A photograph taken by writer John Wendle of an Ashura celebration in Kabul, Afghanistan, moments before a bomb went off in the crowd, killing dozens, December 6, 2011. John Wendle / Polaris
Three Days in Afghanistan: The Making Of A War Reporter -- John Wendle, Time
War is strange. It can change your life, for good or bad or both, with the speed and ferocity of little else. In the space of a couple days in October, I ticked off two boxes I had in my head, things I needed to be checked to prove to myself that I was a bona fide war reporter. Then came a third day, just this week, that shook the certainties of the first two profoundly.
Just two months ago in Kunar — one of the most dangerous provinces in the country and bordering Pakistan — I hiked a thousand meters straight up a mountain for five and a half hours in the dark with the men of 3rd platoon, bravo company. We landed in Chinooks in a soggy rice paddy, expecting contact. With no night vision and no moon, I scrambled up and over massive boulders, across loose stone and through thorn trees to the small, embattled Shal Outpost. It was the hardest physical thing many of the soldiers — and I — had ever done in our lives.
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My Comment: Being a war correspondent or photo journalist is not an easy job. God bless them and the work that they do.