JOURNALIST BADLY WOUNDED IN AFGHANISTAN

Last weekend, on October 23rd, an extraordinary photographer named Joao Silva was badly wounded while accompanying a foot patrol of US infantry in Arghandab
district, outside Kandahar. He stepped on a land mine that had apparently been
constructed out of materials that made it undetectable to mine-sweepers and
sniffer dogs. Three soldiers around him suffered concussions but were otherwise
unhurt.

Silva has covered wars for two decades and is considered one of the most experienced combat photographers alive. The explosion was so powerful that Army surgeons in
Kandahar were forced to amputate both his legs. Lying in the dirt badly
wounded, Silva asked for someone to give him his cameras so that he could take
photographs of the medics as they worked on him. He may well be the only
photographer who has had the presence of mind – and the courage – to document
his own suffering.

As someone who has spent a lot of time with soldiers in the field, I understand the very common suspicion – even dislike – that some people in the military harbor for the
press. I know that journalists don’t always act well, don’t always care about
the subjects of their work and don’t always disencumber themselves from their
political opinions while on the job. The military needs the press, however. No society can call itself democratic if
the press does not operate freely; a war without journalists is a war where no
one is accountable for their mistakes. During Vietnam, it was only the dogged
persistence of several investigative reporters that forced the US military to
acknowledge and remedy fatal flaws in early versions of the M-16 rifle. (For
more on this disturbing story, buy and devour a superb new book called, “The
Gun,” by New York Times reporter Chris Chivers. His account of obstructionism
by the military - while Marines were dying because their guns kept jamming - is
one of the most chilling things I’ve read in a long time.)

I’ve met Joao, though I don’t know him very well. Right now he is recovering from his wounds in Germany and faces many months of rehabilitation at Walter Reed. Joao
obviously didn’t carry a gun, but I do hope those in the military can look at
him as a comrade who, tragically, paid a price that so many men and women in
uniform have also paid. During the initial offensive against the Taliban in
2001, seven journalists had been killed by the time Kabul fell. At that point
not one American soldier had died. Left wing or right wing, military or
civilian, middle-aged or a recent high school graduate, anyone on a foot patrol
in Afghanistan is in an extraordinary amount of danger. They have far more
things in common, in those moments, than they have in conflict. They have every
reason to look upon each other as friends and brothers.

Please keep Joao in your thoughts. He could be any one of us.