It's a warmOctober afternoon in Boston and Sebastian Junger is holed up at the Swissôtel, talking on his cell phone, enjoying a wild-mushroom pizza, and relishing a few quiet moments in what has become an extraordinarily hectic week. In the midst of a book tour to promote Fire (Norton, 2001), a collection of his magazine essays on the frontlines of danger in such war-torn regions as Macedonia, Kosovo, and Sierra Leone (not to mention the fire-ravaged forests of Idaho), Junger is suddenly an intensely sought-after commodity for an entirely different reason: his knowledge of Afghanistan.

Last year, on assignment for National Geographic, the best-selling author of The Perfect Storm spent a month in the battle-weary country with renowned National Geographic, Time, and Newsweek photographer Reza Deghati. While in Afghanistan, they traveled with Ahmad Shah Massoud, the charismatic guerrilla leader of the Northern Alliance, the group now fighting the Taliban for control of the country. Along the way, Junger witnessed many of the atrocities of war firsthand -- and found himself in the midst of a shelling campaign in the process. But his Afghan journey, detailed in the final chapter of Fire and on the National Geographic Channel's Frontline Diaries: Into the Forbidden Zone, was not to be his last. On September 14, Massoud died of wounds suffered in a September 9 suicide-bomb attack by two men posing as journalists. Meanwhile, the world watched and waited as US military forces in Afghanistan grew in advance of an expected retaliation for the September 11 terrorist attacks in New York and Washington.

And so, instead of continuing with a lengthy book tour, Junger now finds himself preparing for a likely return to Afghanistan -- this time not as a writer planning to chronicle his experiences in print, but as a correspondent for ABC News.

Q: It seems like you weren't really recognized by the mainstream public as a journalist until very recently, even though that's your background.

A: Oh, I know! People kept thinking of me as an author, and I identify much more with being a journalist. It's a more exciting job, and it feels more relevant and it feels more important and more current, and it's more stimulating. And it was one of several reasons that after The Perfect Storm, I didn't write another book. I went back to the kind of magazine reporting that had just started to gain some momentum when the book came out. And now it's incredibly gratifying -- like, now, finally, I'm known as a journalist. I think one of the reasons I wanted to publish this collection was to really plant the flag on Mount Journalism and say, "This is me." It was very important to me. I don't know why. And I'm very proud of it. Partly, I think, a successful book is partly a crapshoot -- you can write a good book and it doesn't do well and a bad book and it does do well, and I feel I wrote a good book, but the fact that it did well was, to some degree, arbitrary. But with journalism, it doesn't matter whose cousin you are; nothing matters. You just have to give them good work. If you don't, you fall by the wayside. And I wasn't getting by on anything but my own hard work.

Q: How did you choose these particular essays? What's the glue?

A: It's just all my work of significance in my 30s. So the first one is on forest firefighters, and that was back when I was working as a climber for tree companies, and I hurt myself, and it got me thinking about dangerous work, and how I wanted to bring people's attention to that instead of extreme sports. It's sort of interesting now, me wanting to honor the people who do dangerous work, and bring some attention to it, and some admiration to it; I mean, now this tragedy in New York has done that in a way that my work never could have. My little grandiose fantasies -- I never could have brought the American public's attention to that issue the way that tragedy did. And they've finally gotten their due -- it cost them a couple hundred lives, but they've finally gotten their due. Those guys, the split between extreme adventure sports and dangerous jobs -- that split, and the difference in attention they get, is a class issue. It really is. Adventure sports, college-educated; dangerous work, not college-educated. Really cleanly divided. There we have a situation where 300 firemen -- who make, what do those guys make, $30,000 a year, something like that? Most of them, many of them probably didn't go to college -- running up 100 flights of stairs to save people who make 10, 20 times that amount, without even a second thought. It's incredible. And people, understandably, got all depressed about the human race after these attacks; I was like, "Fuck bin Laden. Look at those guys. There are wonderful things about the human race, too. Just look at those guys. There are 300 of them, there's one of him. Look at those guys. Cheer yourselves up." It really was an amazing thing.

Q: This trip you may be making back to Afghanistan -- how and when did this all come about?

A: Before all this, I wanted to go back to Afghanistan, because the country had really grabbed me, and the Northern Alliance and Massoud -- he was still alive then -- I just really wanted to go back there. And then all of this happened, and I couldn't believe that my country and the country I'd sort of adopted journalistically were intersecting in such a crazy way, and I really wanted to report on it, but I had this book tour. And then I realized that the book tour -- if we really were engaged in a war, the book tour might become a moot point. And the best way to salvage what would sort of be a gutted book tour would be to try and do TV over there. It's my passport back, it salvages something out of the book tour, and so just in the past week, we've been scrambling to put this together. But it's still not sure. We've talked to two different networks, but I think it's going to be ABC. And I've got really good access to the Northern Alliance, because they like the work that I did, so they're liking the idea of me having access that maybe the 500 other journalists over there don't have. Which of course is great, but is going to piss some people off. But the thing is, I earned it. I was there, those guys weren't.

