Taliban Kidnapping Survivor interview-Jere Van Dyk

I was born in Vancouver Washington I had a very good father a very good mother a brother and sister my father owned a small Millwork company my mother was wonderful as they say housemaker she was also a frustrated artist what is unique about us I believe and has a lot to do with the way in which I've lived my life is that I went to public schools with my brother and sister we were seen by much of the world as very normal people except we were also Plymouth Brethren Plymouth Brethren would be we were separatists we were everybody in my in Mars in our assembly we never used the word church were pacifists except my father in World War II um the most important thing about that is and it becomes very much a part of this whole story is that I was always felt separate from everyone else even though I certainly was welcomed by everybody and we always fit in to the degree that we allowed ourselves to fit in in school um my father I discovered when I was a boy going through a chest of his in in the in the Attic of where in the smaller house that we grew up in it was a runner and I found his medals and part of me said I want to be like my father like every boy in America everywhere probably and so I became a good runner in high school and I set a National High School record which sent me out into the world and I had many scholage college scholarships um and at the same time we grew up my father did well in his business we had horses um but I also learned we also had a very good we had a very good Outdoors Northwest life but my father also said a man only needs one match to light a fire he taught me how to shoot a rifle and how to break it down when I was probably eight or nine years old at the same time we were very religious he wanted me to go to West Point but he also wanted me to be a missionary so I'm caught between these two worlds as a Young Man in college I I had I had success as a runner but at the same time I didn't I I um discovered girls went out uh drank alcohol all of this worked against me I didn't get along with my coach and ultimately I left I was at the University of Oregon which is the main track and field school in America at that time I think it probably still is it was the most important thing in my life that was more important to me than than studying although I felt I did study hard as a result of the problems I had with my coach I felt that I had not reached the the level as an athlete that I could even though I was a Pan-American team and seventh ranked 800 meter runner in the world I felt in some ways that I had failed and after college um I did not make the Olympic team that year when I thought I could in many ways I felt I should have I went to my father and I said I'm leaving the country I'm going to hitchhike I'm going to hitchhike through Europe my mother cried my father gave me a camera and I made my way hitchhiking like so many Americans do through Europe and I went down made my way through France and then down through Spain and I reached the reached the Mediterranean and I looked across the Border or the the Mediterranean and I said I'm not finished yet there's something on the other side where I have to go and for the first time I began to feel there's something inside of me searching for what we will call the wild I took a small small boat lying low in the water with about three or four other people reached reached Tangier X number of hours later I don't know how long it took and the next day I heard for the first time the Muslim called a prayer and what is this what does it mean and it drew me in and I felt I had to hitchhike across North Africa at the same time as I was standing on the road with a fire in the barrel on this highway that took you across North Africa uh with which where I was told which is where I should go to hitchhike across where there were a lot of truck drivers would would meet in the morning and when fire was burning in the barrel and I heard the call of prayer again somewhere in the desert and I wanted to go down there there was something about growing up in a very religious environment feeling that I had failed the god of my youth and that when I reached when I was in Tangier the god of my youth was calling me there was something there was something deeply religious always within me it was bred into me as a boy as as as water makes a flower grow just it was it was the nourishment of our youth that we were separate from everyone else we were deeply religious as well as being completely a part of the world but that became so much a part of me and becomes a very much a part of my life and as I hitchhiked across North Africa it was during Ramadan when Muslims don't don't eat during the day from Sun from sunrise to sunset I heard men say inshallah and I didn't know what that meant was but it said God willing and I said that's just how we talked in church when I was a boy I kept going finally uh thought I would make my way towards the Holy Land and find a new God there but I got as I made my way across I I decided to hitchhike well I was hitchhiking and I got to uh Algiers from Algiers I made my way to Tunisia and from Tunis I decided instead to take a boat across the night and I remember at night I ran to it was a boat one boat was leaving uh once a week to Sicily I ran or jumped over there or climbed over a fence jumped on the boat as it made its way to as as it was leaving the harbor the next day we arrived in palmeiro Sicily and I hitchhiked up to through Italy and down into Yugoslavian across to Turkey and it was in Turkey where I got a letter from my father at Post Restaurant which said Post restaurant at that time this is all pre-digit the digital world was uh in in any at that time in any uh post office in any major city in Europe perhaps here and you can do the same thing in America you would just write you know Jerry Van Dyke Post Restaurant Istanbul and the letter would get to you and there was a letter from my father you've been drafted you have to come home my father was in the Marine Corps in World War II I could not say no to my father and at the same time it was during the war and I haven't gone into this yet but Vietnam I various mixed emotions about it didn't want to ever disappoint my father at the same time I certainly didn't support the war on I was I was in in um in the in the um what we call I forget what we call now um youth hostel in Istanbul and I was sitting in my bunk and I had maps in front of me and I was planning my trip up through them with Eastern Europe part of the Soviet Bloc during the time of the Cold War where I would go and then I would take make my way to Luxembourg where I had a to buy an airline ticket where I hadn't already I had flown over on that on on air Luxembourg which was the cheapest way to go to Europe then and make my way back and go home and into the army and that time men and women boys and girls were kept separate in all youth hostels so incomes I'm sitting there planning my trip back and this woman comes in and she says hi leather Crete and boots and she had a beautiful scarf on and she had this leather coat which is the type that you could buy in Istanbul then that were very popular with hitchhikers and she said where's Lacey and she wasn't supposed to be in there where there were the men or boys were and he turned over in his bunk and said I'm lazy and she said I saw your sign downstairs looking for writers to go to Asia I want to go with you and she he said we'll be downstairs at eight o'clock the next following morning and I she left and I looked over the over to him and I said do you have any more room and he said yeah he said be downstairs at eight o'clock in the morning it was because of that woman and so we left her about six of us we took out the back seat of a Volkswagen and we made our way across turkey and as we were traveling across I really I saw soldiers working uh trying to clear snow from the roads and I said oh the military can be a force for good in the world and I appreciate it and I saw a lot of poverty on that trip when America could could could could do and I and had done for me and I finally we got as we were um as we were and so as we were traveling across I became closer to this woman and as he said well Lacey who was going a he was AWOL from the Navy he was going to India to make try to earn money or make money with with by buying uh buying gems and coming back to Europe and selling them he said well trip will be easy we make our way across turkey Iran is easy Afghanistan Afghanistan's a little that's a little different like Afghanistan it's different oh there's something that clicked inside of me at the turkey at the Turkish Iranian border I knew I had to turn around and go home and I went home and went into the army but I held on to that belief there's something something romantic something exciting something different from Afghanistan from the rest of the world so I was I was in the I was in the Army for two years and I got out and I went to graduate on the GI bill I went to graduate school in Paris very serious about academics and I was still running and I became more successful as as an athlete made the U.S national team and carried the American flag in the closing ceremonies the U.S Russia track meet during the height of the Cold War which was the second most important track made besides the Olympics during that time even more important because of the politically um and but I was so I finished I was running hard at the same time I also had not forgotten Afghanistan finishing the last day of school in Paris I saw my name on the wall posted outside that I had passed my classes I was very happy I went and I joined about a half a dozen friends of mine from different countries we sat in a cafe uh it was at the Institute of political studies was just down the street from this from from The Institute and we went around as young men do the table what were we going to do next in life well this person was going to be a banker this person was going to be a journalist this person was going to I mean you wouldn't be an art historian and I said I want to go to Afghanistan just like that out of the blue it came up so what I did was I was still running a bit I went to Northern Europe to earn money on the