by Byron Pitts
Dazed and grateful, I was still conscious, with a fast-moving headache that started at the back of my neck. I waited for the dust and sand to clear. Thank God we were both wearing our seat belts. As I lay there, the driver began yelling and pulling at my seat belt. Did he think I was injured? Perhaps he was trying to help me? Then I realized he was not clawing at my seat belt. He was trying to climb over me. His door was jammed. To hell with the American, he was trying to get away. About that time I noticed the driver from the truck and a few other men running toward our vehicle with pipes in their hands. They were yelling. I couldn’t make out the language, of course, but their volume suggested they urgently wanted a conversation with my driver. By the time the men got to our vehicle, the driver was out the door and running down the road. All I could see was the bottom of his shoes and a small cloud of dust. Larry and Mark ran to see if I was okay. I was shaken a bit but otherwise fine. We repacked my gear into one of the other vehicles. When we inquired about the driver and his car, one of our interpreters said, “Do not worry. Local justice.” With that, we moved on.
The pace of our travel was determined by the progression of the Northern Alliance push to the south. Some days they would gain several square miles and any handful of villages. The next day they might lose a third of it, as the Taliban would push back. That give-and-take of war dictated our timetable and our travel schedule. We knew that a major battle would eventually take place in the large city of Konduz, currently a Taliban stronghold. The Northern Alliance had to take control of it to secure a major supply route to the south. We traveled through a series of nameless villages on our way to Konduz. Tribal clans ran each town, and we needed to get permission for safe travel or an overnight stay.
After a week of sleeping under the stars fewer than fifty miles from Konduz, we found comfortable indoor accommodations just in time for Thanksgiving. It was a compound that had been abandoned by a local doctor fleeing from the Taliban. Relatively speaking, it was a nice two-story mud structure. There were multiple bedrooms because the doctor had multiple wives. No beds, no furniture, but we each carried our own cots to our own private rooms. Generally, we did not allow ourselves much time to think about our families back home. But it was a holiday, and I think we were all a bit melancholy. Mark was the most recently married. He decided to make Thanksgiving a special meal. Mark spotted a bird, which we believed to be a duck. While we worked, the household cook killed it, plucked it, and grilled it. Add some rice and beans, and we were ready for the feast. We were thrilled, because it was different from the goat, rice, or noodles that we ate most days after we ran out of beef jerky and Vienna sausages. Yet it was like a bad picnic. The duck was dark, stringy, and kind of bloody, not really cooked all the way through. No one complained. It was as close to home as we could get.
It was a nice respite but a brief one. The Northern Alliance was moving, and we had to move with them. Konduz was a few hours away; the battle was now imminent. Leaving after sunrise gave us ample time to make the trip in daylight, if there were no delays, no transportation breakdowns, and nothing unexpected happened. But we had to decide if we were going to push into darkness. Larry, who had been on the most overseas assignments, had a few basic rules that he insisted upon for safety. Never travel alone, never flash money in public, and never travel at night. But if we did not get to the outskirts of Konduz in the next few hours, we ran the risk of missing the action entirely. We took a vote, and there was unanimous agreement to push the limit of daylight and get to the next location in time to make air. Our maps indicated that a fairly routine trip was ahead of us. If everything went right on the road to Konduz, we would make it before nightfall. Unfortunately, very little went right.
Our interpreters provided a handmade map, which indicated a well-traveled road leading to Konduz. What our map failed to show was that the primary route, a narrow gravel road through the region, had recently been destroyed by the Taliban. We had to turn our convoy around and return to the last village to ask for help finding the best way south. The villagers put us on a road that was traveled more by animals than vehicles. The craters and rocks were hell on our trucks’ transmissions and tires. Of the five vehicles we started with, three broke down by midday. Two of the drivers refused to leave their broken-down trucks, and another driver abandoned us when he grew frightened by the unfamiliar route. In the next village, we downsized our gear, leaving behind water and some of our camping equipment. We bought another truck for cash and picked up a cocky sixteen-year-old driver who was willing to make the trip. Despite the language barrier, negotiations always came down to the number of one-hundred-dollar bills we were prepared to hand over.
We had lost a few hours, and it was now closing in on the afternoon. Mindful of the time pressure, with our new driver and a not-so-new vehicle, we set off on our way. We were still on a back road without any map to guide us. I was in the front car of the caravan, with the new driver and an English-speaking guide. Laganga was in the middle vehicle, with one of our original drivers and the fixer/cook/handyman. Larry was riding shotgun in the third vehicle, with a driver and our interpreter. The three vehicles stayed in contact by handheld radio. The road was more like a dirt path, carved by nomads, merchants, and drug dealers. Since it was too late to turn back and too dangerous to stop, we kept going amid growing darkness. No one in my vehicle spoke. The only sounds were loud Afghan music and the occasional groan from a pothole. Then without warning the driver slammed on the brakes. He spoke and gestured to the guide, who then turned to me with a pained expression.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
Through broken English, he explained that we had mistakenly driven into an area marked for landmines. During the war in the eighties the Russians had left an estimated seventy thousand landmines in northern Afghanistan. Someone would have to lead us out. I relayed the information by radio to Larry and Mark.
