National Public Radio foreign correspondent Anne Garrels allowed for a moment of levity during her Monday lecture on covering the war in Iraq, telling the audience of about 60 at the McCormick Tribune Center the story of the “most unlikely of partnerships” between NPR and FOX News.

Garrels, who spoke as part of the Crain Lecture Series, said NPR had been struggling with power; they received electricity from Baghdad’s grid for only two hours a day.

Someone from FOX News offered to share the station’s generator with NPR, which Garrels said it initially rejected.

“My boss said, ‘Not on your Nelly,’ ” Garrels said. “But no FOX, no power and eventually saner minds prevailed. People do help each other out in Baghdad a lot.”

It was one of the lighter moments in Garrels’ hourlong Q-and-A session. The correspondent, one of 16 journalists who stayed in Baghdad during the initial days of the U.S.’s “shock and awe” campaign, offered a sober assessment of the current situation in the country.

“(The early days of the war) seem like child’s play compared to the horrors we’ve seen since,” Garrels said.

Garrels shared many of her experiences in Iraq, including seeing a family shot and killed by Blackwater Worldwide security forces after the family’s car failed to yield to a State Department public relations official.

Many people in Iraq who witness such events don’t realize the emotional toll to come, she said.

“The reaction comes later – suddenly you don’t handle things the same way,” she said. “In my case, I started drinking too much. I came home, and I couldn’t deal with it.”

Still, Garrels said she believes it is important to report from Iraq – she’s visited the country several times