international track and field uh circuit and I came back and I called my parents and I said I'd like Cody my younger brother was just finishing High School to join me I wanted to drive a car across Asia I want to go to Afghanistan and to this day my brother and I do not know why our mother said yes my father's my father also gave his approval and at that time you could buy an old Volkswagen or even a Mercedes in Europe and young people were doing this and a lot of older older people were also and you could drive it across Asia and sell it for a profit and use that money to fly back home and even have money left over and so I bought an old Volkswagen my brother came flew over we met we actually met in Germany and we began to travel on what I had started to travel on by going to in in Istanbul which is what today is called in retrospect the hippie Trail and we started in what is called the pudding shop where if you ever saw a movie called Midnight Express about a drug dealer American drug dealer spent 10 years in prison that's where well that's that's exactly where I started when I first went on my trip with with with Lacey and and and and the woman and the other and the others Europeans who were with us um and we drove Acro and we began to drive across Asia and we got in it we were crossing Eastern Eastern Iran one night a horse I don't know where it was a white horse too uh jumped came across the field jumped in the air somehow we had panicked him and he fell on in the front of the Volkswagen came down kept running away but the Volkswagen was now destroyed and it could still dry but there was no window at all it was all broken uh fortunately as you know or may recall engines in the back of a Volkswagen so we're okay and we crawled along and we got to Michaud and it took the rest of my money uh that I had to repair the car here to foreigners two Europeans were out there in the middle of the Eastern Eastern Iran let's charge these people a lot of money and they did uh and so we made our we got to the Afghan border and I looked across the border and I said this is my Lawrence of Arabia land I had seen the movie of Lawrence Arabia and that that Romance of that to me the romance of that of that type of life and the romance of Afghanistan all came up to me I could ride a camel Caravan and disappear into into the midst uh there was no border there was nothing there at all no fence nothing and then we finally we drove in got into the country uh got a Visa there at the border drove to Kandahar Kandahar we drove to up to up to Kabul and as we approached Kabul I found myself saying myself saying this is shankara law why did I say that where did it come from I have no idea we stayed there as long as we could we read about no more than a month we ran out of money um I sold the car in the kyber pass for the romance of it all but my brother on a on a bus you could there were these hippie buses that would with the money I had uh made in selling the car and he made his way back ultimately home a an American school teacher who I met there gave me enough money and I it was cheap the cheapest way back was to fly from Kabul to to Moscow back to Paris and where I still had left my things I had a 12 full-length wolf coat that I bought in the Bazaar in in Kabul and um never forgot Afghanistan I went to work I got my first job very serious young man now as an aide to the senator from Junior senator from Washington State Senator Henry Jackson and 74-77 and then I uh I I left because I didn't like politics I didn't I was I felt that it would corrupt me I still this part of my religious upbringing felt it I helped my brother get a summer job and I felt I was cheating in some way I was using my position to to help him get a job I didn't feel that that was right and so we I I got I I wrote I because of my athletic background and the rise of jogging at that at that time a friend of I friend of mine and I actually started with his girlfriend came up with the idea of writing a book on running and Athletics and Recreation in Europe for tourists and so we wrote a book uh called a runner's guide to Europe and didn't make any money but it uh it was my entry into I used Athletics Sports this is my entry into the world of Journalism I was at a par I was still living in Washington DC at the time I went to a party and a man said there's a program there was a newspaper strike in in New York there's a program called special edition they're looking for people uh why don't you do that and I oh so this is what I'm going to do next this has come to me it was sort of God was coming to me providing this opportunity for me and I went up there and I became a commentator a sports political commentator using my background in Washington as well as my athletic as well as my athletic background and then in 1979 I was watching television I saw the Soviet tanks um intercable and I was I was at home and with my parents in Vancouver and I said I have to return I've got to go just there was no question about it and at that time nobody had gone from from uh from the U.S a Dutch freelance journalist had written articles that the Washington Post reported and put on the front page and that that instilled the desire even more for me to go and I went to the I went to The Washington Post they said one woman said how do I know because I worked for the center you don't work for the CIA and I said where did that come from and I called I made 12 phone calls to the New York Times final phone call I said tired of me calling come on up and I went and I sat in this room with a foreign editor and the deputy foreign editor and we talked and then the second day we talked some more and he said I made a lot of charlatans in this business how do I know that we can trust you and they knew about my athletic background because my name had been in the paper there and I said all I know about and I quoted Camus who said oh who played soccer as a boy in Algiers uh and I said all I know about quoting him all I know about uh ethics I know from Sports um you can't cheat and that's what made them decide we're going to go with this fellow and so what the foreign editor the deputy foreign editor did was that night he took me into a room at New York Times and he gave me an envelope and in that envelope was 500 to check for 500 and a small letter that said that I would be doing research in New York New York Times letterhead I'm going to do research uh in South Asia and he said you can take this five hundred dollars have the best night of your life in New York you can apply to a plane ticket to Afghanistan and you uh and you can go to Pakistan and you can look across the border and decide not to go you can do whatever you want the money is yours and that's all I needed they trusted me I I got I took my old army coat which was not a smart thing to do I learned later my fatigue jacket I got a pair of uh and I a few other bits of clothes that I thought would be necessary none of which were and never didn't use anything that was American and I flew to flew to Karachi flew to Paris and then from there to Karachi and then up to Islamabad where I met the New York Times correspondent who took me to dinner or it was lunch actually at a British Hill station in in the uh north of north of Islamabad after which we came outside and he looked West towards Afghanistan all we could see was was mountains and trees and he said there lies deep as dark as Afghanistan don't worry about the story it will come to you and I felt myself sigh a bit I didn't realize that I was scared that I was nervous then I made my way to up to Peshawar which is the old um to a hotel or motel hotel called there was once one one story only uh called Dean's an old British hotel which I had been told was that was the place I needed to stay and I found a driver named munchie and me and he took me to what was then the seven major political religious parties the Pakistan allowed in Pakistan's control of Afghanistan Pakistan allowed to exist and what I'm getting at here and I don't want to make this too political is that uh Pakistan very close Ally the United States since 1954 in the Cold War had its own agenda which it still has today to try and because it cannot move East against uh against against or cannot move west against um against or excuse me East against um um India wants to recreate the Mughal Empire and therefore and control Soviet what was then Soviet Central Asia using the mujahideen which means holy Warriors are allies at the same time the United States in order to pay back and this has all been documented pay back the Soviet Union for providing arms to the North Vietnamese we wanted to draw them into Afghanistan to create for them their own Vietnam uh I knew none of this when I first went there all I knew was that I wanted to go on this what will today call an adventure I didn't consider that Adventure uh I didn't use that word it was just that I had to do this and so I went from one group to another uh with munchie and one said come come with us we'll take you up it was North I said well how long does it take to get to get to your base you said a month and I said no that's too long and I finally went to I was about the sixth uh mujahideen party I met with I went into this it's all Adobe or uh houses and Adobe walls and went inside this man bearded man bandolier pistol sitting on the floor drinking a glass of green tea and I said to myself this is the man my instinct said this is the man I want to go with and what he was his name is became very close to Osama Bin Laden many years later and he Bin Laden when he after 9 11 before he went up to what's called torabora in the mountains he stayed with yunus I didn't know the world that I was about to enter and the man a man with him said to me in English what would you like to do and I said I want to live with the mujahideen I just knew instinctively that this was the right place and later I realized that he reminded me of some of the in the way of the world in which I grew up in very religious but there was also a rifle present it was not unlike you know people that I grew up around my father was didn't have a beard or anything like that and this uh made me to put a mildly very comfortable I felt almost everything's going to be fine they took me the next day