Road Tour Journal, Day Three
This is CBS News correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi's Web-exclusive daily road report.
Day three of our tour and we are now in Birmingham, Alabama. We almost didn't all make it here. Let me explain.
Yesterday, we were in Ft. Benning, Georgia doing a story about children there whose parents were serving in Iraq. We were editing our story for the evening news in a classroom at an Elementary School on Ft. Benning. (In case you didn't know, people who works in television news are a little like carnival people. They will lay down "roots" anywhere.)
As our deadline approached, it became clear that we would need some video we didn't have -- specifically some scenic pictures of the base.
Photographer Mark LaGanga jumped in his truck with producer Mike Solmsen to get the shots. I wasn't there but as I understand it, Mark was hanging out of the window of the truck to get some rolling video along a street.
Apparently, on a military base that's not a great idea. Within a few minutes, the Military Police were questioning our crew and the word "detained" may or may not have been thrown around.
Ultimately, the public affairs officer assigned to us -- saved them, the video Mark shot and ultimately, our story. We are all thankful. Now, I'm just trying to get my hands on Mark and Mike's mug-shots. (Only kidding. Sort of.)
As for today's story in Birmingham, we found something you would never expect to see in the South -- people protesting the war. And Susan Mims, one woman we visited with, is the last person you would expect to be protesting -- she's a former Navy recruiter. Susan says the anti-war movement in Birmingham is small, but growing. And as we saw, it has a lot of growing to do. We caught up with Susan at an anti-war protest that had all of 15 people attending.
She says she sees a lot of apathy out here. It disappoints her. But she says she considers it her patriotic duty to speak her mind.