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Benjamin Hall on Courage Under Fire: Reporting from the War Zones · Liberty + Leadership

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hello and welcome.
• 0:01
  Speaker 1: I'm Roger Rehm, and this is the Liberty and Leadership Podcast, a conversation with T-FAS alumni, supporters, faculty and friends who are making a real impact in public policy, business, philanthropy, law and journalism.
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: Today, I'm joined by a very special guest, benjamin Hall, a correspondent for the Fox News Channel and our 2023 Kenneth Y Tomlinson award winner for courageous journalism.
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: Ben is a seasoned reporter on foreign affairs and wars, having reported from Ukraine, syria, iraq, Afghanistan, somalia and many other hot spots around the globe.
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: He's interviewed world leaders, soldiers on the battlefield and survivors of torture, imprisonment and genocide.
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: He also recently wrote Saved a war reporter's mission to make it home, which recounts the horrific missile attack that killed several of Benjamin's colleagues and began an ordeal of survival, reconstruction, healing and transformation that can only be described as well.
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: There really are no words to describe it.
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: Benjamin Hall is a hero for going where few would choose to go to provide us, the public, with the light of truth from war zones.
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: It's a privilege to have been with us today, days before we honor him with our Ken Tomlinson award for courage and journalism.
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: Please note that this episode of Liberty and Leadership will air following our dinner.
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: Ben, thank you so much for joining me today.
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: Hey, what a pleasure to be here.
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: Thank you for inviting me.
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: I think the first thing I can simply say is wow.
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: I mean your book that you've written and the remarkable life you've lived is really something You've packed so much into your 40 years.
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: I'll call it adventure, but it's just.
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: You've done a masterful job in writing this book and it really, literally, was one I couldn't put down.
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: You tell the account of your survival after a Russian missile attack in Ukraine, but also you capture the larger story about courageous journalism and what it takes to be a reporter who travels the world to go into war zones.
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: I really your book is a tale of determination, heroism, persistence, love, self-discovery and transformation.
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: You're so deserving of our honor and we're pleased that you're coming to New York to receive this award.
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: You share the story, rather, of colleagues of yours who've taken great risks to report from around the world.
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: So, if I may, let's start our conversation by me asking you to share what it was that motivated you to pursue a career in journalism, because you certainly didn't take a traditional path.
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: The story you tell of finding Rick Findler I think it was and heading overseas to do freelancing in conflict zones was quite something.
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: Could you talk a little bit about that?
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: I actually think it was as a child.
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: First of all, I was fascinated with conflict.
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: My father was a child during the Second World War and he was in a Japanese prison camp from the ages of about eight till 12.
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: His parents were killed by the Japanese and the family was torn apart.
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: It was a big part of my upbringing talking to my father, and he went to the US and he served in the US military and career.
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: War had been something that we all talked about and we watched war movies all the time.
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: And so I think that I grew up and I went to college.
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: At the back of my mind was always this idea of, first of all, that we have it so lucky, but we're only so lucky because of the sacrifices of those who go out to make the world better.
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: And so, almost as soon as I left college, first of all I knew I wanted to tell stories.
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: I found people amazing.
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: I actually went to LA for about a year.
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: I thought I wanted to be in film and I just found it so vacuous and I said I don't want to make movies anymore.
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: It's not real, I need to speak to people.
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: And then, soon after that, I took a flight to Iraq with Rick Findler and I didn't wasn't a journalist, I'd written for some college papers and I'd done a little bit of work, but I knew I just needed to start.
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: And we went out there.
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: We didn't know who we were going to write for, the stories we were going to tell and we just started writing and pitching and freelancing and sending into everyone.
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: We did that for quite a few years and so I think what really got me onto it was this fascination with conflict and a sense of adventure.
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: I wanted to go and experience amazing things.
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: I never denied that what I do is really exciting and great.
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: But the thing about covering war is it pulls you in.
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: You start to see stories, terrible stories, some of the most incredibly brave and courageous stories and you see these up close every day and I just found it gripping and there wasn't anything else I wanted to do after a few years because A did.
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: I find the stories incredible, but I also found it to be incredibly important and I remember some of the first few articles I wrote for some of the bigger newspapers the Sunday Times, the New York Times.