“Any volunteers?” I asked, hoping humor might disguise my fear. My request was met with dead silence. Then Larry spoke up.
“We’re paying the guide to guide, so goddamn it, get out of the truck and guide!”
And so he did, on foot. He was a middle-aged man, with a thin frame buried beneath oversized clothes and a face worn by years of conflict. Guided by the headlights of our pickup and the words of the Koran, we crawled along this way with our guide, the human bomb-sniffing interpreter walking in front of three vehicles for about thirty minutes. The cars were barely moving, but we soon reached the end of the minefield. Before we could celebrate safe passage, our teenager driver had stopped again. This time he was pointing out of the car and shouting. It turned out we were completely lost and most likely in territory controlled by the Taliban. Not good news. The guide, who had just recovered from his hazardous duty outside the car, now explained that a house off in the distance to our right should be off to our left. In all likelihood we were driving on the wrong side of the nearby mountain. We had little time to figure out how it happened because he could see shadows moving about in the house and was convinced that they were Taliban fighters. I delivered this alarming news to my colleagues in the other two vehicles. As I was explaining our current dilemma, those shadowy figures off to our right (most likely a good half mile away, although it looked closer) jumped in the vehicles outside the house and appeared headed our way.
Larry screamed into the radio, “Go as fast as you can!”
In the desert, “fast as you can” sounded more impressive than it was. We moved at a crawl. The scene would have been comical if it wasn’t so frightening. We were in a high-speed chase on an Afghan desert road, but we would have moved faster by foot. The terrain seemed to change with almost every heartbeat. One moment we were in a wide-open area, the next driving down a narrow path with only a few inches on either side of the doors. Not enough space to even open the doors but positioned perfectly to be ambushed. At other turns, we were forced to drive forward a few feet, make a hard turn in the direction we just came from, in order to eventually go
forward. It felt as if we were rats in a maze. I have never been more frightened in my life. Then my fear turned to anger. I had promised my wife and children I would do nothing foolish that would risk my life and their future. Eventually, anger turned to sadness. I was about to die. It had happened before in this lawless, forsaken country. Why shouldn’t it happen to us? Journalists had no protection here.
Then I began to think about Larry and Mark. What about Larry’s wife and children? What had we done? As we bumped along, I actually began to cry. Quietly, with my head down and my fingers in a death grip on the driver’s seat in front of me. The paralysis of fear was setting in. I was giving up. I had stopped looking out the window or communicating with Larry and Mark by radio. I should have been helping to navigate our path or offering words of encouragement. I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t move. Eventually, I closed my eyes and tried to pray. I was so afraid that I could not remember a single Bible verse, even my mother’s favorite prayer. So I forced my eyes open to look out my window and see if the end was near.
It was then, for the first time, that I noticed the sky. It was clear. The stars were bright and we were in a valley. It was a breathtaking sight. And then it hit me like a blow to the chest. The Scripture began ringing in my ears. It was Psalm 23:4-6.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; Thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: Thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: And I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.
In the time it took to say those words, a peace I had never experienced before came over me. In an instant, I felt safer than I had ever felt. I began to realize that nothing Larry or I or Mark or the drivers might do right at that moment would necessarily make a difference. If it was God’s will we die, then we would soon be dead. But if it was God’s will we live, it would not even matter if the men chasing us caught us. My heart stopped racing. I stopped panting. I wasn’t in danger. I was in God’s hands, and I knew that was more than enough. What power comes from the sort of peace that no man can give and no man can take away.
The car chase went on for about forty minutes. As it happened, the men in the vehicles behind us never got close and eventually turned away. When we finally made it to the safety of our next desolate accommodation, I did not share my spiritual moment with Larry and Mark. Instead, Larry offered me more earthly solace, a shot of whiskey. Mark gave me one of his cigarettes. I gulped down the whiskey, lit and smoked the cigarette. Looking on in amazement at his colleague who does not drink or smoke, Mark jokingly said, “Byron, at this rate we’ll have you snorting cocaine soon.” We burst into laughter and then took care of the work that needed to get done. Within a few hours we were all asleep.
We would have other terrifying days and nights in Afghanistan. Not long after the battle of Konduz, a Swedish journalist was awakened by bandits storming a compound packed with journalists in the city of Taloqan. He was shot and killed. Our team was sleeping about one hundred yards away. The screaming of his friends woke us up. We spent the rest of that night comforting one another and talking about how soon we could go home. The next morning nearly everyone in the compound packed their gear and joined a caravan headed north, to leave the country. We had all agreed the story was no longer worth the risk. In all, eight journalists were killed in seventeen days in Afghanistan, including those who had traveled with our friend Paul McGeough. It was a staggering casualty rate for journalists working in a war zone.
When soldiers return home from war, they talk about their comrades, their brothers in arms. Theirs is a bond formed in mud and sweat and sometimes blood. For the rest of my life, I will have that bond with Larry Doyle and Mark Laganga. We don’t talk much anymore, but we don’t have to.
