Khruangbin and Lord Huron to headline Outside Festival. This spring, a quarter of a million Americans took a trip. It was noisy, hot, and violent. Accommodations were poor. Some of them didn't come back. New perk: Easily find new routes and hidden gems, upcoming running events, and more near you. Your weekly Local Running Newsletter has everything you need to lace up! I do not know the value of life. In every war zone that I find myself in, I routinely fail to establish a sensible line beyond which I will not take risks, just as I struggle to pass judgment on war itself.
When is killing justified? When is risking my life to report on killing justified? Most of what I have seen is unacceptable, but some of it is notβa nation defending itself against genocide, or a nation liberating itself from tyranny. The parameters of war are liquid, like blood.
In the days leading up to the invasion of Iraq, I saw a well-traveled friend writing in his diary. He had been keeping it for nine years, writing in it every day. I was asking these questions as I drove into Iraq on the first day of the invasion, and by the time I arrived in Baghdad, three weeks later, I had found some answers. American troops would cross into Iraq and meet surrendering soldiers and grateful civilians, and I would write a story about the happy liberation of the southern city of Basra.
The invasion began on the night of March I'd been staying with some other journalists in a house in the northern Kuwaiti desert, a few miles from the Iraqi border. Packing up that night, we could hear everythingβthe 2,pound smart bombs landing on Iraqi trenches and the waves of Apache gunships flying 50 feet overhead, eerily invisible, moving without lights. We made our last preparations for the mile drive to Basra, bolting luggage racks onto our two rented SUVs and strapping down jerry cans filled with gasoline.
We figured it would be a short trip, but in case light skirmishing delayed the city's liberation, we packed a few other prudent items: sleeping bags, cans of tuna, chocolate bars, gallons of drinking water, body armor, Kevlar helmets, biochemical suits, U.