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: I started to see people talking about the stories I was writing and I started to realize that my work has an impact.
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: It changes people's views, it makes people want to make the world a better place.
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: And so not only did I have the adventure and the excitement and the fascination for conflict, I started to realize how important journalism is as well.
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: And, honestly, there hasn't been a day in the last 15 years that I have regretted what I do, because I think I had the best job in the world.
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: And look, eventually we will talk about what happened to me.
• 5:50
  Speaker 2: But people ask me often, considering the injuries you have, the prosthetics you are on, would you have changed your career?
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: Would you have gone back and done it again?
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: And I always say every single time absolutely, absolutely, I would.
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: You write in your book about narrow escapes you had in Libya, somalia, syria, even Haiti and elsewhere.
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: Many times you had guns pointed at you by soldiers and others rebels who and you didn't know what might happen.
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: I think you said you were hit with shotgun pellets by riot police in Egypt.
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: You note that when you were young, you had the natural feeling that we all have, I guess, as young people, of invincibility.
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: Is that a feeling you think is necessary to pursue the kinds of stories that you pursued as a journalist?
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's about finding a real balance between I was going to say bravado, it's not bravado, but you've got to want to go somewhere.
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: You've got to be willing to do it.
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: You've got to face your fears in the face, Even if it's something that makes you feel fear, you've got to be able to push through because you understand why you're doing it.
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I just think that it's something that you have to want to do absolutely.
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: I think that's what all of our colleagues have done.
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: Yes, I set off for a whole lot of different reasons.
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah, putting aside for a minute the Russian war in Ukraine.
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: Of the reporting missions you've done prior to that, which ones do you think had the largest impact on you?
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: It's an interesting question.
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: I mean, the answer is different for different reasons.
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: For example, the story that really I got me to the next level in my career was writing about ISIS.
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: I was a freelancer and I was in and out of Syria and Iraq and I was close to them and I was one of the only journalists to have spoken to some ISIS members, people who had left ISIS.
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: I wrote a book on ISIS and it got me into Fox.
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: So I spent a lot of time in Syria covering them in Iraq, and I think that's the story that I really found something that I was absolutely fascinated by.
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: It really was a story of good versus evil.
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: You had the worst terror group versus the people whose lives they were destroying.
• 7:59
  Speaker 2: So I think Syria was amazing and it was some of the most adventurous stories I've done.
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: We crossed deep into Syria behind enemy lines up to our necks in water at the middle of the night carrying our gear.
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: We took horses across mountains.
• 8:13
  Speaker 2: We lived in caves for a while.
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: We saw some of the very first attacks on civilians at the Assad troops were carrying out, and so I think that I always say that Syria was one of the most powerful stories in some sense, and it's also one of these countries where you are totally blown away by the courage of people and we were the kindness of people letting you into their own homes when in some cases, the regime was looking for us and they would risk their own lives to help us and save us.
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: And so I just torn between the generosity of these people versus the evil on the other side.
• 8:44
  Speaker 2: So I would say Syria, but I would say, as a sense of what changed me in terms of some of the physical things I've signed, is Somalia.
• 8:52
  Speaker 2: Like Somalia was one of the worst things I've seen, and I was with Ugandan special forces in Mogadishu.
• 8:58
  Speaker 2: I was actually embedded with them and Al-Shabaab had taken over the parliament building.
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: But what I saw then was the Ugandan special forces went into the parliament building and they butchered those guys.
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: I mean, it was some of the most up close violence and really bloody things and that changed me.
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: So that wasn't like the inspiring story like Syria was.
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: That was a moment that I came back and for the first time ever, I realized I was a different person in a sense.
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: So every story changes you in a different way.
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: Every story you meet someone whose life is going to be totally changed and each one of those stays with you in a little way.
• 9:33
  Speaker 2: So they've all been amazing.
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: They've all been so different and all been so fascinating.
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: You talk in your book.
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: I mean, you recount all of these in great descriptive detail.
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: You talk about getting stuck for a little bit in barbed wire, trying to escape from Syria to Turkey, and people who did take risks to help you along the way, and all these conflicts.
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: This question is in some sense, a simple one, but I want to ask it, and that is why is it important for journalists to take these kinds of risks and go into conflicts and war zones to report information to the rest of us?