they took me a man came and knocked on the door he took me to the bazaar had me fitted out in Afghan clothes a turban sandals went back to the hotel the next day a man came knocked on the door got put me in a car four men in the car we drove through traffic stops in the middle of traffic in the shower those two men get out two men from nowhere I saw got in the car it was the beginning of my life with a very dark intriguing no way that an outsider can understand world of then the mujahideen today the Taliban we from there we crossed into what are called the tribal areas of Afghanistan the size of Connecticut the headquarters many years later of Al Qaeda and the Taliban then the headquarters of the mujahideen we made our way into a place called Miriam Shah that afternoon we stopped and they they they said you're on your own in effect took me into a into a to a compound a an adobe compound and then they put me on the on the floor in a small in a small shed and in this shed were stacks of pine boxes with black letterings talking the type of ammunition and the type of weapon that was inside this is when the U.S the CIA had already begun to supply them with arms our allies our proxy army in Afghanistan three days later uh and I lived on gritty rice and and and tea in that in that very fly and mosquito infested Place shed two three days later A boy came took me drove a Toyota pickup about half a mile up into the mountain got out uh I ate gritty rice with the family and then we began to hike up into the mountains and Men told me to take off my shoes uh now the testing begins take off my shoes I was making too much noise and we and by the time we reached a tent with a group of mojad Deen in it and my feet were bloody uh and I slept for a few hours and then we made the next by Dawn the next morning we made our way up by a series of guides into Afghanistan and I remember climbing high and saying this is just like National Geographic is how naive I was the next day I came down into a down into a valley passing we passed a Soviet base with my uh Mi 24 helicopter gunships I didn't know what they were at the time beyond the fact that they were they were giant helicopters and stayed with a man named jalalandi nakani and his 17 other men I lived with them for a month they we lived on gritty rice and tea they made sure that I ate before they did they treated me like a king and at that time there was no such thing as a telephone no such thing as electricity no roads no cars no way the outside world if anything happened to you they put you on a camel it took three days to Pakistan from there after living with them I made my way South living with the with the with the the mujahideen in Kandahar a serious firefight more than one one in particular made my way by a camel with a rifle through out from Afghanistan to to Pakistan came back to the New York Times and my first article that ever wrote was on the front page and I was totally consumed by the world of Afghanistan and I continued in that vein for the next five years then um and went on through my life but then I'm living in New York City then I was no longer working for anybody else I was trying to be I was trying to become a writer I was working for a private investigation firm on Wall Street on 9 11 I got up in the morning and I was working on a on a book that I based on actually a National Geographic story that I had a project assignment that I had and I got I noticed as we approached Fulton Street and Subway stopped that it became the trains that went very very slowly and then we I got to well the Wall Street Station we walked up onto the street and was quiet it was empty I said Somebody's either there's either an accident or someone's going to jump and I walked to the corner and I saw the Flames across Rippling across the World Trade Center I went up to a cop and I said you know this policeman I said uh what happened and he told me we've got everything under control and I walked over to over to the World Trade Center and I looked straight up and I said there was a woman with black hair dark black hair coming down and I said that and she's looking at it when I said those windows don't open they don't have anything under control and then just in front of me the wielding the building came crumbling down like a deck of cards everybody screamed I ran like everybody else eventually eventually that night I that afternoon we came home and that after that evening I went out to go across the street to a store on a woman who in my building works with CBS said Afghanistan not Hello not how are you just Afghanistan and for the first time I thought oh Afghanistan my small country it All Began there I didn't think of anything except the tragedy by then of course I knew about Bin Laden I knew about the rise of the Taliban so the next days a uh CBS hired me three days later and WABC television hired me and I was but three months later they needed somebody for Afghanistan I went and unlike every other journalist there I was not that interested I was interested in the war but I was more interested in finding the men I knew from the 1980s all those the majidine and and I and I I felt that I hadn't my relationship with them was so deep and I trusted them so much and they were so good to me that it was something deep inside of me that I couldn't leave it and what became and then so then um I had a um I had my own work to do and then I had a things I had to write and then as I was finishing one I got a call or an email that type that any writer wants from the editor of times the New York Times books and he asked me to come back to New York which I did we had breakfast in a in a diner and he said it's clear the CIA does not know where Osama Bin Laden is hiding we all know that the tribal areas of Afghanistan of Pakistan size of Connecticut headquarters of the mujadin during the 1980s is where Al Qaeda has its headquarters with the Taliban have their headquarters no one knows that place it's like a blank space on the map can you go there that's what I wanted I could hardly wait and so I began I I wanted to find the econis if I could find the econis with whom I'd lived in the 1980s I knew I could find Bin Laden and the reason I knew I could find Bin Laden is and I would never have said anything like this to anybody back in that in that time and even now it sounds it sounds a bit pretentious but one time after I was there for about two weeks at a Egyptian Army Major came and lived with us he hated me because I was American but I noticed how much power he seemed to have over over jalaladine accounting the leader of our small band a small band of mujahideen there and he allowed him even to use it is demand that the Egyptians demand a sam7 anti-aircraft missile we only had three precious missiles then and we tried to shoot down a Soviet helicopter missed and also now the Russians know where we are and but there was something about the tie between the Arabs and the and Angela Dean that I knew then instinctively but couldn't had no way of knowing there was anything more than that that this is somehow this war and Joel Dean and the muja Deen are part of something larger than Afghanistan I didn't know that that man was the beginning of Al Qaeda and only many many years did I realize that and this is one reason why I knew or sensed and felt and I still do and actually events have borne me out that that this is truly I was not wrong that um if I could get to July Dean to the economies I could find out about Bin Laden um feeling because of the tide that I had with them and so ultimately this I lived I went also during this time I had a desire to and I still do and I'm working on this right now um is to oh boy I don't know how much I hope you're gonna edit this um I was watching I was it was 2006. I was watching I was sitting in the CBS Newsroom and I was reading the New York Times and there was an interview with Pat Tillman's father the NFL football star who was who had joined the US Army and became a a a an icon for so many people in America and I said there's something about this death that doesn't add up I've been in the Army I have an athletic background I'm from the West I grew up in a relatively small town like not like San Jose but it was from the lesson I've I'd seen him on television I felt a certain kinship to him because he had said he didn't feel that he had lived up to or he wasn't equal to his ancestors who had fought in Wars neither did I who did not have to fight in Vietnam feel that I was equal to my ancestors particularly my father who had done so much in the Marine Corps in the Pacific in World War II and so I went to everybody at CBS and he said it's a great idea Jerry but no it's too expensive we don't have the money and it's too dangerous but on my own I used my own money I went went back to Afghanistan and I with through my contacts went to the canyon twice or been where Tillman was killed and I had held on to that and to find out from that side what really happened to him and why and it was that trip my first time wearing Afghan clothes growing a beard going back up into the mountains of Afghanistan that I said I want to do this again I want to live up here I want to in some ways as I suppose return to the to the the adrenaline I felt the closest I felt my belief in in my respect for these men who had nothing but treated me so well and to me there was really no distinction between the Africa between the mujahideen and the Taliban I found out later about where I was wrong but at that time I didn't so I returned to the mountains uh Li dressed as an afghan living for seven months off and on up in the mountains meeting with the Taliban taking risks going ever ever deeper into that world and I remember clearly one time near not far from Tora Bora going up there with a drone overhead and I said how am I going to survive this but the Taliban knew that the Drone was that drone was over there we could hear it suddenly they have a lot at that time that one had a lot an engine that sounded like a lawnmower but to this day I think the reason they didn't do anything is because they saw my pen and they saw the notebook that I had I was dressed like an Afghan my beard was long I was living the world in the world that I had come to enjoy and feel so much a part of