A Higher Purpose
Thirty-three people died in Iraq today, and scores were injured, which for most of us is just another grim statistic in an endless war to which we have become anaesthetized.
Except that today, three of those cruel statistics were my friends, and while every such violent death should sadden, and every innocent victim's story deserves to be told, of course they do not, and are not.
What makes the deaths of Paul Douglas and James Brolan and the dreadful wounds suffered by Kimberly Dozier worthy of more than a mention is not merely that they were colleagues, companions and friends, but that they died and were hurt trying to make sense of all the other deaths and maimings which have no names, no stories about which we care, even if we ought to do so.
By the very nature of their job as a camera crew, Paul and James took more risks than other journalists. A 20-plus pound camera on your shoulder makes you obvious, and vulnerable. For one thing you are blind on one side, and staring mostly ahead of you on the other, although good cameramen like Paul shot with one eye in the view finder watching the shot and the other somehow roving about for danger, or a better image.
He would rely on James to watch his back, but a soundman is also burdened with a mixer around his neck, dials to monitor, and a microphone to point, because no one wants silent movies.
Kimberly was beside them because while she could have remained in the protection of the Humvee and merely taken notes, it was in her nature, being a good reporter, to be where the crew was, to see and hear and smell what they did in order to better match the words she would later write to the pictures they took.
Reporters and camera crews who place themselves in harm's way do it out of choice, and while that may seem irrational, it is, with rare exception, done with due consideration to the risks involved.
Paul, James and Kimberly were not thrill seekers, "cowboys" or war junkies. They were two good men and a good woman doing a job they liked, and which they believed served a higher purpose. None of us who cover wars are so vain as to think we can change the world. But we believe we can make a difference. If we do our jobs well, the excuse "we didn't know" cannot be used to justify inaction or indifference in the face or evil or suffering or injustice. You did know, because people like Paul and James and Kimberly and so many others who have died and been injured told you.
In most places, they would have known the danger was there, smelled it with a sixth, or maybe a seventh or eighth, sense that camera crews and correspondents who have survived in war zones develop.
But an IED (improvised explosive device) can be anywhere in Baghdad, and you cannot sense everything. And for journalists who cover wars, luck is like a blind trust fund; you can make withdrawals, but not deposits, and you have no idea how much is left.
So what kind of people are they?
It is said if many people that they were "larger than life," and in most cases, it's a nice thought, but a cliché. But to say that of Paul Douglas is to understate the case.
He was physically huge, black, shaven-headed and had a booming voice that could silence a room with a syllable, a combination that by its mere description would seem to be intimidating in the extreme, unless you knew his smile.
It was as big as his heart, and his courage, which is another way of saying enormous.
Good cameramen must put emotion aside to do his job, but if they do not have a heart, if they do not feel, their pictures will be flat, emotionless. They will fail to capture the essence of TV, raw human emotion. Paul never had that problem.
In the madness of Sarajevo, you couldn't go anywhere with a TV camera without kids asking if "chelo bonbon" was with you. "Bonbon" was what the kids there called candy, and "chelo" is the phonetic spelling of a word in Serbo-Croat that means "bald". "Chelo Bonbon" was a huge black man with a bald head and a fisherman's vest with every pocket stuffed full of candies. You couldn't help everyone in Sarajevo, but you could brighten a kid's day with a candy. They would lay siege to get one. But when they saw Paul, they dutifully stood in line, waiting for a "bonbon," and that huge grin. But woe betide any official who got between Paul and a picture he knew had to be taken.
When the Serbs were expelling ethnic Albanians from Kosovo into Macedonia, we followed a train full of refugees that crossed the border. It stopped at a siding – a scene from Word War II, hands out the window, people wailing inside, wire keeping the doors sealed. Several armed Macedonian police and other officials tried to block us from approaching it. We argued fruitlessly for a few minutes, then Paul said, in a calm and measured tone, "Sorry mate, but I have to take that picture." By the time the police recovered from the fact that they had just been barged past by a black human bulldozer, the pictures were on tape, and became part of a series of stories that won an Overseas Press Club award.
James Brolan wasn't on that one, but if he had been, like the soundman he was, he'd have been right there with his microphone. A laconic nature and laid back image belied the technical competence and dedication. Soundmen are the oft-ignored but essential element of a TV story. Without pictures, TV becomes radio. Without sound, it is little better. Sound is the subtle underpinning of a story. It makes the difference between average and great. Watch a good soundman work and as often as not the microphone is not pointing where the camera is aimed, because the ambience, the deeper meaning of the image, is often sound coming from another direction, and the best soundmen find it. James Brolan knew where to listen.
He also knew how to make life fun. My favorite James Brolan story is of him being on a shoot involving several cameras for an interview with the actor George Clooney. It is not being unkind to say that in the looks department, James was no George. Who is? Before the interview began, Clooney was introduced to each member of the crew. When he reached out to shake James' hand, James looked up at him and said: "F*** me, it's like looking in the mirror!" To Clooney's credit, he laughed uproariously along with everyone else. James had that kind of effect.
And Kimberly? Think of Lois Lane meets Wonder Woman. Athletic, obsessively dedicated to getting the story, Kimberly is a product of her roots in radio. That's a school where you learn to be quick, because the deadline is always now.
Kimberly Dozier became a TV correspondent by dint of hard work and dedication. One simple example will suffice. When the NATO bombing of Kosovo was about to begin, Kimberly was in Belgrade for radio, but the heart of the story was in Pristina, in Kosovo, a long and dangerous road from Belgrade. Just hours before the deadline for war, she showed up in the hotel in Pristina. She never did get around to telling us how she made it, because the bombing started, and she was too busy reporting it. Paul Douglas was there too.
It may be politically incorrect to say this, but it is true, and in the strange little world of journalists who cover conflicts, the best compliment one can pay - she's one ballsy lady.
Every death and injury in Baghdad is a story, and a tragedy in its own way. Not all can be told. I am sorry to have had to tell this one, but proud to know the people it is about. They represent all that is good about what we do, and their deaths and injuries will not be in vain, because what they did forbears the excuse "we did not know."