• 10:11
  Speaker 2: I think journalism in itself is about knowledge.
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: It's about knowing what's going wrong so you can both evaluate your own life, but you can also push for it to change.
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: Now, what happens in conflict is even harder to get out.
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: I mean, it is essential that we know what's going on and it's essential that we understand it, because, look, I always look back to World War II and to some of the wars that went on, and I don't I'm not of this belief that we have finished with all the great wars.
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: I'm constantly worried that we might end our way into another one.
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: And, of course, you look at China right now, you look at Ukraine and Russia, you look at Iran right now, and I just think there is some real fear, and so that's why I think it's so important.
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: I want everyone to see what's going on in conflict and I want everyone to be aware that all the people who I, many of the people I've interviewed, thought at some point in the last 15 years that their life was better and that their country was changing.
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: And I can't tell you how many people are just so surprised who say well, 20 years ago I was living a wonderful life in a country that I thought was peaceful and moving forward.
• 11:10
  Speaker 2: And here we are in some of the worst conflict you've seen.
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: So I just want people to remember that we're, a so lucky to have peace, but, b we've got to work at that peace.
• 11:18
  Speaker 2: And we work at that peace by seeing what's going on around the world, and we have to learn from the mistakes and we have to learn from the things we do right, and only by seeing it can you really do that Now, yeah, your book covers the events on the morning of March 14th 2022, when you and two of your colleagues went to the village of Oranka, ukraine, to film a story.
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: That's when Russian missiles tragically took the lives of two of your colleagues and two soldiers and left you severely injured.
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: Would you mind recounting that experience when the second bomb landed near your car?
• 11:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely.
• 11:58
  Speaker 2: We were out in this town called Horenko.
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: It had been largely destroyed by Russian shelling and it was totally abandoned.
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: We had believed.
• 12:06
  Speaker 2: We got an intel that the Russians are about 30 miles away.
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: I don't know if that sounds close or far.
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: For us that sounds like a long way away.
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: You know when you're used to being up close and sometimes you know 20 meters from these guys sometimes.
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: So anyway, we filmed for the for the a couple hours.
• 12:21
  Speaker 2: We, I remember leaving thinking we've got a great story, with some of the first journalists to come in here to see the devastation that russian forces have carried out, but it was abandoned.
• 12:31
  Speaker 2: As we were driving back in towards kiv, we stopped at this abandoned checkpoint and as the car slowed down, that first bomb came out of nowhere, just out of the sky, and heard that whistle that I've heard numerous times before.
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: When that first, we don't know if it was a shell or whether it was a drone, but um, that first bomb landed about 30 feet in front of the car.
• 12:48
  Speaker 2: Immediately they were caused to reverse the car, reverse the car, and I'd say five, six to ten seconds later the second bomb hit right next to the car itself and that blacked me out and I know that I got the fatal injuries at that point and I was wearing body armor and a helmet and they saved my life.
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: But and I got the shrapnel in the eye and I know that I got the big shrapnel in my, in my, my neck, and I was totally out cold.
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: And I was in this black place, no sound, all quiet, and and I saw my daughter, my physically saw my daughter right in front of me, in, in, in my, in my head, and she's just said to me she said, daddy, you've got to get out of the car, you've got to get out of the car.
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: And it brought me back.
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: And you know I you call it a miracle, I sometimes do something came to me, and you know whether it's just your strong belief in family or whether it was something more spiritual, I don't know.
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: But I came back and I opened my eyes and, without even thinking, I grabbed the door of the car and I was pulling my way and I got out of the car, one foot out of the car, and the third bomb hit the car itself.
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: That one threw me away and I was knocked out again and the next thing I know, I wake up.
• 13:58
  Speaker 2: I'm on fire, my right leg is gone, my left foot largely gone, had it taken off eventually.
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: But, and I was badly burnt and pierre was alongside me.
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: He was about 15 feet away and immediately I said pierre, and he said don't move, russian drones, russian drones.
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: And so I didn't move for a bit.
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: But I'm looking at myself and now I'm injured.
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: I felt no pain at this point and the adrenaline was kicking in.
• 14:21
  Speaker 2: No cell phone reception, all the telecons were down.
