The peace talks are collapsing and the violence still claims U.S. service members' lives, but it's been over a year since the Pentagon held a press briefing on America's longest war.
, an American diplomat and chief spokesman, would deliver the day's news filtered through the lens of the U.S. government. The room would be full of young, often skeptical journalists covering the Vietnam War. The reporters had a name for these daily military briefings: the Five O'Clock Follies.the briefings in an anecdote while covering the Kosovo Air Campaign in 1999:"There was the war the generals said they were fighting, complete with impressive body counts.
Desert Storm was no different—only the war and time had changed: the Four O'Clock Follies.
Some of the more seasoned reporters would ridicule the daily rundowns as government-issued propaganda while others saw the information as a critical baseline of information. Still, the briefings served both reporters and the public by establishing the official, on-the-record, narrative of what the Pentagon was doing on a day-to-day basis in the name of the people.
But in America's longest war—Afghanistan—the military's daily briefings have a name too: the Zero O'Clock Follies.
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