Jan’s ability to pull herself together and get on with her job with an energy more akin to what the public and WNN were accustomed to was her way of dealing with her own fears and apprehensions. Standing off on the sidelines, doing nothing as she waited for word about her son, would have been nerve wracking. In the field where people and events were in continuous motion and time was a precious commodity, journalists could forget their fears, their apprehensions, and even their own identities as they became a part of the story that they were covering. For Jan, her ability to lose herself was a blessing.

Every escape from one’s personal reality does have its price. This was especially true in a situation like this one, where the people and events were hitting, quite literally, close to home.

Besides the story concerning the mobilization of the National Guard and all state emergency agencies, Jan was working on another piece that was far more disturbing. Though not flaunted in the same manner by public affairs officers at either Guard headquarters or the State building, the appearance and incorporation of irregular military formations into the state’s defensive force was gaining momentum. Journalists who lacked the intimate familiarity with the American military failed to pick up on this. At first even Jan didn’t see it. But slowly, almost imperceptibly, she began to take note of men wandering about in nonregulation camouflage uniforms, toting weapons that were not standard issue. In the end it was the beards and bellies hanging over some of the belts that finally clued Jan as to who these odd apparitions were. “My God,” she gasped when the realization finally hit. “The militias are here.”

Unlike the other pieces she had done so far in Idaho, shooting this story proved to be difficult and to Jan’s cameraman a bit scary. Unlike the Guardsmen, who were now well represented by articulate spokespeople, the militiamen had no central figures to speak for them. Long conditioned by harsh experiences with the media, the militiamen recoiled from the camera when Jan tried the direct approach. “Unless you want that camera shoved down your throat,” one belligerent militiaman warned Jan’s cameraman, “you’d best take that toy of yours somewhere else.”