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: So I'm lying now I'm badly injured.
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: And I again say pierre, pierre, I'm, I'm badly injured, pierre, we've got to find a way out of here.
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: And he said here's the russians, don't move.
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: Um, now pierre didn't look injured.
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: Pierre cut his femoral artery, you know, that was it in his groin and he bled out.
• 14:45
  Speaker 2: But I was the one who was terribly injured, is what I thought.
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: But um, I was there for about 40 minutes and eventually this other car came out of nowhere.
• 14:57
  Speaker 2: It drove past our car, which was still burning.
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: It didn't stop, it didn't see me and I was waving at it and um, then I had to.
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: I said, well, I never, I never thought I was gonna die.
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: Um, I just knew that I would do whatever it took to go home.
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: And I think you find another strength when you're up against the wall like that and I just say, okay, whatever it is, I'm going home, I'm going home to my children.
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: And I started dragging myself up and that car, that car went the wrong way just down the road and it turned around.
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: It was ukrainian special forces and they came back our direction and at that point I was a little bit further up.
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: I had a handful of dirt ready and I threw it at the car and they saw me and, um, remember this one guy jumping out, running across, grabbing me on the ground and pulling me, and it was the second that he started to pull me that all the pain kicked in right.
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: Then I know that moment that you were saved and, um, what I found out later is pierre bled out, because I checked him next and he was dead at that point.
• 15:53
  Speaker 2: Um and uh.
• 15:56
  Speaker 2: Then at that point I was taken into a small ukrainian military hospital and I think in a minute, I imagine, we'll talk about how I was saved, but that's what happened on the day itself.
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: That was the attack itself, and then a whole lot of things happened, you know, to try and get me out.
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah well, it's a remarkable story.
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: The survival required so many people who Could be described as heroes, even though much of what they were doing was Part of the work they perform as part of their routine.
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: But many went above and beyond to to save you and, and the story you tell in your book is is just remarkable.
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: Throughout the book, you know, my eyes were watering up as I read of so many things that transpired there.
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: I Guess you should comment on some of this the Savior allies organization, which I wasn't familiar with and the remarkable work they do, and you know doctors at hospitals in Ukraine and Germany and in Texas, so please do mention how that whole process worked that you described so well in your book.
• 17:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, well, so we had been missing for a few hours and our security team you know who were waiting back at a certain checkpoint.
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: We didn't come back and so the alert went out that we were gone straight away.
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: The search was on for us and then word came through the Ukrainians that there had been a Network media team hit.
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: Two people were dead, one was alive, but nobody knew who was alive, who had been killed or where the survivor was.
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: And, amazingly, all the networks is when you're really the front like that.
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: All the networks were staying at one hotel and everyone started getting out.
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: You know, cnn, new York Times went out looking to try and find out.
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: It's amazing how, despite all of the Rivalry you might have on TV, we're all the same out there.
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: So that started and the Jen Griffin, who is our Pentagon correspondent, she was in the Pentagon and she heard as well quite quickly that and the Fox team they believe, had been hit and she picked up the phone straight away and she called Sarah Verado who had saved our allies, an Incredible nonprofit that basically goes in and saves people.
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: It got hundreds of people out of Afghanistan when Afghanistan fell in 21 in the summer.
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: Those guys went in to try and save people.
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: They were outside the wire pulling people in and some of these guys they're all veterans, you know, someone was a was it a couple bronze stars?
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: Was it Medal of Honor?
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: But amazing people.
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: They came in and they were on the border in Podum.
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: They were getting ready to help the Ukrainians as well and they eventually found out that that I was the one I was still alive.
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: But it was very difficult to get me out because there was a 36 hour curfew, very few ways of getting in.
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: They couldn't drive me out because they had a big piece of shantlin my neck the size of matchbox and the roads were so bad they couldn't fly me out because Suffice to a missile, so couldn't bring planes in at all.
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: But they set off to find me.
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: They didn't know how they were gonna get me out and they drove straight for a day and a half through all the Ukrainian Checkpoints and they finally tracked me down and Jen Griffin had been speaking to John Kirby, the Pentagon, and who had been talking to Austin in the Soviet defense, and they said look, no, boots on the ground.