where I felt so alive in the 1980s um finally the my my guides said that we're we finally have arranged it we can find and I've skipped over a hundred things on how we arranged all this but we decided they're going to take me deeper into the tribal areas where I would find the economies and we arranged this trip Taliban I remember the day before the evening before I got a call from my fixer saying the Taliban guide is crossing the border from Pakistan we're on he didn't say we're on but in effect we are going I remember clearly I was I had gone to a mosque and attended a prayer service to see most importantly is can I blend in well people not I'm not Muslim no not at all and I was in some ways it's I suppose sacrilegious uh but I didn't feel that and I don't truly believe that I was being I had to find a way to blend in entirely and could I pass praying that I know how to do this then I took one final walk through the bazaar um can I pass can I buy I knew how to my language was was not good but I know enough or knew enough at the time how to buy it two oranges and pay for that and walk on and use that in X number of sentences once I started with a paragraph I can't do anything and then I felt it was time to go and something deep in this the first time I'd ever felt in my life this pit in my stomach telling me what you're about to do is very dangerous I made my way back to the to the guest house an Afghan guest house where we were staying the Talib Taliban by the way is the plural Talib means Seeker it means student in Persian in in Pashto a Talib is a is a religious student he is also someone a Seeker seeking God seeking spiritual enlightenment and Taliban of course is therefore the plural and so this Taliban come across he was waiting and he was in our in our room and that night I got a phone call from a member of an Afghan Member of Parliament who was part who I had used as an intermediary to arrange part of this trip um and he said and he told me that there was a Pakistani army officer who had been kidnapped by the Taliban there are too many soldiers in the area it was too dangerous for me to go what he was saying was that um would I have what has happened is this it's become far more dangerous than what I thought it would be when I arranged for you to go on this trip in the first place that's that's was in essence what he was saying but he couldn't say it on the phone because the phone would be tapped and so then for the first time I remember saying trust your instincts always trust your instincts Jerry and for the first time I ignored them I said I have to do this I have to go and the next morning we had breakfast in this in this in this guest house and my fixers the man who I'd arranged to be my intermediary uh we had the Taliban guide and my fix's father came and I gave him all my everything I had my passport because I could not in any way wear western clothes I now had to be deep into Afghanistan I had to pass like I felt I was able to pass in the 1980s yeah we CR we drove we got close to the Border we drove from the hotel close to the Border went on a dirt road Dirt Road ended and my fixer said to me give give gas money to our driver I went close to the driver you give him the money and I saw his eyes were watery and he came close to me and he did something no Afghan actually no man has ever done to me he kissed me on the cheek and he said go with God he said something else that I did not understand but I knew later what he was saying was is that I know you're going to be kidnapped I know you may not may not return you probably won't but I can't tell you and I've enjoyed it and I like you but go with God his watery eyes some would say he was and I thought this for a time was it was a Judas kiss that he was betraying me I don't believe that today I believed it for a long time I don't believe it anymore and we we left and we began to hike up into the mountains that evening it was going single file 20 meter 20 yards apart my uh lead bodyguard with a rifle clashnikov in the lead 20 yards behind him another man with a classic then me and then behind me my fixer who was overweight and always 20 30 40 yards behind and I looked up as we're going into this Valley and I saw a tinge of black move behind a rock and I knew instinctively that's not a goat that's not a black sheep and then by the time then I could I could feel the pit in my stomach I felt fear all over me and then that black tinge all of a sudden the man Rose of the black turban Mohammed wore a black turban in Taliban wear black turbans raised his rifle High 10 12 men came spread out running down this path running down there down the ridge can that kind of can I get down get down and I said I'm dead I'm dead I'm dead and I had cottonmouth and a man in the center with a with a walkie-talkie the only one who had that equipment you know technology if you will came up to me stared at me where were you where did you come from and where are you going and I tried to answer this in Pashto there's no I'm now it's if he founds out America I'm done I'm done and um I mispronounced bashawar it's called pekkoar in that dialect in the mountain there and he said you're not Afghan and they took me up up into the they grabbed me and what bothered me also is that when the rifles came down or that my bodyguards never fired their weapons and I knew something was wrong something was strange something was going on that I didn't comprehend all I knew was that I was now being led up in the mountain came on top of the ridge they put me down faced me West blindfolded me hands behind me tied my hands and I thought of and when you get blind when you're blindfolded you lose all sense of power all sense of of Independence uh or the ability to do anything you are totally at the totally of the mercy of those who have blindfolded you and I remember looking West and the weather was warm and gently there was this Breeze and I said it's like California remember that and I looked I looked and I West and I thought of my father my mother had died and my brother my sister and they put a rifle put the rifle across the coffee against my temple I could hear that and they talked and they took it away and then cocked it and I just was like a sheep waiting to be slaughtered in a in a slaughterhouse I was so it was shock just pure shock and I just waited my back straight I have to look straight ahead I can't bend down I have to look good from my family and or look at least with an essence of of self-pride about it and of course they didn't do anything they grabbed me took me down into a down the mountain put me into a car we drove I don't know where or how for how long maybe two hours gravel road dirt road gravel road dirt roads maybe we drove in circles I don't know it pulled me out on the ground went all over I mean tried to find and took some money what little money I had asked if I was Muslim uh and I had to I had two for the first time well I tried to think that I don't lie but I I responded in in Arabic a little Arabic that I know and whether that made any difference or not I don't know it back in the car and now I'm alone in the back of this car before my body got one of my bodyguards and one of my pictures was there inside even though I was blindfolded I I knew they were there because one tried to hold my hand or wrote something on my hand and then it we began to climb up a dirt and gravel road I remember the car couldn't make it uh it finally got going and I know they're going to take me up to a Mountaintop and they're going to kill me they're going to behead me and what happens is when you become when you become kidnapped and you're blindfolded in Afghanistan will no longer I'm somewhere in Pakistan is that everything all of a sudden has changed it's primal everything is Primal it's about how am I going to not I know I'm going to die I know they're going to kill me I know they're going to behead me and there's you just accept it there's nothing I can do I just have to do this with a certain amount of dignity how can I withstand and this is what I've learned more as much as anything if not more is is how long will the pain be how long will it last before I'm dead that's what you worry about and we kept climbing and climbing and then we came to a place and I heard the dogs bark and they took me out of the of the car put my hand against the wall and could feel the Adobe the dirt and baked mud wall and dog sparking and into a room and um they took off my off my my blindfold and I was happy for about 30 seconds because I saw my two bodyguards and my fixer there I wasn't alone and I looked at the wall and I looked for blood on the wall and there was a cut a rope cut that's four of them in the room stake in the ground with chains in it and I said I am deep somewhere deep in the mountains of Pakistan in a Taliban prison and no one can find me and the man came up to me and he asked who was your father and what is your father's name that is deep deep Afghanistan that means that the only thing that what matters most the most important question in Afghanistan is who is your grandfather it is a tribal culture it is a world where you are judged by your family in the family being part of the tribe a central government a sense of democracy as we know it here in the west that's all totally irrelevant it's irrelevant this is very ancient tribal Mountain Afghanistan but I was deep into Pakistan now somewhere deep into Pakistan the pashtunes the largest ethnic group in Afghanistan there are more pashtoons in Pakistan across the border than in Afghanistan the Border was drawn by the British when they ruled there and and made it two countries in 1947 when the British finally left and I realized that I could not keep this charade going anymore and I had said I was my real name is this and I waited for again for them to kill me the um where it became hard truly hard uh the first time was about three days three days later it was midnight it was late at night it's late I have no idea what the exact time was we were allowed out about five minutes if that three to five minutes at night makeshift toilet and I I that each man went outside they took my bodyguards out and they took the fixer out and then they came back and then they came to me and they faced me toward every and then