Q: So you're not just hopping on the hot thing.

A: No. I mean, I went over there because it was a completely forgotten country. And of course some of those [foreign correspondents] have been over there, but most of them haven't. So frankly, I don't really mind cutting in line, because I feel like I've paid dues a little bit. Not because of who I am here, but because I was over there.

Q: Having been there and seen it for yourself, how much fear do you have about going back?

A: Less this time. Last time it was sort of an alien situation I was going into, and your imagination is always worse than reality.

Q: I don't know -- being shelled is a pretty frightening reality.

A: I know, but we were shelled because we chose to go right up to the front. Now, if I go back, maybe we'd be there, but I know it's a matter of choice now. Do you want to go there or not? A lot of those risks, almost all of them, unless you're dealing with a situation where the enemy has a really good air force, you can sort of pick your risks. And I'm more experienced and wiser now. What I'm much more intimidated by is suddenly doing TV. I've been a guest on TV a lot, and I feel comfortable in front of the camera, but that's different than being charged with delivering the news to ABC. I'm sure I can do it -- I've done things that have intimidated me before and it always feels miserable beforehand, and then it's always okay, and I'm sure this will be.

Q: How do your family and friends deal with what you do?

A: Well, my parents get upset when I go places. But I think they're also proud of me. And I think they want to make sure that I'm doing it for the right reasons, that I'm not trying to prove something anymore, that my motives are pure. And I think all of them know I'm not reckless at all. I mean, in anything, here or there, I'm just not a reckless person. Yeah, they worry. I'm also not going to do this forever. This story had such huge implications. I think it's going to be hard for a lot of journalists, afterwards, to think about normal, sort of mundane stories -- stories that used to be big six months ago but now, in comparison to this, they're all page-eight items now. It's weird -- Macedonia, that was headline news this summer. I was there in late June and early July, big crisis over there, headline news. And now, it's nothing. And so it's going to be hard for us to adjust.

Q: For readers, too.

A: Yeah, that's right. You know, who cares about the Maoist insurgency in Nepal right now? Unless the Maoist insurgency wants to fly planes into our buildings, they don't really matter. It's weird.

Q: How quickly did the media attention start, after September 11?

A: Well, I was out of the country, so it started as soon as I started doing media, which was last week. I'm already a name they know, they're surprised that I was in Afghanistan, so then they really listen. And everyone's so confused; no one knows who to listen to or what to believe. Everyone's suspicious of the government, and for some reason journalists are in the weird role of being actually trustworthy and unbiased sources of information, which is sort of a first. It's very funny, I've gotten e-mails from people saying, "Oh, it's such a relief to hear you talk, because I really trust your take on it, and I don't know who else to trust, and you really seem like you're in a very neutral, objective, but sensitive place, trying to figure this out."

Q: Now you're an authority.

A: Yeah. It's funny. And I will probably never be in that position again, with an issue that's this huge. I mean, any time you go to a foreign country and report on it, you come back as a semi-authority -- you go to Sierra Leone and then CNN might have you on for a few minutes, but those are tiny stories now. This is the only story there is. And maybe for a long time it will be the only story there is. And I sort of feel like, okay, if I have any sort of feelings of good citizenship and stuff like that, and of course I do, this is sort of the moment to use it.

Q: Do you feel patriotic?

A: That's such a complicated word. Yeah, I do. I mean, it's a bad word for what I feel. I feel like people should make the distinction between patriotism and love of one's country. And what I worry about the word "patriotism" is that it means sort of a blind support. Which sometimes, frankly, is needed. But love of one's country can include even being critical. I feel like the first thing we needed to do was just be blindly patriotic. And eventually we're going to have to get to the point where the way we show support for our country is to actually examine ourselves very honestly and deeply about our role in the world. It's very important to take that next step, and if you don't, blind patriotism can eventually become a dangerous thing. It's got to be a two-step process. America seems right at the point where it's starting to consider the next step, the sort of more complicated aspects of patriotism.

Q: Where were you on September 11?

A: Moldova. I was doing a story on trafficking in women in the Balkans, a really terrible, sad story. And my translator got a call on her cell phone from her ex-husband, saying these terrible things had happened. I had to be there the rest of the week; we kept working -- I was on assignment.

Q: What was your reaction?

A: The thing is, I'm a journalist, so I reacted as an American, but also as a journalist. One of my instincts was, I can't believe I'm not there. Both as an American and resident of New York, and as a journalist -- I thought, oh my God, what am I doing in Moldova? It felt wrong to be in Moldova. And I felt like Americans, New Yorkers particularly, were sort of sharing in something that I would forever be excluded from. I was going to come home to a different country, and I hadn't participated in the change it had gone through.

Q: And where were you when you found out what had happened to Massoud?