ELEVEN
Love the Least of Us
For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in.
—Matthew 25:35
WORKING FOR CBS NEWS has been a wonderful education. Veterans call it seeing the world on the company’s dime. I guess that’s true. As much as it’s taught me about the places I’ve been, it’s also taught me a few things about myself.
Fear was one of the biggest traits I carried from childhood into adulthood. Selfishness was another. All my life I have been blessed by people who had nothing to gain by helping me, but they did it anyway. I grew accustomed to receiving the help and support of my family, my network of mentors, and all those angels I’ve met along the way. In the current vernacular, it was all about me. I admit that I never spent much time putting myself in anyone else’s shoes. I never thought about the sacrifices Coach Mack made for me, or the time it took out of Dr. Lewes’s day to help me. I simply took their graciousness and kindness and used it to my advantage. I was a needy child, a needy adolescent, and still needy well into adulthood. I was still learning what it means to give and what giving meant to those who gave so much to me.
I certainly can’t fault my mother for failing to set an example. If ever there was a call for volunteers at our church, Clarice would volunteer not only her time but that of her children. If there was a family gathering at someone’s house, she expected the Pitts children to help set up chairs and tables and break them down afterward. “Helping hands please God,” she’d often say. Countless times she would make room for “one more” at our dinner table. Sometimes it was one of her clients from work; another time it would be a teenage mother or a homeless person. Like plenty of social workers and teachers, my mother saw her job as a calling that extended beyond the office or office hours. My mother always said that when we open our arms wide to give away the gifts we have, that only creates room for God to give us more. Serving others, she always taught us, is a valued virtue.
But in the midst of my own overwhelming needs, I lost the time and energy to extend compassion. I was too busy trying to fix my own flaws. It wasn’t until I witnessed extraordinary acts of kindness by my colleagues and by those we met, many of them in remote corners of the world, that I began to actually look back and appreciate the sacrifices people had made in my life. Most of what I’ve seen has only reinforced the lessons I learned as a boy. Most people are good. Whether it’s somewhere in the United States or some faraway place, there are always people willing to make a sacrifice for others. Countless acts of kindness go on every day somewhere on earth. Some of the most rewarding acts I witnessed came from people who didn’t really have the means or the time to help someone else, but they did it anyway. People who all had a willingness to step out beyond what might have been expected of them, and as a result they demonstrated amazing kindness. As I see it, they stepped out on a faith in something greater than themselves.
IN AFGHANISTAN
Our team saw many horrible and violent things in Afghanistan that fall of 2001. But we also saw the goodness that lives inside. As I traveled from northern Afghanistan toward Kabul with producer Larry Doyle and cameraman Mark Laganga, we met bandits and beggars and one remarkable family. We met them in Khoja Bahauddin in northern Afghanistan, where they were forced to flee after the Taliban took over their home city. The Nazir family, a husband and wife with two children, were almost like a typical American family. Always well groomed, they had an air of confidence that especially stood out in Afghanistan, where so many people walked around covered in dust, with rounded shoulders and heads bowed seemingly with the burdens of the world. (I met an Afghan man early on in my visit, who, before I spoke, sized me up and said, “You’re an American.” I smiled and asked what made him so certain, considering that I could be African or European. He said, “You walk like an American, with long strides and your head in the air.”) Every member of this family walked like Americans, especially the children. The parents were a hardworking, handsome couple whose primary goal was that universal desire to provide a better life for
their kids.
Fahranaz, the mother, was a Soviet-trained electrical engineer, and so was her husband, Nazir. Their teenage son, Kambiz, had dark hair and teen-idol looks. He spoke English so well he became one of our interpreters. The daughter, Vida, who was probably about seven years old, was as precious as any child you could meet and always underfoot asking questions about the world beyond her own or toying with our television equipment. This one family in particular reminded all of us of our own families back in the States and the heavy toll war takes on loved ones caught in the midst of it.
After careful discussion with Nazir, Fahranaz, and our producer Larry Doyle, it was agreed that the family would be relatively safe with us. This was a presumption based simply on one rule of war, that there is usually safety in numbers. So Larry put them on the payroll. They were worth every penny. Nazir was a gifted engineer, who kept our equipment in tiptop shape despite limited access to replacement parts and a steady source of electricity. Not to mention the dust and sand that would constantly get inside the equipment. Mishaps that would send the average engineer back in the States on an angry tirade just made Nazir smile more broadly. Fahranaz was also a tremendous resource. She often pointed us in the right direction for a story or contacts. She provided access into an underground network of women who desperately wanted their voices heard but who were forced to balance their taste for freedom with the day-to-day struggle of staying alive. Back in Kabul, Fahranaz had been active in women’s rights organizations before the Taliban took over. In Khoja Bahauddin, she was still doing activist work with women, running literacy programs and postnatal care seminars. Despite all the discourse about freedom from the Taliban in the north, the local warlords did not like Fahranaz teaching women about their rights. Soon there was the strong suggestion that some in the area wanted her dead.