Warrior Pose (3 page)

His quivering body is bright red, covered with third-degree burns. Large patches of skin have peeled away from his torso, which is now covered with open sores. He is lying on his side in partial fetal position on top of a thin mattress on a rusty metal bed. Bloodstained gauze is wrapped around his ribs, both arms, and his left thigh. It hurts just to look at him, and I can't begin to imagine his pain.

The rest of Mahmoud's burned body, too tender and wounded to touch, is exposed to the dank air of the refugee hospital. It's close to 100 degrees outside, as the midday sun bakes the arid ground on the desolate border of Pakistan and Afghanistan. The hospital has no ventilation or cooling system, so the heat is stifling, the air almost too thick to breathe, and it smells like a butcher shop filled with spoiling meat.

“How did this happen to you?” I ask Mahmoud through my interpreter. He can barely whisper his response, and his body seems to quiver even more as he recalls what happened.

“I was just playing outdoors, all by myself,” he says as his eyes close tightly, fighting back tears. “Then the jets came and everything exploded, and I was on fire.”

As I stare into Mahmoud's gentle face, I can hear my deep breath and feel the pounding of my heart. Every cell in my body is trembling with compassion, disbelief, and a sense of outrage that such a thing could happen. What I feel is not a new emotion, but a reignited one. A righteous anger at the injustices in the world has smoldered within me since I was a child, like Mahmoud. It began as I became aware of the violence and discrimination in my own country during the Civil Rights Movement. Then, as I became a teenager, the Vietnam War turned me into an advocate for peace and justice. This indignation continued with me into adulthood, motivating me. This is why I'm a journalist. Making the public aware of suffering and inequity in the world is my passion. It defines what I do, and who I am.

Mahmoud was simply being a little boy, playing in his remote village high in the mountains of Afghanistan, when Soviet MiGs suddenly roared overhead and began dropping bombs. His horrific wounds are from napalm, a jellied gasoline designed to stick to its victims and burn them to death. As he was running down the rocky clay street trying to escape the attack, the gooey fire stuck to his body and consumed him. Dozens of people in his village were killed, including Mahmoud's parents. Despite his scorched flesh and terrible pain, he managed to walk through the mountain wilderness for three weeks, cross the border into neighboring Pakistan, and find this refugee hospital just in time, before his wounds became so infected that any chance of survival would have been lost.

On a bed next to Mahmoud is a boy of similar age from a different village. His right leg has been blown off by a land mine. In the far corner, behind a cloth curtain for privacy, is a teenage girl from a region farther north. Her swollen, lacerated face is peppered with tiny, razor-sharp pieces of metal from the shrapnel bomb that killed most of her family. She's been blinded in one eye. She stares at the floor with the good eye, an empty gaze of hopelessness.

This is happening throughout Afghanistan as the Soviets attack villages and drive the people out so that the local freedom fighters
have no basis of support. Every bed in the refugee hospital is filled with victims of all ages. Some are infants. Others are more than eighty years old. All have ghastly wounds. Many barely cling to life. The medical staff is in a perpetual state of overwhelm, and more victims are carried in every day.

I know we have done things like this to one another throughout all time. Knowing it is one thing. Witnessing it is something else. It touches you in places you never knew existed. Gazing at Mahmoud, I can't help but believe that if I devote my life to telling the world about such atrocities we might wake up one day and stop the killing. I realize this is utterly naïve, but Mahmoud's eyes argue otherwise. “You must tell the world,” he seems to be saying with his gaze. “You must.”

“Yes, I'll do it,” I say aloud as my cameraman finishes filming. It's impossible for me to consider otherwise. I feel this at the very core of who I am. And even though Mahmoud speaks no English, his soft smile tells me he understands that I've heard his message.

One Month Earlier

WBZ-TV is the NBC affiliate in Boston. I'm the new reporter here, hired just two months ago and bent on making my mark. This morning, as I sit at my desk in the newsroom leafing through
The Boston Globe
, a photo jumps out at me. It shows a young girl with a white cloth wrapped over her thick black hair. Her dark, haunting eyes are staring straight into my Soul. There is no story, just a caption below the picture saying, “Free Afghanistan Alliance.” That's it. No details, no phone number, no way to contact the organization.