by now they're about 20 men in this room and the Taliban leader took my camera they are they taking everything I had I had a small small film camera with me they took everything when they got me and he said how do I turn this on he thrusted at me and I knew what was coming and I said oh you're about to film me and you want me to help you fill my own execution now they had a group of men behind me with their rifles and the hardest thing to do when you think of those hostages the American hostages they were murdered by ISIS it's so much courage it took me forever it seemed for me to lift my back up I I had my back I had facing the facing the floor spent over because I did not I just didn't want to I didn't want to I don't even say it I didn't want to sit up straight with my back straight my mother when I was a boy always told me step straight I did I couldn't do that because by sitting up straight now my my neck is exposed and and be over there one time there's a there was small they had these a small little chair a guy sat on maybe six inches eight inches off the ground chewing on a piece of wheat and with a Kalashnikov and his on his in his lap and I said to myself ask myself how do you want to die you want to die by a clash in the cuff spraying bullets across your chest or do you want to be beheaded whatever comes first that's what I want it's the alleviation of pain um years later I met in New York with a fellow named Terry White who was sent by the Archbishop of Canterbury to Lebanon to Beirut to try and negotiate the release of hostages there he was in prison he kept him in captivity for four years some of that was in solitary confinement we met and had coffee in New York and what he wanted to talk about more than anything else mock executions that was what that bothered him that hurt him that stuck with him all those years that that's what he wanted to talk about and it took me a very long time before because they did it twice the Taliban went through this charade and then they stopped and went back outside they came in a second time and this time I was wearing this small Afghan hat it's like looks like a pancake hat you see it on television it took it off exposed my head they took they took the clash in the cough which is come which is cut at an angle it's not like a rifle in America with it or or a pistol it's kind of at an angle and they pushed it not too hard but they pushed it enough into my temple The Man Behind took out the knife that long the like that they use it to slaughter Buffalo Water Buffalo or sheep and um I lifted my arm up and that and then he stopped they didn't do anything else came down but I realized at that moment that that that night was the worst night of my life it's also the best night one of the best nights maybe the best night of my life and what I'm saying is is that I had the courage to look my killer in the eye because the man looked at me and he kept staring at me and I knew I was willing to fight my father would not be ashamed my family would not be ashamed finally at this time I kept my back straight and I said it's just you and me I looked at the Taliban Commander go ahead let's go what I was saying was if you're going to kill me I'm going to fight what I got from that was [Applause] oh my God they had the courage to face my killer I wasn't a coward I'd gone to Afghanistan I think because I hadn't been in the military and fought in the War measure up to my father to be a man the Taliban gave me that they frightened me to death but I had the courage ultimately I found face my killer my back was straight I was able to say goodbye to my mother my mother was already gone to my father to my brother and my sister I remember they put their rifles away they left I stumbled over to my God put my head down on us I cried for about two seconds and I couldn't cry in front of them I couldn't be a coward then I don't know when two weeks maybe later um they came in one night and they said or when late one day it was nice toward dusk and they said well there were two things happened one a man said to me we can do anything we want to you here and no one can find you and then they said we want we're going to ask for 1.5 million dollars and three men from Guantanamo and then a man said to me and he called me a monkey behind my back I didn't understand that word of course and I said to myself I'm gonna I may have survived that but I'm in a very very dangerous one situation here were your parents were your was your family aware no one knew no one knew well at that time what I had no idea of was that they had begun when they when they said that we're asking 1.5 million and three men from Guantanamo what they were asked what they had begun to do was negotiate and that friends of mine people men I knew who worked with CBS afghans knew everybody a lot of people and by now people the journalist community in Kabul uh at within days Jerry's disappeared he's gone and things had started to move I knew nothing of this all that was going on on the outside didn't have a clue I knew everything that was going on I think I knew everything was happening in that cell but I had no idea what was happening on the outside so they had begun to negotiate and what I thought I had to do was find 1.5 million dollars to pay the ransom to get out of there to survive and I was and so what I had done under tremendous under pressure was give my phone give the phone number of my family to them because I knew I was going to have to take money from my brother and my sister from my father take money away from my brother and sister's children's college education to pay for my to pay for my release so all of this not all of a sudden but now I'm causing trouble to my own family which made me feel anything but strong that and they wanted to even bring in my fixer's father this was all a charade this part as as the collateral in a bank you can put up something else when this case you put up a human being and so while this negotiation was going on they were trying to use me to do to get money what I could but the problem is that they use that phone number and they called my family frightening frightening them there that my brother's wife gets a phone call or my sister gets a phone call from the Taliban at the same time the state department uh and the FBI had begun to contact my family and they haven't they have a system they put in play the FBI not the CIA is in charge of American kidnappings around the world uh this goes back to in the 1930s or I forget exactly when it was when the um uh the Char the it was a kidnapping went from they transferred a kidnapping case from uh the boy was kidnapped um the Lindbergh boy Lindbergh child was kidnapped in New York or in New Jersey and whoever kidnapped him took him across the board across the state lines into New York there by giving Hoover an opportunity to use the FBI expand the FBI's control from just it became a federal case and they expanded that to include now the whole the whole world it's not the CIA although they played a role in my case and they play a role I'm sure in others but it's the FBI in charge and so those two entities were in contact with my family and CBS was operating in its in the foreign editor was doing everything she could so all of this was going on that I knew nothing but what became difficult where everything changed again was that one day the the my main Jailer came in and he said that one of their Commander's Sons I think it was a son not a daughter I needed a new kidney and they wanted to take mine or maybe they would take the main vein and I don't know what it's called them in vain that goes from you're going down to your to your foot and I said no yeah I'm not going to allow a man to come in here with a syringe tie me down uh knock me out do something and kept me take my kidney and so no that's not going to happen because every time the door opened when they brought food in for us I would look outside which way is west which way are the men praying uh which way is which way is Mecca which way would I go if I have to run towards Pakistan or run towards Afghanistan how do I get out of here that's what you're trying to do your whole life is spent trying to maintain this tie to your Jailer and the men around you at the same time stay alive and figure out how do I escape I got to get out of here that's that's what is a it's a constant and so I said I'm leaving I if I'm not I'm not this is not good no this is not going to happen and I Pace the room like a tiger in a cage that you see in a zoo back and forth back and forth Gotta Go Gotta Go that night a man one of my bodyguards who said it was on the other other side of the room stayed about 10 minutes outside maybe in 15 minutes outside when it was time to go to the bathroom toilet which was simply a place on the ground that they had for us and then the next time then the Jailer came in and he came up to me about six inches from my face if you try to do anything like Escape I will come at you like a dog at that moment I knew that I had been betrayed that I nobody I could not trust anybody in that room and it went from being a primal experience to reptilian and for the first time I wanted to kill somebody I wanted to harm somebody badly I lay in that cot at night and I'd look across at My Bodyguard and all I saw was blood all over him I have never had that feeling in my life so you become a very completely different person totally come cut off from what we'll call Society if you will um it's all Beyond Primal it's reptilian and at the same time you have to at the same time you have to you find yourself this is a very delicate thing especially in our in our in Western culture is and people have said this to me a lot it's called Stockholm syndrome that our Jailer would go away sometimes go away for two days three days once he came in and grabbed a ammunition that we in the corner there in a box of ammunition and he was he walked out with that um that I wanted when he came back I felt better because he was good to me he brought food to me he was I had become somehow trusted I trusted him in a way there's no way I should trust him but I did trust him so it's it's what happens to the human psychic it happens to people who are totally dependent upon somebody for food and for security