Guardian’s Q & A with Sebastian Junger
You’ve said that you won’t be returning to war reporting.
Seeing what Tim’s death did to me and my wife and others, a light bulb went on. I didn’t want to be the cause of that pain to the people I’m closest to. I’ve done this for 20 years and there is a point you come to where you’re repeating the same stunt. I’ll continue reporting from overseas but if I find myself getting shot at – this is how I explained it to my wife – I will consider it embarrassing and a personal failure in a similar way to as if I had a car accident.
What are you currently working on?
I’m working on a film about Tim and I’m starting a medical training program for freelance journalists, a three-day training course in battlefield medicine. It will be three times a year in New York, London and Beirut. We’re hoping to make the certification an industry norm in the next few years. Tim’s wound didn’t have to be mortal. He bled out but there are things you can do about that, but no one around him was equipped to do them and so he died.
Photo: Hetherington and Junger in Afghanistan, 2008. © Tim Hetherington
Powerful image.
A 16 year old German Nazi Soldier is terrified of the gun battle that was occurring at the time. The commanding officer is seen here yelling at the boy to get up and fight. If you look closely, the boy is so scared that he (and not to be funny or cruel) pissed on himself. 16 is a young age, but old enough to realize that war isn’t for the weak or for the tough. To be honest, war isn’t for anyone. Yet, we still have it.
I used to see things like this and react only as a person who hates war (even before I saw war for myself). I feel these things on a more profound level now—as a father. Heartbreaking and horrible.
This boy makes me think of Gunther, the young Nazi soldier in Elsa Morante’s incredible novel, History.
Spencer Ackerman has a gallery of the tattoos he spotted in Afghanistan up at Wired.
“In a large number of cases, we sent reporters over on what we called ‘participatory journalism’ assignments. We’d carry guns. If we were shot at, we shot back. We didn’t hide behind a log.”
From a fascinating and completely insane interview with the guy behind Soldier of Fortune magazine.
(Thanks, Bidoun!)
“‘Where is the Palestinian Mandela?’ pundits occasionally ask. But after these latest Israeli-Palestinian peace talks in Washington fail — as they inevitably will — the more pressing question may be: “Where is the Israeli de Klerk?” Will an Israeli leader emerge with the former South African president’s moral courage and foresight to dismantle a discriminatory regime and foster democracy based on equal rights?”
George Bisharat جورج بشارات (via qexwejbey)
That’s more unlikely than the success of these peace talks
(via picturethis-that)
From The Iraq War: A Historiography of Wikipedia Changelogs
…a twelve-volume set of all changes to the Wikipedia article on the Iraq War.
The twelve volumes cover a five year period from December 2004 to November 2009, a total of 12,000 changes and almost 7,000 pages.
(Source: cesarisrad)
