The Darkness - Jason Pinter [38]
looking into them, so they can already start preparing."
"And knowing our good-hearted chairman, he's not
going to want to pay thousands of dollars in legal fees to
fight a law firm over a story that we have no backing to
go on yet." Jack paused, thought for a moment. "When
people aren't responding to you, there's only one way
around it."
"What's that?" I asked.
Jack stood up. Picked up his briefcase. "You walk
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right into the enemy's camp, lay down your weapons and
ask to speak to their leader."
"You learned this, where, reporting from the jungle?"
"Vietnam, actually."
"No kidding. I never knew you reported from Vietnam."
"Spent most of my time in Laos," Jack said. "Worked
a lot with a great photographer named Eddie Adams. You
enjoy photojournalism?"
"A little. Back in Oregon," I said. "Before I was old
enough or smart enough to really understand history, I
used to love flipping through old magazines just for the
photo inserts. A great picture can be a snapshot of a time
or place that words could never fully describe." Jack
nodded, agreeing. "I used to really admire a photographer
named Hans Gustofson. I remember he took this fantastic photo of President Reagan standing next to the 'You
Are Leaving' sign that had just been removed from along
the Berlin Wall."
"Great eye, Gustofson. Didn't he die a few years ago?"
"Yeah," I said, shifting uncomfortably. "Badly."
Jack nodded.
"Eddie Adams," I said. "Why does that name sound
familiar?"
"Nguyen Ngoc Loan," Jack said.
"Excuse me?"
"General Nguyen Ngoc Loan. Chief of the National
Police of the Republic of Vietnam. You say you liked historical photographs, you might remember that one. Loan
was the commanding officer during the arrest of a Viet
Cong political operative. The national police mistakenly
identified the prisoner as having plotted the assassination
of numerous Viet Cong police officers. And so on February first, nineteen sixty-eight, in the middle of a des-110
Jason Pinter
olate street in Saigon in broad daylight, with the unarmed
man's arms tied behind his back, General Loan took out
a pistol, put it to the prisoner's head and pulled the trigger.
Eddie Adams was the man who took that photograph.
That one snapshot, taken right as the bullet entered the
innocent man's brain, was one of the catalysts that singlehandedly changed American perception of the war in
Vietnam."
"I remember that picture," I said, feeling a chill, remembering the first time I'd seen it in Time magazine. "I
remember the prisoner was wearing this plaid shirt. And
the look in the general's eye...like the man he just killed
was nothing. Had meant nothing."
Jack nodded. Then he said, "In the background of that
picture, just over the general's left shoulder, there's a
man. You can't really make out his face or what he's
doing, but he's there."
I looked at Jack. The lines in his face, veins in his hands,
a body that had seen more than I might in two lifetimes.
"That was you," I said. "You were there that day."
"It was actually my wedding anniversary," Jack said
with a slight laugh. "When my first wife asked where I was
that day, I showed her the picture. Suddenly she didn't feel
so bad about my not being able to spend it with her."
"Why do you still do it?" I said. "Once you've been a
part of these...these...moments that change history. I
mean, that's what every reporter dreams of, right? Being
there at the right time. Casting light on something that
was covered in darkness. Once you've done that...how
do you stay motivated?"
"I was never looking for those moments," Jack said.
"If they came, they came. If not, I went right on working. But a real reporter doesn't seek out those moments.
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We don't judge what's happening in front of our eyes.
History creates those moments. All we can do is share
the truth through our words. And if we're honest, and
there's a story in that darkness, the moments come.
But I never sought them out. I sought the truth. And if
you keep digging