HBS rating: Must Read

Who should read? 

• Politics, current affairs, US politics and its consequences lovers 
• Recent history, first person account
• Adventurers and rebelles willing to fight, loose and win for their believes
• Those who read the news, and yet, somehow felt there is a different story that needs to be told.

On a recent business trip I ended up in Washington D.C.  My schedule was pretty packed with meetings and presentations, but I did manage to have a look around.  Being a first time tourist there, I ended up in most of the usual spots.  White house, space museum, Washington’s monument.. From all the places I have seen three grabbed me the most: on top of the list is the room in which President Lincoln died.  I will refer to this more when I will review James L. Swanson’s book “Man hunt: the 12 day chase for Lincoln’s killer”. 

The other two were the second world war memorial, and with a very strong contrast, the Vietnam war memorial.  Looking at both you have got to appreciate the perceptive difference between the two.  I spent my university years as an industrial design student.  I am happily married to Tsofit, an architect I have met while in school.  Our background has taught us that shape and form tell a story.  You look at a painting, sculpture, building or car and they all tell you a story by the way they are outlined, shaped, the materials they are made out of.  This of course is even more expressive in monuments whose sole purpose in life is to commemorate and honor historical events.

The second world war memorial, is very impersonal.   Its an all in all mixed menu.  All the states are represented there, powerful motto’s are inscribed in stone, huge pillars surround an inner pool and fountains.  At night mystical lights intensify the impact of the structure.  At least for me, walking through the mega structure, I missed something on the personal level.  Something that will link me to those who fought and gave their lives for the cause dramatized by this monument.  Maybe the way this monument was designed has to do with the outcome of the war and the time when it was designed.  Sitting in the axis of Lincoln’s memorial and Washington’s pillar, it kind of fits in size.

A short walk away is situated the Vietnam memorial.  A completely different expression to war and its outcome.  The famous marble walls with the names of the soldiers who fought and died away from home, takes any visitor to the most intimate and personal level possible.  Walking through the  Second World War memorial, you almost get a sense of a glorified war.  None of that exists in the Vietnam memorial.  Over here the harsh reality of war, the bottom line, end result of war, tragedy, is very well expressed.

Kevin Site’s book “In the hot zone” leans much closer to the Vietnam war memorial experience then the WWII structure. 

A bit of background:  Kevin was working as a freelance correspondent for NBC in Iraq.  Probably because of his urge to be where the action is he ended up shooting his own stories.  Other reports or camera man refused to join him in the line of fire.  At one point he videotaped five Iraqi insurgents captured alive and kept in a masque in the city of Fallujah.  The next day, returning to the same mosque, he videotaped a Marine soldier shooting the captives.  Read the book for more details on how this  TRUE STORY unfolds.

For Kevin this incident was a life changing event.  Instead of backing him up, NBC seemed to shy away from the uncomfortable truth his video revealed.  Through mutual friends Kevin made contact with Yahoo! And became their first real reporter.  It turns out that all the news we read at Yahoo! Is basically collected elsewhere; no original news work.  The idea Kevin pitched was to travel to all of the current conflict zones around the world and report live from there.  A kind of a war blog/video web site.  You can actually log on to http://hotzone.yahoo.com/   to see his work. 

Kevin spent more then a year traveling to spots none of us have on their vacation wish list: Somalia, Congo, Uganda, Kashmir, Cambodia, Afghanistan, Chechnya, Iraq, Iran and more..  This of course made his work even more challenging.  Forget the stress and fatigue of so much travel (Last year I took 60 flights and stayed at relatively comfortable hotels.  Kevin did the same, but where ever he landed he was getting shot at).  The challenge Kevin set to himself was to reveal the personal intimate story behind each conflict, and not the generic plastic typical story other news networks tell us.

His approach to revealing these stories is quite interesting.  Using his team in the US he got in touch with non profit, volunteer organizations working in each zone.  These people, to which he refers as his “fixers” where able to quickly get him in front of the people behind the news.  Soldiers, victims, children, aggressors  and innocent everyday people who got caught in the conflict.

And the stories are hard.  Actually, it seems that if you were to categorize the atrocities of war, what nations do to themselves would top the list.  Two separate countries fighting, it seems, would never have the nerve to hurt one another in the same way people of the same nation do.

Going back to the WWII memorial VS the Vietnam memorial, I think what Kevin has done in his book is the equivalent of  etching the names of the Vietnam dead on stone.  Out of big and basically meaningless names such as Somalia, Chechnya or Afghanistan he pulls out personal stories that tell the truth about war—its evil. 

Think of all the countries you travelled to.  How many have war memorial and museums and how many have peace museums or memorials?

As long as we keep glorifying war and shying away from telling the real stories of what war is all about let us not be surprised if we find ourselves mobilizing our troops again and again.

Kevin’s book scores must read on my charts because it is very well written, and because  it fills an important knowledge gap for many of us.  Kevin refers to this as the “Wealth of information and poverty  of knowledge”.   We all have access to what ever bit of information we desire, but actually do no spend the time, or lack the motivation to know.

If it wasn’t such a life threatening task I would have urged Kevin to keep on traveling to hot zones and write his second book.  Assuming he will not, I urge you all to read his book.