From the Publisher

By Louis A. Weil III

For photographer Dennis Brack, the second most remarkable aspect of taking pictures of U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia has been the 115 degrees heat. "I have sunburn on top of my sunburn," jokes Brack, who dutifully applies SPF 39 sun block every hour to little avail. "My warmest situation so far was taking pictures in the exhaust of an F-15 jet under the midday sun. It was so hot, the rubber grips around my lenses started to melt off." The heat and dust have already claimed one of Brack's cameras, and he is well into every piece of backup equipment he brought with him.

But the most remarkable aspect of Brack's assignment has been the Pentagon's request for his measurements. Reason: the Defense Department wants to make sure it has a safety suit in his size in case Iraq uses chemical weapons. "You can't keep worrying about it, but the possibility of a gas attack is always in the back of your mind," says Brack, who took this week's cover picture. The subject, however, rarely comes up in Brack's conversations with the soldiers; instead, the troops keep asking him what the people back home think about the crisis. "I'll bet I'm asked for the latest news at least 20 times a day," he says.

As one of only three still photographers in the Pentagon press pool, Brack has taken some of the most powerful photographs ever published of an army preparing for battle: a column of fresh-faced G.I.s striding purposefully into * the Saudi sands, a lone soldier trudging toward a tent sculpted to look like a sand dune and, in this week's issue, a muscular-looking F-15 Eagle fighter preparing for takeoff, fully armed and ready for business. Under the rules of the pool, all pictures taken by Brack must be shared with other U.S. newsmagazines and wire services; this explains why his work has appeared not only in TIME but also in Newsweek, U.S. News & World Report and dozens of newspapers around the country.

The pool was scheduled to be disbanded last Sunday, but Brack, who is based in Washington and has shot for TIME for 25 years, is remaining in Saudi Arabia to work exclusively for us. That's good news for you and me, but as for Brack . . . he smiles every time he thinks about the vacant house on the Delaware shore where he was planning to spend his summer vacation. "I wanted sun and sand," he says, shrugging. Surveying the endless Saudi desert, he adds, "I'll pretend it's a very wide beach."