Turn Back Before Baghdad travels back in time to a quarter century ago to the morning of January 12, 1991. There was a scramble by the news outlets to reach their Eastern Saudi Arabia stationed reporters, because it happened, war was inevitably coming, and Saddam Hussein was refusing to surrender his claim on the oil province of Kuwait.
Hussein was given an ultimatum to peacefully withdraw troops from Kuwait by the fifteenth of January before the United States and our allies would be forced to take lethal action. By the twelfth, it seemed very unlikely, which defied the request by the United Nations Security Council. As a result, Operation Desert Shield became Operation Desert Storm, in an attempt to bring a quick end to the Persian Gulf War and it just so happened to trigger the first ever media pools dispatched to cover the events.
Including commentary from the late Laurence Jolidon, Turn Back Before Baghdad is a collection of firsthand dispatches from American and British correspondents in the thick of the action. Through these accounts, the historical events are brought into vivid focus. Jolidan’s work encapsulates an important moment in history that will be studied by historians examining the role of media in wartime and relations between the military and civilian reports.
Jolidan sadly passed away in August of 2002 at the age of 64 while serving as a media spokesperson for the NATO peacekeeping force. His legacy as an exceptional war reporter continues to influence the world of journalism.
with the U.S. Army advisory group in Vietnam and later joined the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve. Within his extensive journalism career, he worked for the Dallas Times-Herald, Texas Observer, Detroit Free Press, and St. Petersburg Times. Then he was employed at USA Today as an editor and reporter, where he covered the Persian Gulf Wars and Somalia. He is also known for his previous book, Last Seen Alive: The Search for Missing POWs from the Korean War, published in 1995.
The press is honored to announce the release of Turn Back Before Baghdad this April, a true and commemorative account of Operation Desert Storm.