and the weight the only way I could live and it was so important is to acknowledge that deal with that without betraying yourself without giving anything away without showing weakness without betraying anybody else and it was it's it's a double-edged sword but it's something that I was able to negotiate um ultimately um one day it was that night the night before the Jailer was very relaxed and he left the door open even for a while and he was there but the door was open um and the next the next day he came in and he with a woman's chadri the women where you see photos of Afghan women in the streets he brought that in and threw it on the threw it on the on caught put it on so I put it on and I knew we were going and they took me downstairs I didn't know outside and downstairs I didn't know I was on the top of of a house there were people living in the in the room below us and out to a car I could feel a lot of people around me so they disguised you as a woman I was a woman I was disguised as a woman which in Afghanistan are fully covered fully covered I was completely covered uh so they they have a chance of getting you out of there without very good point because no one no one has realized what you just said no one is really honed in on that uh and all the times I've had to tell the story in various ways it's exactly right and they had to find a way to get me out of that crowd out of that Village wherever we were I have no idea where we were um only that and this is important later on only that I knew that there was a drone overhead so somehow the United States knew was it knew where we were in what area we were somehow they had figured this out as only only about a month ago maybe six weeks now that I learned how they did learned what how that transpired in a bit um and so the as we began to drive I heard this two things here one one day this is political but this is important uh one small thing is that not small but important is that one day my Jailer said the political agent he mentioned the words political agent I'll come back to that in a minute uh a political agent well a bit a political agent is something created by the British that controls each tribal area I was in the tribal areas when you think of a tribal area think of like the Navajo reservation or the any other uh Indian Reservation or in America only far larger this is the way that the British tried to control that region at the time when they were there um today the tribal the the political agent uh reports directly to the prime minister of Pakistan I remember when I was we're going the car started to move I'm dressed as a woman uh they're people all around I can hear people all around us I'm blindfolded of course I'm blindfolded and I have the chaudrey over me it's hot and I hear a horn very small a horn beep like there's somebody else behind us there's another car here somewhere or maybe that was our car um and I tried to I tried to roll the window down and stick my head out and he thought I was trying to escape and he pulled this and he he cocked his rifle and uh I didn't realize then how close I was he made it very clear that he had chambered a bullet in the whether he was trying to show off or not Taliban guys don't show off they don't have to uh that he had said he'd chambered chambered a bullet that they were under as much pressure as not as much as I was but they were what they were doing was maybe back by somebody else and I do believe that it got out of control and that they were they were in control they were in control of me but what they were doing was if anybody found out then they would be in trouble um otherwise why worry so much about my being discovered by some villager so um I we finally we finally um made the same I don't know where we went I have no idea uh but then we we got to uh this field and they and they took my I they took off my Chaudhary and I looked at the Sun and for the first time in in since I was kidnapped I saw the sun how many weeks has it been six and a half weeks and um then we began to hike up into a hill and we going and they stopped and I saw a man looking at a at a going through something on the ground and I said oh that's a suicide that's that's a suicide bombers gear they're going to put that on me they're gonna they're gonna send me out as a suicide bomber they said that one thing that I had to do and I didn't discuss this I had to listen for hours and hours and hours to Taliban suicide tapes and they talked about training me to be a suicide bomber to go against the Pentagon and they wanted to in addition of course to survive if I wanted to get out of there I had to convert to Islam so I was playing a very delicate game of praying but not praying and going through the motions but but I certainly couldn't mock them and there was on one hand and this goes back to my childhood there was a certain comfort in that in that as it was comfort with what I was with the economist before his very violent men it's a world of rifles and death and War at the same time it's a world of religion and the hardship involved was something that is instilled in to me as a boy to be tough to be out in the to be able to you know one match the light of fire um and to learn how to ride a horse as a boy uh was something my father instilled with me that in certain ways manifested itself or became um without my knowing it made me comfortable with the mujahideen and eventually with the Taliban the difference between the muja Deen and Taliban is once a Soviet helicopter came over us when I was with the mujahideen and we were in the part of our compound that was filled with ammunition there were all these pine boxes with them in English of the weapons and the type of ammunition by then that the CIA was supplying to the econis and the helicopter was right on top of us just hovering above us all he had to do was drop one bomb and the whole Valley would have blown up uh and the man in front of me against the wall was shivering in fear the Taliban even with a drone overhead walked in and out of my cell with no fear that the sense of martyrdom the sense of dying was so much greater and easier for the Taliban in the mujahideen I attribute that to The Exchange in Afghanistan when I first went to Afghanistan in 1973 there was a discotheque in the street in in Kabul there were 11 movie theaters or outdoor cafes Afghanistan was not a not a radical environment at all there were six thousand hippies in Kabul in the 19 in the 1970s when I was there it look at academic research they introduced if he's introduced Afghans to the drug trafficking World International drug trafficking markets uh there were uh the world of I could I remember once hearing the real music and called a prayer the Rolling Stone I could hear The Rolling Stones mixed with a Jefferson Airplane next to the evening called a prayer the Taliban are the result of the arabization of Afghanistan I want to get political here what that means is that the U.S and its l by Saudi Arabia with Pakistan in order to fight the Soviet Union be brought in so many in the 911 Commission only dealt with this somewhat brought in thousands of Afghan of Arabs out of which came Al Qaeda and from which we get Isis today and so it made it it's made Afghanistan a much more conservative violent world than it was when I went there as a boy which made it so romantic which is why there were so many hippies there why it was so appealing you see these long camel Caravans come through the streets silent in the afternoon sun it was with these women in bare feet and unveiled by the way the Taliban never got any Nomad any Nomad woman ever to take off for Veil don't think for a minute that Afghan women are simply used by men and have no power whatsoever very very strong people especially the nomads which is who still exists um which is part of the romance of Afghanistan so the the as when I saw that suicide I thought there was a suicide bomber there who was preparing to either blow himself up or attach it to me and I envisioned myself uh having that strap to me and they were forcing me when we were going to come to the place where I envisioned my sister uh carrying a carrying a briefcase with 1.5 million dollars in it because I had no idea what happened on you no idea that that we're going to come to exchange and then on one area the a boy would be going through where my sister was with other Americans and such waiting for me a little boy would blow himself up and at the same time I envisioned Apache helicopters coming in of course none of that transpired we the man was I don't to this day I don't know what he was doing but I thought it was a suicide bomb we we began to hike and we hiked for hours and hours and hours and and I remember being about 30 yards behind the Taliban leader and I said all I have to do is run up to him I didn't have much energy but I was so this is how you think grab his rifle I can shoot him uh of course that never happened we finally and finally after that night we find they finally stopped they said I leaned over I could hardly walk we know where your family is we know uh how to reach your family we have your phone number um we're going to be watching you now go and we kept walking and by then it was late at night and I fell down a few times in a in the dirt and we kept walking and then after a while uh I don't know if it's cigarette lighters or what small what kind of lights they have but all of a sudden uh one of my guides had a a light went on and we could see these lights coming toward us and Men came up and they hugged me just gently and to this day I'm almost positive they were not completely Taliban they had too much Weaponry on them they were not just one rifle they were because I could just feel all this pistol and whatever else they were carrying meaning this was not simply a Taliban operation um these things do not happen in a vacuum um that's all I can say about that but finally we we crossed we came to a river we crossed a river on a boat truck a pickup truck took me uh picked me up from there we drove on for 20 minutes or so we came to another area near Another River and we waited and then a man went down to the river and flipped a light on the other side another light came and came on and it what was a Toyota pickup I didn't know it at