004

A wartime love story

The NYT wedding section this week includes the marriage of a producer for CNN's Wolf Blitzer who was sent to cover the war in Iraq, and the lead special operations for the First Marine Expeditionary Force:
"It was in a combat zone, and I saw this young woman who was dirty and tired, dressed in a T-shirt and a flak jacket and some khaki pants, and she was maintaining her bearing and presence of mind," recalled this 39-year-old marine, who grew up on Long Island and whose career included a tour in the first Gulf War and at Goldman Sachs, the investment bank. "There was something about her that I was attracted to, this very confident person."
Ms. Roth is as "tough as an old boot," said Lucy Spiegel, a CNN colleague. "She's not a gushy, gushy girl."
Ms. Roth, 38, recalled sitting next to the major in the Humvee on the long ride toward Baghdad, chatting about their similar interests in world affairs and travel. (Sensing a possible wartime love connection, one of her cameramen did a little reconnaissance work on him and passed her a note that read, "Single, Harvard, Goldman Sachs.")
Sixty miles outside the capital, the producer and the major exchanged business cards and said goodbye. At that point, Ms. Roth said, she thought "that was it." But she looked up from her desk at the Palestine Hotel in Baghdad a few days later, and there he was: dirty, loaded with weapons, and grinning because he had found her.
Mr. Blitzer said: "The first time she called me from Baghdad, she said, `Wolf, I've met the man I'm going to marry.' And I said, `He's Jewish? In Baghdad?' You can't make this stuff up."
Full report here.

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