A: I found out in two stages. I was in a taxi going to the airport to go to Moldova, and I got a call from someone in the Northern Alliance who was close to him, and he said that Massoud had been badly hurt. And I was really upset about that, obviously, and I thought, Oh shit, it's all going to fall apart, the Taliban is going to attack, it's all going to fall apart. And then the next day I called my friend in the Northern Alliance and he said, "No, no, no, he's going to be fine. He's in the hospital, he's going to recover." And this was just damage control; they were just trying to stabilize the situation on the ground, stabilize the frontlines, and he had to tell everyone that, even his friends; they couldn't afford to have a leak. So I put Massoud out of my mind; I was like, okay, he'll be all right. And then the next day was September 11. And then the following Saturday, I was passing through Paris on my way home, and I called Reza, the photographer, and I said, "Listen, I'm at the airport; I can either get on the plane or come visit and leave tomorrow." And he was really subdued, and he said, "Yeah, I'd like to see you; come visit." And as soon as I walked into his apartment and saw his face, I realized there was more bad news. And we sat and talked for hours and hours about what it meant and what to do. I mean, as journalists who had been in that world and are now of this world, what role could we play? I thought I was going to have to come back to the US and somehow plead with people not to just have a massive bombing campaign. I really thought that was the mood I'd be coming back to. How can I, in my minuscule role as journalist and author in this country, get the ear of this huge machine that's probably kicking into gear? And it was such a relief to come back and realize they weren't going to do that.

Q: How do you think President Bush has handled things?

A: I was really worried that there would be some massive military retaliation. I don't have some special line on bin Laden, but just from reading the papers and being a thinking person, the feeling I had was, that was exactly what he wanted to provoke in us: an indiscriminate retaliation that would polarize the world between the West and Islam. I think it probably took all of their planning to come up with what they just did. I think it took a lot of resources and planning, and that was their big one. I'm sure they're working on another big one, but I don't think they had two big ones in place. If he did another attack, it would just inflame the coalition that's being put together against him. And that won't help him. I think whatever tricks he does have up his sleeve, he'll wait, and save them until he's cornered.

Q: If someone said to you today, you can sit down with Osama bin Laden --

A: Oh my God, I'd sit down with him in a second. Oh, yeah. Apparently you can't ask him questions, he just delivers a diatribe. If I could really question him -- I would do it in a second. I would ask him, in his eyes, what is the crime we've committed, and in his eyes, what could we do now to make things better in the world? What are our transgressions toward the Muslim world, what could we do to bring peace, and to help them bring peace? The problem is, he doesn't want peace, and ultimately that's the problem; he's not someone who's looking for a peaceful solution. But it would be kind of interesting to corner him into admitting that.

Q: Obviously, Afghanistan's going to go through a lot in the next few months. But ultimately, do you think this will be a good thing for that country, because it's drawing the world's attention to the problems there?

A: Yeah. Maybe you need a tragedy to solve a problem. I mean, they're reconfiguring the fuel tanks in planes now because of [TWA] Flight 800 exploding [in 1996]; there was some issue with the fuel tanks, and they never thought to reconfigure them differently until 300 people died in that crash. Maybe you need a tragedy to bring changes. I don't know. But I think the changes needed to be made, both in terms of improved security, better intelligence, and, frankly, better relations with the Muslim world -- as opposed to bin Laden; they're totally separate things.

Q: So in your opinion, the September 11 attacks weren't actually about Islam?

A: It's really not a religious issue. Those little lunatics [bin Laden] sent over here, they were not fanatical Muslims. The things that those men were doing would've gotten them flogged to death in Kabul. America can't confuse those guys with fanatical Islam. Those guys were exactly the same, in my opinion, as the kids at Columbine High School. Except they had a very powerful sort of cult leader who helped them do it on a really big scale. It's the same sort of alienated, grandiose, "okay, now I'll show them, this is my time in the spotlight, I'm going to go down in flames, take people down with me" -- it's the exact same alienated little weirdos. Except they're part of a terrorist organization, and not just living their own sick little fantasy. It's not religious; it has nothing to do with that. It's just dressed up in religious rhetoric, but that's it.

Q: What do you think about the reported attacks on Arab-Americans in this country?

A: [Bin Laden] wants that. He wants Arab-Americans to feel threatened. He wants everything to polarize. He wants the side-choosing to begin. And basically -- and I'm perfectly thrilled to go on record saying this -- any American who attacks an Arab-American in this country is a collaborator of bin Laden's. There's no other way I can think of to put it. That person is basically following bin Laden's wishes, and becomes a collaborator. It's very important for people to see things in a revised way now. It looks like extreme pro-Americanism. It's not. It's actually one of the most damaging things; it's incredibly anti- American.

Tamara Wieder can be reached twieder[a]phx.com.

Issue Date: October 12 - 18, 2001

Illustration by Scott Getchell