the time what it was came down blinked his lights stopped at the stopped at the water's edge and a [Music] Ferry you know hand and rope Ferry no electricity no no no no gasoline no nothing remotely modern just came Acro a barge came across with a rope pulley and they put me on the they put me on the ferry with some of the Taliban my bodyguards we crossed the river and my bodyguards took their hand one of them took their hands and on my beard which is a sign of is pleading with me don't betray me don't turn me in we're saving you we haven't heard harmed you don't tell the Americans where we are that's what he was saying by by pulling on my beard and we uh got to the other side they could not cross they could not that was Afghanistan my fixer and I got off got in to the pickup we went for maybe a half hour stopped again I saw a man holding a lantern like that like a like a they doing a railroad um here in the U.S and I thought oh no the Taliban again and I I how am I gonna I can't look like an American how do I handle this and then we waited there in a SUV an SUV came out and it was the tribal leader from that area and everything is tribal and the tribal Chief was the one who was in charge it was a tribal Chief who my friends had all the people who were looking for me had worked with and it was he who drove me and then so he came out and behind him was another SUV with rifles out the window on both sides probably half a dozen men at least in there all armed my bodyguards now and they drove me for maybe an hour and we came to jalalabad in Afghanistan came about 50 yards from the U.S base the tribal Chief got out of the car and walked away and they drove me into the base and the driver inexplicably knew exactly what Afghan knew exactly where to go to clean around and into this place where they had a Cyclone Fence set up with a with a house or a sheet metal type of corrugated metal house building took me in there closed the thing off and two three uh Americans guys grab me took me out and carried me or picked me up and brought me into a room and there I was there were a guy with long hair pistol on his side and so where do you want to go you want to go to Kabul or you want to go to Bagram which is the air base I had no idea one meant the Army one went the FBI they they checked me for my health and gave me some food I didn't I wasn't the least bit hungry and then I had no idea so I just said Kabul because that would be closer and we the next day uh and then the FBI they took me to the FBI and they took over from there they had a plane waiting a special forces guy was with us very good man even he and his wife sent me a send me a note a few months later um and I took me to this and then drove into the embassy where uh found a place for me to sleep but I was not the least bit tired and then I the Ambassador and and other officials were there and then they had me uh talk to the CIA and and then um put me on a plane and the FBI brought me back to America to New York and that was in JFK the as we um walking down the walking down the the through the hallway empty never seen empty never seen everything Customs before just the police the FBI and me into the Customs where they stamp your passport and everybody turned and looked at this man with long hair and long beard skinny as a rail holding his pants up who in the world is that and it was me and the guy stopped smiling he said here then we have to stamp your passport took me off and then we walked off the uh through customs into a room big table all these FBI guys there and put his hand on my shoulder and welcome home Jerry welcome home you're safe you're safe I said can they get me here and he said no man across the table said but check your phone when you go home the talibanum called you we want to know what we'd like to know what they said I said they followed me back here uh no cameras no television cameras at all I'm the foreign minister for foreign editor at CBS came and she brought me back to my apartment and I not married and there was a that night I saw the Taliban on the wall and I woke up saw the Taliban the next day and when I went for running Central Park and along the way um I got a call from some people who are responsible and one was an MI6 agent British intelligence and an Afghan said to me or a CBS bureau chief in London said Jerry the FBI didn't do anything it was he gave me this man's name saved your life I would have gone to Perth or to Johannesburg the farthest place on the planet to find this man he came to Washington he took me we had dinner and we went to a house we were staying and we talked and he said we did everything possible to to prevent a second Daniel Pearl I was the next person kidnapped in Pakistan next journalist kidnapped in Pakistan after Daniel Pearl Daniel Pearl was slaughtered when I was facing the camera and the Taliban were trying to and the Taliban put the rifles to my temple I thought of Daniel Pearl and um so what happened was that um eventually and then he said you have no idea what the Ripple effects will be and he's been working this this MI6 British MI6 agent like CIA [Music] couldn't have he was absolutely right you can divide a kidnapping up into two parts everything happens inside and everything that happens afterwards uh and they're almost equal um and a kidnapping never goes away and so one day um I was giving a talk in New York for a group of journalists and the man who introduced me used that phrase he said how can I introduce you I can say the thing about Daniel Pearl and then he a fellow came up to me with his girlfriend now his wife and he had a British accent and he said do you think he would have survived if you were Jewish but I've taken aback by that and then I realized later um that my fixer asked if I ate pork and my Jailer later asked me the same thing Daniel Pearl was massacred by Al Qaeda and I was I was I was released and why was I released I still haven't figured everything out spent I've written a book on why I went back in 2017 to figure out who really kidnapped me and why because when they ask about the political agent and not one American has ever asked me about about the political agent but I made a trip to walk to London to and I talked to the British police and the only about Scotland Yard people about kidnappings and that they said we're not going to tell you anything but they asked me what did the political agent say the only people who've ever asked me about the political agent not one person in America even seemed to know about the political agent who support who goes directly to the Pakistani government so uh a kidnapping is not in my case was not as simple asking for money in exchange it was far more political than that and I still haven't resolved it everything that happened but I do spend a great deal of my life now involved with Afghanistan with dealing with kidnapping cases and missing Americans part of the missionary in me I suppose and the one who feels unobligated that my father wanted me to be and the Mission I feel that desire I feel the necessity the obligation because I survived to help others out there because there are missing Americans there are hostages in Afghanistan today I'm positive of that even though you don't read about it and um it gives me a one thing's purpose in life how have you changed from all of this how's it affected you today right here with you I trust you the question I worry about I talk about Pakistan um dangerous thing to do about a month ago I'll come back to that about a month ago a woman I know in New York a lawyer went out with a middle 20 years ago um send me an email she said I was in Washington at a cyber security conference event meeting something probably to do with her work I don't have any idea and she said there was a woman there and she held up your book and she said this book I wrote about my kidnapping called captive I found Jerry I'm the one who who you we planted that were the drones because I figured it out so some nondescript not saying on the script so I'm very ordinary looking woman married or not lives in some suburb or not was able to with her incredible skills find where I was where I was being kept they put a drone up there as a result which changed the dynamic in the room for I was no longer completely alone at the mercy and man who said we can do what he's sitting next to me I can do whatever we want to you and no one will find you then all of a sudden a drone was up there and my picture said can the camera see inside it gave me a sense of hope and it gave me a sense and gave me power within within the Taliban that they I felt that one reason they didn't kill me I have no idea why ultimately but because she did that not about through because she was able to to do what she did with her linguistic abilities or whatever she however she was able to figure out by tracing phone calls that they were making with maybe with my people with the CBS people or my family or whatever I have no idea and then and then also about maybe two months ago three months ago now uh if you recall the U.S after the Taliban had now in power the U.S launched a drone attack and killed Iman al-sawahari the leader after Bin Laden dot was killed the leader of the Taliban and they found him in a house they traced him by drones or however the CIA did this uh owned by either one member of the economies or one or someone related to the economies this group that I lived with in 1981 um the economy the mujahideen there are 18 of them all from the same tribe the leader with jalaladin and his younger brother Ibraham was 19 at the time um five years later half of them were dead and today the economy Network as the U.S calls it and its allies is with the demise of Bin Laden and the family meaning as one of his sons is that it is in my view the most influential most powerful jihadist group in the world and Suraj Edina Khan Angel Ali and Sons military commander of the Taliban I'm in touch with him today um they're in touch with me the they are without a doubt in the center of the Taliban powerful force in the world today we killed uh the CIA the Army whomever launched that drone they killed I'm an al-sawary also launched a week later a drone or a a an attack on a man named Abdul Wali Abdullah was in charge of my kidnapping yeah I never