The photo department stood by my work, but ultimately the editor in chief had final say. I sat heartbroken in my dismal room at the Acropole Hotel in Khartoum, steeling myself for yet another war, feeling utterly defeated. Kathy, the director of photography and one of the most important women in the business, had by then become a close friend and mentor. By 2008 I had worked on probably five cover stories and several smaller stories with her, and we had developed a deep professional trust in each other. There is a bond between some photographers and their editors, in part because their relationships are so symbiotic. Photographers depend on editors to sponsor and publish their images; editors rely on those images to create powerful visual stories. Our success depended on each other. I seldom faced issues of censorship or questions about the authenticity of my photographs, but when these issues arose, I relied on the photo editor to go to bat for me. With Kathy’s permission and Elizabeth’s edits, I wrote the following e-mail to the editor in chief—something that many would view as overstepping my role as a freelance photographer:
As journalists, we risked our lives for two months, getting shot at and ambushed, walking through the mountains at 6,000 feet day after day in order to bring you first hand facts from the field. We do this only because we believe the New York Times will stand behind the material we get and fight to get it published. Not pull pictures at the last minute because of public relations guys with the US military saying they can’t confirm a victim of collateral damage was in the suspected compound. Dan [Captain Kearney] has all along been saying the boy was probably injured nearby by the shrapnel. The military PR on the other hand does not want a picture of a little boy covered in shrapnel wounds most probably from a bomb they were responsible for dropping printed in the NYT. I am so shocked and dismayed at how the word of the US military has more weight than my own, when they are so blatantly worried about salvaging their reputation with these emails, and I am presenting the facts to you to bring to the public. We were in the TOC when they dropped the bomb, and in the medical tent when the Afghan elders brought the boy in the next morning and claimed he was in the compound. Simple. This is war. There is ambiguity.
. . . After all I have done to get these images of war, up close, personal, soldiers and civilians, please stick your neck out in the most minimal way. To hear that you don’t want to “risk further scrutiny” after I risked my life for two months is the most offensive thing I have ever heard. We represent the New York Times. We have a responsibility to put out material we get, not cower and question ourselves and worry about military scrutiny.
. . . We owe it to the Afghans, the soldiers, everyone we spent time with and promised to show the TRUTH. Our readers deserve to see what’s happening over there.
The magazine ended up running a small slideshow of my images with the online piece. The photograph of Khalid never saw the light of day.
CHAPTER 10
Driver Expire
The boat skimmed over the turquoise waters toward our Bahamas bungalow, tucked amid a palm grove abutting the sea. It was New Year’s Eve 2007, two months after I flew out of the Korengal Valley, and Paul had taken me on vacation, a rare week of indulgence. Our eco-friendly, whitewashed room’s French doors opened to a private Jacuzzi. The resort had provided us with our own golf cart with a quaint straw basket affixed to the front to accommodate our beach gear. The weather was slightly overcast and chilly, but we didn’t care. We spent our days going for runs along the shore and lying in bed. At night we lingered over long, calorie-laden meals: butter-drenched lobster, bottles of white wine, crème br?lée or chocolate cake.
It was hard to reconcile the Korengal Valley with a paradise like the Bahamas, but by then I had learned to accept these strange incongruities of life. I turned off the trauma and sadness of my work in order to enjoy my happiness with Paul. Walking between worlds is one of the great privileges of the foreign correspondent. I never forgot what I had witnessed, and I talked often of my experiences, but I didn’t let them overwhelm my personal life. There is a somewhat accurate cliché of the ever-haunted war correspondent who can’t escape the darkness of what he has seen and drowns himself in drugs or sex or more war because he can’t face the ordinary or leaves the profession because he is finally broken by it. I didn’t want to be that person.
On the morning of New Year’s Eve, Paul paced the room.
I asked him what was up. Did he want to tell me something? Was he cheating on me, like the others? It’s fine, I’m used to it, I explained, but I needed to know where I stood. Paul laughed. He began frantically packing our golf cart for a picnic, which seemed strange, given the foreboding clouds along the horizon. I lay on my back under the covers and pleaded with him to come to bed and take a nap with me.
“Let’s go for a walk on the beach,” he said.
“What? Now? Can’t we go later?” It was so delicious in bed on a chilly, gray day by the sea.
“No. Let’s go now.”
We got to the beach, and Paul hurriedly unpacked our golf cart and started walking toward the shore.
“Let’s just stay right here,” I said. “Why do we have to walk far?”
“Let’s keep walking.”
I grew anxious. Paul was never skittish. He was neurotic at work but relaxed on vacation. Now he was neurotic on vacation.
We made our way to a spot that looked like any other. He stopped and laid out the blanket. I plopped down on my stomach and propped my chin up on my palms. Paul sat down. And then kneeled, and then paused, and then told me to stand.