• 19:13
  Speaker 2: No, you have boots on the ground.
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: We will not go and get it.
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: We can't help.
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: We'd like to, we can't help, we'd like to, we can't help.
• 19:18
  Speaker 2: But if you can get him to Poland, we will treat him.
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: The military medicine will treat him, but we can't go any further, and so that was the main.
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: That was.
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: The objective is to get me out, and we didn't know how to get me out.
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: And then somehow, through the intelligence services networks, we found out that the Polish Prime Minister was on this first secret visit to Cizolenski and his train was inside Kiev.
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: And if we could get through during this curfew through the city, the Polish Prime Minister would evacuate me and I could go out with him.
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: And so we had this incredible nighttime journey when we went checkpoint to checkpoint, where the Ukrainians thought we were Russians because there was no cars on the street and they were coming into the ambulance is beating up all the ambulance and opening up all my wounds To check if we were serious, that I was injured and why we were breaking curfew on the very day we thought Russia was going to invade the city itself and no pain meds at that point, and I remember the pain just really creeping up.
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: And but we made it.
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: We made it through the city, we got to the Polish Prime Minister's train, minutes to spare.
• 20:24
  Speaker 2: And Then there was this ten hour journey on the prime minister's train lying there, which is brutal.
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: I mean, that was the moment I think I had to find more strength, the moment where the pain kicked in.
• 20:37
  Speaker 2: I had traumatic brain injury.
• 20:38
  Speaker 2: My mind wouldn't stop alert.
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: The pier was dead halfway through that train ride.
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: And so I was in this place where I just had to say to myself first of all, the people surrounding you, the people helping you save our allies and what else, they're the experts.
• 20:53
  Speaker 2: The last thing they need is someone complaining or moaning or saying it hurts.
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: You just do what you gotta do.
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: You stay quiet and you find that extra level of strength.
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: And I'm actually a firm believer that we have far more strength than us, and we know we have, because when I reached points I didn't think I was capable of getting through, I would take a breath and I'd say you got this, you got this, you got a little bit more.
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: Just stay quiet, keep going.
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: And I honestly felt that you could keep the pain down, you could try and put it down, but it was a journey that.
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: But it was when I finally we crossed into Poland and train for ten brook lours and that was a blackhawk and the eighty second airborne were waiting for me.
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: Remember being up and put on that, that helicopter and just this moment that I that was.
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: I felt I was saved, I was going home, I was gonna see my family.
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: Very emotional, very.
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: I haven't mentioned your family, and they play an important role in this your wife alicia, your daughters honor, iris and hero.
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: I were certainly there with you and motivating you and, as your book subtitle is saved, a war reporter's mission to make it home.
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: That was, you know, driving you through that.
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: I would, you know, you beautifully describe how the ordeal transformed you and note that for much of your career, I think you said you cultivated a duality within yourself.
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: You had your career covering conflicts and then you had had what I'll say is your normal life in london as a husband and father.
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: I'll repeat, three beautiful girls, since I have three girls myself.
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: And but I would like to just read a passage.
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: Have you comment on it?
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: Because it's.
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: It comes to the end, but it's.
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: It's wonderful Because, after describing that duality, say, then came the attack which obliterated any distinction between my professional and personal selves.
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: It was if the bomb blew me into pieces, literally took me apart, before the heroes at bamsi and cfi reassembled those pieces and put me back together.
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: But exactly who was the person who emerged from the reconstruction?
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: And then, a little later, you say but what I can say without any doubt is that the person who emerged from the bombing, from the more than twenty surgeries, the continually painful rehab, the reconstituted whole ben is a better, stronger and more joyful person than he used to be.
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: Life is about moving, changing, doing new things, and I find there are more things for me to do, more challenges for me to embrace now than ever before.
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: I mean, that's remarkable that you can go through that ordeal and come out of it feeling so much like a stronger, better person.
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: Can you?
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: Can you comment on that?
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: yeah, I honestly I think that the world is a better place now than before the attack, and the way I keep saying is that, like one bad thing, one terrible, one horrible thing happened to me and it happened to my crew.
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: But I can tell you a thousand great things that happened after that the people who came out to help, the support I got, people who I didn't know, you know, stopping to help and encourage me, and that's what sticks with me.
