From the Publisher

By Louis A. Weil III

Anyone with friends or relatives serving in the gulf anxiously awaits word of how they are holding up in the desert under wartime conditions. Journalists are no exception. Letters home are treasured because they often contain the most candid pictures of life in the field. At TIME we have received several heartfelt missives from our colleagues stationed in the gulf, including correspondent Dick Thompson and photographer Christopher Morris. Both men are working in "pools," small groups of journalists who travel with and report on combat units operating near the Saudi borders with Kuwait and Iraq.

Thompson, who in peacetime covers the science and technology beat in Washington, found his first night with the Army trying. "We were assigned an unheated tent that sleeps about 20," he wrote. "I found a cot, unrolled my sleeping bag, took off my shoes and shivered for about five hours. You can't believe how cold it gets here." But the desert nights also bring unexpected pleasures. "The stars here are amazing," he wrote. "They seem close enough to touch, and there are zillions of them."

Morris, living with a 1st Marine Division unit, has spent his evenings for the past six weeks sleeping beneath camouflage netting in a hole in the sand. Notes printed under his captions are the only way the experienced combat photographer can communicate with us. One note read, "Thanks for the candy bars. The unit loved them. Could you send some cocoa and a hot shower, please?"

Now that a ground war has begun, everybody will miss the tedium of endless nights under flimsy tents. Thompson thought about that after he drove through a military checkpoint manned by a young British soldier. The soldier's expression, menacing at first, gave way to a huge smile when he recognized a Phil Collins song playing on Thompson's tape deck. "There was this important, shared touch of home that's rare here," Thompson wrote. "I drove away and started crying. I thought, this kid, who should be home raising hell with his friends, could soon be in the middle of great violence."