Topeka ? Sgt. 1st Class Matt Fearing has dealt with hormone-addled junior high students. And he has dealt with pushy reporters.

His approach to both, the Lawrence man says, is about the same.

“When you show respect, you get respect,” said Fearing, usually an assistant principal at Southwest Junior High. “That’s not just military. That’s my philosophy in school.”

Fearing had a chance to put philosophy into action Thursday. His Kansas National Guard unit, which deploys to Afghanistan next month, spent the morning practicing how to deal with the media under combat situations.

The combat was fake. The reporters, from a half-dozen Kansas news organizations, were real. And real pushy.

“Don’t touch my camera!” a television cameraman yelled at one soldier who was trying to shepherd reporters away from a simulated attack scene. “Touch it again and I’ll talk to somebody!”

During another exercise, the pack of screaming reporters surged forward against a line of soldiers, trying to get a glimpse of a simulated weapons cache.

“Remember,” one soldier warned, a smile on his face, “I have an M-16. And it’s cocked.” No guns were present during the exercise.

‘Ratchet it up’

As journalists hound army reserve personnel in a mock demonstration of a news conference, Army Reservist Matthew Fearing, Lawrence, hides his face in his hand. Fearing, an assistant principal at Southwest Junior High, is leaving for duty as a public relations officer in Afghanistan. Reserves -- with the media in tow -- prepared for duty Thursday in Topeka.

Joy Moser, a spokeswoman for the Kansas National Guard, encouraged reporters to be as nasty as possible without being physically combative.

“That was good,” she said after one exercise. “Now ratchet it up a notch.”

Associated Press reporter John Hanna let out his inner drama queen, whipping out a cell phone at one point to make a fake call to his superiors.

“Obviously they don’t want us to see something!” he yelled into the phone.

Even though the situation was fake, the soldiers’ politeness seemed strained at times. Experienced soldiers said the media usually wasn’t so aggressive in real-life situations.

“I don’t think so,” Col. Walt Frederick said. “You guys are like all-star wrestlers.”

Fearing, an 18-year military veteran, agreed.

Listen to the training

“I’ve never seen them that pushy,” he said. “But it’s better to train for a worst-case scenario and then have to deal with something less.”

The 105th Mobile Public Affairs Detachment, which is based in Topeka and linked with a detachment in Oklahoma City, has a mission to provide news coverage, media escort and related duties. The 20-person unit will be in Afghanistan about a year.

‘We need to tell the story’

It might seem strange to drag Guard soldiers away from their homes and jobs and around the world to do public relations work, but Moser said the unit’s mission was important.

“We need to record what’s going on … we need to tell the story,” she said. “Unless we have a unit that helps tell the story, no one will know.”

Critics say ongoing military and rebuilding operations in Afghanistan have been largely ignored by the media in the wake of the American invasion of Iraq.

“I’m expecting to keep busy, but there will be ebb and flow,” said Fearing, whose specialty is broadcasting. “There’s an election (for president, in June). There will be lots of media then.”

Fearing, 44, was in the U.S. Army’s military police force for 6 1/2 years. He was stationed in Virginia, California and Panama.

He served one year in the Virginia Army National Guard and has been with the Kansas Guard for more than a decade. In Kansas, he made the transition from military police to public affairs. He leaves a wife and 17-year-old son behind in Lawrence.

“This will be my first time in a combat zone,” Fearing said. “Whatever comes up, I’m not looking for combat. But I know I’ve been trained well for whatever comes up.”