• 24:05
  Speaker 2: It's the goodness that I've seen.
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: And you talk about that duality that I had before and that that was difficult because you know you go away suddenly.
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: You know the phone would ring the been attacked somewhere around the world terror, attack, that being something natural disaster or war and you are there the next day and you'd be there for three weeks to be figured out.
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: You'd be seeing some terrible things and then you fly home again and that evening you'd be sitting at your kitchen table eating a normal dinner with your family, and I don't want to bring that home to my children either.
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: So I want to talk about it much.
• 24:38
  Speaker 2: So I had these two parts.
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: I don't I think it was good to keep divided.
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: I know a lot of people who what to each walk respond to their own.
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: I think it was a different, but what happened after the attack was that the injuries they came home, the horror that I saw was is now with me forever.
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: It's with my family forever.
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: It affects them forever, and there are two ways of looking at difficult things that happen in life.
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: One is to be held down by them and the other two is jump and push right through them.
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: And I, someone in general who wants to do more than I did Yesterday.
• 25:14
  Speaker 2: Every single day, I want to do more.
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: The same is true when I was learning to walk.
• 25:17
  Speaker 2: If I walk five steps of one day, I was gonna walk six steps the next.
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: If I can lift this much weight, I was gonna lift one more the next day.
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: And life is incredible, and you said at the beginning that I'm such incredible Career travel the world to be at the front row history, to see it yourself and I think I'm a stronger person because of it.
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: I also think you find a new kind of strength when you are so up against the wall.
• 25:42
  Speaker 2: You don't know what else to do not happen to me, and I think that you have to find that level and that's why I feel not only amazed by the goodness that has happened to me, the kindness, the expertise, the medical side, everything but I also think that I'm.
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: I also think that it's giving us all opportunities and you gotta make the best of it.
• 26:02
  Speaker 2: And I can share some good, like good was given to me.
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: That's what I want to do absolutely.
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: This is a personal question I need to answer, but you touch on Having grown up with the religious faith.
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: Did, in addition to you, know that love for your wife and daughters pushing you along through all that?
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: Did religious faith play a role in this as well?
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's really interesting because I was raised a cat that you know, and I'm very, very strict cat like and I was a benedict monastery boarding school for many years and I would say that I sort of had a bit of a bit of a wobble for some years.
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: You know I covered so many conflicts around the middle east is based on religion.
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: I was going to establish religion really play a role.
• 26:44
  Speaker 2: I'm always went to church, I always found the peace in church and I love that.
• 26:49
  Speaker 2: But Well, I know that what happened that day and I generally try and avoid getting too spiritual about what happened to me, but I know that what happened that day was a miracle in its sense.
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: I mean, I was in the death seat and I've been in an Inch in any direction I would be dead and so many things happened.
• 27:07
  Speaker 2: My daughter came to me and whether that was an angel coming down to me or whether that was just Where'd you go, where does your mind go when everything else is taken away?
• 27:14
  Speaker 2: Perhaps it just goes back to your family, but that happened to me and I I do now think and and I said so many prayers throughout this too when you on that train, when I had nothing else again.
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: Where do you sometimes go?
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: And I Please Lord, please get me home, take me home.
• 27:31
  Speaker 2: And so, yeah, I've got an interesting relationship with religion because I think so many religions out there look, we're seeing it in Israel right now, look what, look what religion has done there.
• 27:41
  Speaker 2: It's incredible.
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: So, if you can, there's such a great in religion, but around the world there's such negative in it, some places too.
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: So I've always struggled that, but I'm a firm believer that there is something great out there that we can't explain.
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: Tell me a little bit about things now.
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: I've seen you reporting on Even on Israel and Ukraine, and you had an exclusive interview with Secretary of State Anthony Blinken.
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: Are you working now, mostly from London?
• 28:06
  Speaker 2: Well, yes, and like what happened a couple months ago, I've done a little bit of work here and there, and then I was still having operations, which have continued you know till, I guess a couple months ago, my last one.
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: But what I said to Fox is I said I'm, recovery is done for me now.
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: I've done a year and a half to recover.
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: I've gone to every single physio, I've done everything I've had to do.