It's 1986, and the war in Afghanistan has been major news ever since the Soviets invaded seven years earlier, and I think this might be a “local hook,” a Boston connection to an international event.

Nobody in the newsroom has ever heard of the Free Afghanistan Alliance. The phone company doesn't have a listing. It makes me all the
more determined to contact them. I finally get hold of someone in
The Globe
advertising department and I beg, cajole, and schmooze them for all I'm worth. It works. They break the rules and give me the name of the person who bought the ad. His name is Charles Brockunier. He owns a Persian rug store just across the Charles River in Cambridge. I ring him immediately, telling him I'm a reporter and that his ad caught my eye. He gives me an overview of his mission to help the Afghan people by smuggling badly needed medical supplies into the country. As we speak, it's clear that he's brilliant but also eccentric, totally locked into his mission. I'm completely intrigued now and know I must meet him. I get his address, jump up, and tell the assignment editor I'm off to investigate a lead on a possible story.

Brockunier's shop is hard to find, tucked away on a side street near Harvard Square. The air inside smells ancient, and with so many dusty, antique carpets piled everywhere there's barely room to pass through. The place is empty, and I have to call out several times before Brockunier appears from behind a stack of rugs. The founder of the Free Afghanistan Alliance is tall and lanky, clad in worn, wrinkled khaki trousers, a drab, collarless Nehru shirt, and a rugged vest that looks and smells like it was made from the wool of a wild goat. He is sporting a matching brimless, woolen hat like the ones I've seen Afghan freedom fighters wearing in network news reports. He has a heavy, poorly trimmed reddish beard, ruddy complexion, and glasses so thick his eyes look like they might jump out of their sockets.

Brockunier insists that we sit down, cross-legged, on a stack of elaborately patterned burgundy, gold, and earthy brown Persian rugs to sip Afghan tea. I've always been stiff. Sitting like this is a pain. It makes me impatient. It's not even that cold outside, so I don't feel like drinking hot tea. I just want to pepper Brockunier with questions and get a full understanding of what he's up to. But this is his world and he's clearly not going to be rushed.

As he settles in with his tea, Brockunier tells me he is a native of Cambridge, went to Harvard but never finished a degree, and has spent years traveling to Afghanistan to buy rugs for his shop. He's in love with the Afghan people, a self-taught expert on their culture and
history, and fluent in their languages of Pashto and Dari, along with being conversant in several other languages of the region. When I ask for an example of a few dialects, he rattles off sentences with ease. I can't understand a word, but I can tell he isn't faking it.

“I had to flee Kabul in 1979 when the Soviet tanks rolled in,” he explains in a deep, scratchy voice. “Otherwise, I'm sure they would have arrested me, tortured me, accused me of being a spy, and locked me away in prison.” Back home in Cambridge, Brockunier founded the Free Afghanistan Alliance and dedicated himself to raising money to support the Afghan freedom fighters, called mujahideen. These are the men, and often boys, who are fighting the Soviet occupation of their country. Most are rugged, rural villagers—farmers and tradesmen—who stage daring attacks on Soviet positions, then slip back into hidden camps in the mountains. They are outnumbered and vastly outgunned but are holding their own against all odds.

“I smuggle the medical supplies across the border of Pakistan and into mujahideen camps,” he tells me, his voice monotone. Matter of fact. “I have to go through the tribal territories. It's lawless. Everyone is armed. You have to be careful.”

I always try to follow my instincts, and they tell me that I can trust this man. He's experienced, compassionate, and dedicated to his cause. And I really want this story. When he tells me he's about to leave on another trip to a mujahideen hideaway in the Afghan mountains, I know that somehow, some way, I'm going with him.

“Can you get me and my cameraman in with you?” I ask him point blank. “We can tell your story. More people will know about your work. You'll probably get more donations.” Brockunier's bulging eyes get even wider and, for the first time since I arrived, I see the hint of a smile on his face.

