[Reporter’s Reading] Why Soldiers Cross the Threshold of Death on the Horrific Battlefield

Pulitzer Prize-Winning Female War Correspondent Lindsay Adario's Essay Published in Korean Translation

[Asia Economy Reporter Byunghee Park] In March 2011, four New York Times journalists went missing in Libya. They were detained by the Libyan military and released after five days. Three of the four were men. The remaining female photojournalist was named Lindsey Adario.

Adario's essay, "It's What I Do: A Photographer's Life of Love and War," published in 2015, has been translated and published by Munhakdongne. The title is "The Woman Who Captures Time at the Frontline."

In the prologue, Adario detailed the circumstances of her abduction in March 2011, even including a photo of her abandoned, untied Nike sneakers. The Libyan soldiers tied her hands and feet with the shoelaces of her sneakers.

The writing begins with the sentence, "Basking in the clearest and brightest morning sunlight." Although it is a story about a war zone, the reflection on the morning sunlight is striking... As expected from a female war correspondent's essay, it feels like a bold start. But it is soon followed by words about the fear a war correspondent might feel. "For the past few days, I hardly wanted to get out of bed in the morning." "There are days when I am terrified the moment I wake up."

Showing fear in a dangerous conflict zone is often seen as unfit for a war correspondent, so it is something to avoid. Therefore, when a fellow journalist said, "Hey, I think it's time to leave here," Adario felt grateful. She was relieved to know she was not the only one feeling fear and replied, "Yes, I think we should."

Adario began her career in 2000 in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan and spent 20 years covering various conflict zones such as Iraq, Sudan, Congo, and Lebanon. She covered Waziristan, the border area between Pakistan and Afghanistan, and won the Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting in 2009. She was also nominated for an Emmy in 2018 for the documentary "Finding Home," which followed the journey of three Syrian refugee families hoping for asylum in Europe and the babies born stateless among them over a year.

Photos taken by Lindsay Adario
Photo by Munhakdongne

Covered conflict zones like Iraq and Sudan for 20 years
Meticulously recorded even trivial emotions like diary entries
Reads like a novel during moments like abduction and first bomb experience
Focuses on human rights of women and civilians sacrificed in war
Includes everyday stories like trivial love affairs

Adario was born in Connecticut, USA. However, she built her early photojournalism career in South America. Her first job in 1996 was at the "Buenos Aires Herald" in Argentina. On September 11, 2001, she was in Mexico City with her boyfriend when they learned about the terror attacks on TV. She arrived at New York's "Ground Zero" on the 14th of the same month. "I blamed myself for not being able to cover one of the biggest events of my life as it happened."

Adario immediately headed to Pakistan. She recalled the legendary photojournalist Robert Capa (1913?1954), who said, "If your pictures aren't good enough, you’re not close enough," and always tried to stay close to the scene.

Adario arrived in Peshawar, Pakistan, on September 21. About her accommodation in Peshawar, she wrote, "Alisa Vantara, an American photojournalist in her mid-30s, and I shared a room in the old Greens Hotel, which had only 20 rooms. Older journalists with ample reporting budgets stayed at the fancy Pearl Continental Hotel." Adario meticulously recorded trivial emotions she felt moment by moment as if writing a diary. Thanks to this, although the book is quite thick, it reads easily.

Sometimes it reads like a novel, especially when describing tense moments like her abduction in 2011 or her first experience of fear from a bomb. This was in March 2003 when the U.S. military invaded Iraq. "I never dreamed of staying on site to keep taking pictures. Experienced war photographers would have thought to capture the debris, the wounded, and the dead with their cameras, but I was young then." A cameraman standing next to Adario at the time lost his life. Instead, Adario wrote that she realized for the first time that war means death and that journalists can also die on the battlefield.

Adario majored in International Relations at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. However, she does not express any particular views on the complex international dynamics.

Adario focuses on the human rights of women and civilians sacrificed in war. After 9/11, through conversations with women in Pakistan, she came to understand the prejudices spread throughout the Islamic world and the deep-rooted hatred toward the West that arose from them. Ultimately, they are victims of war. Alongside stories from the war zone, Adario also recorded her life as an ordinary woman.

She was born as the youngest in a family with four daughters. Their house had a yard large enough to include a swimming pool. Her kind father came out when she was eight years old and left home after coming out. After that, she lived with her mother and sisters under difficult circumstances. When she was 13, she visited her father’s house, where she rarely went, and received a Nikon camera as a gift. She then became deeply fascinated by photography.

Adario also recorded her love life in detail. She found out that her boyfriend was cheating after he checked his email on her laptop and forgot to log out. She also wrote several times about suddenly missing her boyfriend while covering war zones.

"Less than 72 hours after leaving Afghanistan, where I had to cover my whole body with a scarf and couldn’t look men in the eye, I was kissing Uksbal (her boyfriend’s name) on the beach wearing a bikini."

The trivial stories seem to show that a female war correspondent is not an extraordinary person. They also seem to ask why humans wage wars that destroy ordinary lives.

(The Woman Who Captures Time at the Frontline / Written by Lindsey Adario / Translated by Koo Gye-won / Munhakdongne / 19,800 KRW)