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: But you got to keep moving forward again and I said let's get back to work.
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: I'd start doing little pieces at home, I'll start doing writing a little bit, and now I've just started a podcast talking about a series.
• 28:36
  Speaker 2: Because you've got to keep moving forward.
• 28:38
  Speaker 2: You know, you got to grab the opportunity.
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: But I'm gonna say one thing recovery is fascinating and it is and I think I describe it when the book very boring.
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: I mean if I have to sit and talk to another physio telling me to move this or move that, so at some point I need to keep moving forward and that's what the work does and that comes back in the sense that I think it's the best job in the World.
• 28:56
  Speaker 2: So I was itching to get back to work because I love journalism.
• 28:58
  Speaker 2: I think telling stories is amazing, so I guess I've come back to a place that I feel so happy in and that that's working and you mentioned Before we started recording this morning that you're working On a series of podcasts saving heroes.
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: Can you mention something about that?
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: It sounds fascinating, mm-hmm.
• 29:17
  Speaker 2: No, and we've just we've recorded our first few.
• 29:20
  Speaker 2: It'll come out on December the 4th.
• 29:21
  Speaker 2: It's called searching for heroes.
• 29:23
  Speaker 2: It's just that I mean, you know, something terrible happened to me but I've tried to find something good in it and pass that on.
• 29:30
  Speaker 2: And now I am talking to so many other people who have gone through Similar things and spoken to someone who was a survivor of a mass shooting, who ran towards the gunman.
• 29:37
  Speaker 2: He brought him down, he saved so many lives and it's been really difficult for him, but he's created something great out of it to spread that message on.
• 29:44
  Speaker 2: And I love talking about that kind of arc and there are so Many stories out there of amazing heroes, unsung heroes, and I think it makes our community stronger.
• 29:53
  Speaker 2: The one thing about the news that I've done my whole career, the one thing that's changed for me, is that I've spent 15 years telling the worst stories in the world.
• 30:00
  Speaker 2: Yes, so incredible moments of beauty and war and there's courage and there's family, and they're great things, but they're sad, they're bad stories.
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: And one thing that has changed is that I think we don't spend enough time talking about the great, the positive, the good, reminding ourselves that that binds us together.
• 30:14
  Speaker 2: That's a backbone in America, and that's what we got to tell, as well as the bad.
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: You've got to tell both sides, and so that's some of the work I'm doing now.
• 30:20
  Speaker 2: I'm continue what covering geopolitics, but I also want to remind our viewers that there's great out there, there's good out there, we are better than we aren't.
• 30:29
  Speaker 2: So, yeah, my podcast in the series which will come out next year will be about reminding people about the good as well as the bad.
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: Well, this has been great.
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: I'm mindful of our time.
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: I want to thank you.
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: I especially mindful of things in the Hall household with your, your wife and your beautiful daughters and Getting getting you free for dinner with them.
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: Your book has saved a war reporters mission to make at home.
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: I promise anyone listening that Read this book and you'll just you won't be able to put it down.
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: It's an incredible book, incredible life and story you've shared with us.
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: I appreciate it very much.
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: God bless you.
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: We look forward to seeing you at the journalism awards dinner Very soon.
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much for joining me today, ben.
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: Oh, it's a pleasure.
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: Can I say how honored I am to be receiving the Ken Tomlinson award as well, how honored I am to be coming to the dinner on Tuesday, to meeting you in person, because that's, that's one of the great things.
• 31:26
  Speaker 2: It's about passing on, it's about talking about it reminding other people.
• 31:28
  Speaker 2: So, thank you, thank you for having me on and I look forward to seeing you on Tuesday.
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: Well, we will have a lot of young, aspiring Journalists in in the audience, so they need to hear your story.
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: So thank you, thanks, thanks very much, roger.
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to the Liberty and Leadership podcast.
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: Please don't forget to subscribe, download, like or share the show on Apple, spotify or YouTube or wherever you listen to your podcast.
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: If you like this episode, I ask you to rate and review it, and if you have a comment or question for the show, please drop us an email at podcast at T fast dot org.
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: The Liberty and Leadership podcast is produced at K global studios in Washington DC.
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: I'm your host, roger reen, and until next time, show courage in things large and small.