met him thank goodness but he was The Mastermind I was told he was behind it and they killed him with a drone three months ago or shortly after they killed elsewhere brought everything back brings it back right now kidnapping doesn't it and as the MI6 agent said you have no idea what the Ripple effects will be I've never told that story publicly before and that's why I cried I think the emotion inside do you feel in some way that you ask for this because of the way you live because you're you're attraction to Adrenaline filled travel and exploration and journalism and all that kind of stuff do you feel like you brought this on yourself what happened to me or being here today no no what happened to you in Afghanistan when you were kidnapped no one's ever asked me that I bring it on my answer is the Wells up inside of me is yes I my editor second book I wrote about my going back to try and find out a kid named me and why use the word suicidal you said you were practically suicidal if not suicidal in what I was doing going with the Taliban time and time again risking everything um I had to do it I was driven by by what I don't know I didn't know I just had to do it um I have been living on that on that edge since or I've been living like that since I took that first trip um out of college which was like a religious Journey looking for the god that I knew God to not the God that I betrayed or had betrayed me I think that everything that inside of us that's their childhood does not go away um no it doesn't go away um I feel that someone said to me the other night you've devoted your life to Afghanistan I didn't like to hear that but there's there's truth in that you can feel you can control life or you can feel that you are LED I felt that I in that prison I did all I could instinctively without any background to to stay alive I don't I don't feel one bit of regret I feel I did everything and I hate to even talk this way I feel I did everything right in that prison to stay alive and to not betray myself my family or to show weakness yeah I do once I got out that's a completely different story the PTSD doctor that the FBI put on me two years of two years of nothing of which well a few things were good but it was a very very difficult time um I here it is now since 2008 so much time has passed yet as I sit here and talk to you I am thanks I'm still very deeply involved in Afghanistan and I'm still what I'm trying to do now at my age how old do you know I'm in my 70s I'm 77. you're 77. yeah uh I still run I still take time I've had heart operation um which one doctors said was a result of the stress or implied the doctor said I don't tell you exactly or maybe they don't know um yeah I've had open heart surgery I've had I still I run to the degree that I can run train um and I'm still involved very much very much in Afghanistan contact with the economies um none of which I've asked for everything has come to me it's as if it's a combination of being led or it's it's culmination being Latin because that's oh I want to do this no no I do other things but Afghanistan is still very much a part of my life and I'm taking enormous risks I do I take risk now um but I try not to be foolish I was really really really playing with fire the last time but I thought I could do it because every time the Taliban kept a word until they didn't and I feel I was betrayed by people around me and people behind them um I don't for one minute support the Taliban no not at all but I also don't I also realize that the United States and Saudi Arabia and Pakistan in our on our world in our desire America's desire to move the war against communism from from Vietnam to Afghanistan which we did after the last American Soldier was killed it was a Marine in 1973 and we with Pakistan and Saudi Arabia um began to and and we began to and this is borne out in in books written by American officials we began to use the mujahideen to lure the Soviet Union into Afghanistan to pay them back for for helping the North Vietnamese and the Viet Cong against us in Vietnam in our war against in our Crusade against communism and that in that by do and I became very much involved in that very much involved in that in the 19th after I came back I was involved with with the government who was the head of the peace talks and I created he was Far More in charge than I but they used my name and my because of my publicity in the New York Times and that's the only first person in Afghanistan um to create a what was called friends of Afghanistan it was run by the overseeing by National Security Council in the state department all in our war against communism this is during the Reagan Administration and I was involved in that and I was there I did it to help the women and children and because I was also asked very very much to by the by the mujahideen to do something to shoot down the Soviet helicopters and so I wrote an op-ed piece in the New York Times precisely doing that to asking you calling on the U.S to do that knowing full well it was going to cause more more Soviet bombers and more Soviet troops in Afghanistan but I felt an obligation to the people I became part of that part of that effort and I I wanted to move away from that and when I I left all of that and I worked for National Geographic and they sent me a far away far away places and fantastic exploration projects and I pushed it in every single one of those projects find the source of Amazon to go to the find the source of the brahmaputra in Western Tibet uh pushing everything never finding anything that's satisfied or what I felt in Afghanistan I kept looking for it I needed more I needed more it wasn't until I ended up fighting my own War in that prison with the Taliban there was a sense of of survival of accomplishment but still it goes on that I that what I'm doing today is still very and I'm taking risks today yeah I am you're going to Afghanistan in a week uh two weeks I think it's too bad I'm waiting for the phone call um and before I don't want to take us off topic but I've heard so many people Lauren uh my friend Lauren included say such wonderful things about Afghanistan oh yes oh yes there's something about Africa and soldiers will tell you this and you know American Service people uh men and women Marines uh Air Force people they'll tell you how uh there's a warmth and there's this sense of Afghans I've never seen it anywhere how welcoming they are um no other country have I ever been in uh have people invited me into their home constantly and giving they'll give you the if they don't have enough food for themselves they'll give you what they have they'll give you what they have there's a sense of of of warmth and Hospitality that is that is marvelous part of it is very much of its is part of it's called mel-mastia in in Pashto it's part of their ancient culture and it was it was the the romance of course of of camel Caravans and um as if it's the Middle Ages in some ways and the warmth and hospitality and generosity of those people that Drew so many if you will for black I'm a better word hippies to Afghanistan in the 1980s uh or in the 70s excuse me um and there's so many people who love Afghanistan it's it's almost unique in the world now it's now because of the arabization of the war it's a much more violent place it's a much more difficult place and that's why the Taliban we have a Taliban problem uh particularly as regards to girls and that's just one reason why I'm I'm going back because it's hostage work but also the yeah they become far more uh without becoming getting into too deeply into this uh wahhabism which is the very the most uh rigid radical form of Islam which comes from Saudi Arabia which until recently maybe a woman could not even drive and they had to be covered all of that which was came with Al Qaeda what became Al Qaeda is all the arabization of Afghanistan and it is has changed it completely it's completely destroyed culture and it has to I don't know how they're going to change and but that good part is still there it's it's it's the some very romantic wonderful lovely fascinating place but it shouldn't spend your life it's a what did Lawrence of Arabia say about his book it's a Yahoo existence who exists for others so I don't it's not for others you do it for yourself everything ultimately you do it because of yourself why am I going there why are you doing what you do you do it for what it gives you all that you're doing and how uh compassionate you are and how you're helping others and the joy that you have that we've talked about the happiness um yeah I grew up I remember one final thing is when I was a boy I used to take our horse a horse and I'd go down along the river one and we had to along the Columbia River and I would ride as fast as I could and I always wanted it was a part of me going up in the Northwest and came from my father um who like he said I always when you talk to an Indian a lot of Indian they're Indian tribes around us um always ask the name of this tribe they're proud of their tribe and I remember when I lived with the economies with jalala Dean in there's a part of me that wanted to be an Indian not a cowboy as a boy she's very much a part of this and I remember when it took me one day where they took me way up into the mountains to an arms cache and he and I raced horses back and I remember looking over at him this mujahideen Commander beard Turman Kalashnikov we were racing as fast as we could across the Plains and it was everything I dreamed about as a boy I wanted to be an Indian and ride with the sense of freedom that's what it gave me and I felt that with with the economies who are an extremely powerful lethal Johannes group I realized that but yeah there's a warmth there that I loved and it goes back to my childhood reading like an Indian across the plains no one has ever brought that out good job thanks Jerry what an incredible thing you've been through thank you so much for sharing your story thank you Mark I would have done it without I've done this like this without you good luck in Afghanistan maybe I'll see you there so okay you might

Channel: Soft White Underbelly

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Id: 6ScTKKk_Myo

Length: 110min 21sec (6621 seconds)

Published: Sat Jul 08 2023