“Yes, I can do that,” he answers without hesitation. I get as many details from him as I can persuade him to share without compromising his need for secrecy and protection of his contacts, then head back to the station for online research on the war through our station's new computer system, one of the first in the country.

I check in with my favorite cameraman, Dennis, to see if he's willing to risk the trip. He's beyond willing; he's ecstatic about the idea.
Within a few hours, I've drafted a detailed proposal and mounted it in a glossy report folder. Navigating the expansive and ever hectic newsroom, I reach the office of our news director, Stan Hopkins.

“Stan,” I say, as I poke my head inside his door, “can I have a few minutes?”

“Sure, come on in and have a seat.” Stan is one of the best news directors in the country. He hired me to stir things up and I've done some of that already with a few investigative reports, including exposing corrupt cops who shook down nightclub owners in downtown Boston for thousands of dollars in bribes. I'm still the new kid, but I've earned Stan's trust and support. Now I'm about to stretch him to the limit.

“Take a look at this,” I say as I hand him the proposal. The station has never sent a reporter to cover a foreign war, so I've included story summaries, itineraries, budget breakdowns, and backup plans. Most importantly, I've made a detailed argument on the relevance of the story for our audience. The Free Afghanistan Alliance is right next to Harvard and receives donations from throughout New England. The war between Russia and Afghanistan is front page news almost every day. This international coverage will set us apart from the other news stations, with whom, of course, we're always in competition. Stan takes his time and pores through every detail. I can practically hear his mind spinning, weighing the risk against the payoff. After several minutes, I can see he's hooked.

“How do you know this guy is for real and can get you inside Afghanistan?” Stan asks, still looking at the proposal.

“He's been doing it for six years, at least two times a year,” I answer. “But there are no guarantees. We'll be taking a gamble.”

“Do you realize how dangerous this is?” Stan is looking me straight in the eye this time.

“Yes,” I say, knowing this would come up. “There are no Western journalists inside Afghanistan that we know of, and the Soviets say they'll execute any they capture.”

“And you and Dennis are willing to take that chance?” Stan knows the answer.

“Yes, we are.”

This is what journalists do. Take chances. Go places only soldiers would go. Even risk their lives to report the news. Especially idealistic journalists with a burning desire to be wherever the action is, to expose injustice and the causes of human suffering.

“Give me a few minutes,” Stan says. As I return to my desk, I see him heading upstairs toward the general manager's office.
He's going to take a huge chance and pitch the story
, I say excitedly to myself. I can't think of much else the rest of the day and am relieved when the assignment desk doesn't need me for any breaking news. Just as I'm getting ready to go home for the night, Stan calls me back into his office and stares straight into my eyes for a minute before saying a word.

“It's a go,” he finally says with a firm smile. “I know you'll do it right. If you don't, we'll both be looking for work somewhere else.”

“I won't let you down,” I say, amazed at his courage, and touched by his confidence in me.

A few weeks later, Dennis and I land in Peshawar, Pakistan, an ancient city near the Khyber Pass, close to the southern border of Afghanistan. We'd be lost without Brockunier at our side. The narrow, jumbled streets are thronged with mule carts weaving their way through lines of huge trucks covered with colorful paintings, wood carvings, calligraphy, and mirrors. Small, open-sided mini-taxis with high-pitched engines scurry between the trucks and carts belching black smoke into the air. Men with thick, long beards and piercing gazes are gathered at every corner, thronging the walkways, and huddled in dark shops sipping chai tea while gravely discussing the war next door. Most wear loose, pajama-style outfits called
shalwar kamiz
, with tan vests and cloth turbans or woolen hats called
pakols
. Large ceremonial knives, curved like crescents, dangle from their waists. The sharp steel blades could slice off the head of a goat with ease. The women of Peshawar are almost invisible in the background, covered from head to toe in heavy cloth gowns called burkas. It's like wearing a prison cell, with only a small slit at the eye level so they can navigate the outdoor markets.