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How did you decide to do this particular piece, and how did you settle on Chaplain Turner as your subject?
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In the fall of 2007, I had already been to Iraq six times for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution but knew that I would have to find a special story to justify another trip. The newspaper was becoming increasingly local-centric, so I also knew I had to find an Atlanta voice to tell the story of the Iraq war.
I asked the public affairs officers for the 3rd Infantry Division to send me profiles of soldiers who had indicated a willingness to be approached by the media. I was looking for soldiers with unusual stories, perhaps those who were on their third or fourth deployment. I wanted to find someone through whom I could bring home the war.
Chaplain Darren Turner's bio was e-mailed to me from Baghdad. Bells dinged instantly. Guns and God. It doesn't get better than that. Here was a man who had just joined the Army and gone off to war to counsel almost a thousand infantrymen. His unit was part of the surge and had seen heavy fighting. And Turner was from metro Atlanta.
We e-mailed, and I learned that his battalion had lost quite a few men; that he had gone to war to help the suffering but was not emotionally prepared for all that he faced. In January, Turner came home on leave. I met him at a ceremony for the fallen at Fort Stewart. He invited me to go with him to visit the wounded at Walter Reed Army Medical Center.
It was an incredibly emotional visit. Turner's story could be powerful, if I could tell it properly.
Still, when I got on the plane to leave for Iraq, I knew I was taking a risk. I was traveling half way across the globe, to a war zone, to tell the story of a man I barely knew. I timed my trip around Easter because the holy day meant so much to the chaplain. But I had no way of knowing what events would unfold and shape the story.
At minimum, I knew I would be able to write a profile of an Army chaplain. The maximum would be to get inside Turner's head, to see the war through his eyes.
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What were the particular challenges to reporting and writing "Chaplain Turner's War"?
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Two very big challenges in reporting:
I wanted to report an in-depth story for which I would need all sorts of access to soldiers and their innermost thoughts. It's hard to get that kind of access with the military. I asked to embed with Turner's battalion for five weeks so that I would get to know some of the guys. It worked in some cases. Soldiers allowed me to sit in on private conversations with Turner. I am constantly amazed by how candid soldiers can be if only you give them a chance to open up. Patience is key. The other problem is, of course, that infantrymen pride themselves on being tough. I knew it would be hard for them to speak openly to a reporter about their problems.
In writing the piece, the biggest challenge was deciphering 62 notebooks filled haphazardly in the backs of Bradley Fighting Vehicles and rustic combat outposts. I tried to start writing my notes while I was still in Iraq but we came under constant attack the last 10 days we were there. It was hard to concentrate while rockets and mortars were raining down near our tents.
When I got back to Atlanta, I spent a week at home writing down everything I had and showed it to my editor, Jan Winburn. We knew there were a couple of problems we had to resolve right away.
I wanted to tell the story with what I had observed. But the most harrowing time for the chaplain had been the summer of 2007 when his battalion was in the thick of battle. We decided that the events of the summer would be the only reconstructed scene in the story. That ended up being Chapter 3, which explained to readers why the chaplain was so spent. The next challenge was to figure out the arc of the narrative. At Walter Reed, Turner had been so eager to visit the wounded. But in Baghdad, I watched him react to the ugliest acts of war and in a highly stressful moment, he just didn't want to go to the combat hospital. He hated going there, he said. What makes a man of God react that way? That's what the story attempted to explain.
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In retrospect, is there anything you wish you had included, or information that you know now that you would have included if you'd known it before the piece was published?
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The chaplain's confidante in Iraq was his friend Johnnie Elder. There is not much about Elder in the story because I just didn't have strong enough material. I wish I had pursued that more. I also did not get a chance to see Turner out on a combat mission. He did much more of that when his battalion first arrived. There is a scene in the story that takes readers out to rural Arab Jabour, the battalion's primary battle space. That scene would have been much stronger had Turner been there with his soldiers. My regret isn't so much that I did not include material that I had but it has to do with wanting more time with the chaplain.
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You have written on many non-military topics. Do you approach war reporting any differently than reporting on natural disasters or state visits?
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I have seen a lot of human suffering in reporting the Iraq war as well as covering natural disasters. Both situations present severe logistical challenges to reporters. But war reporting is very different in one critical way: the constant threat of personal danger. And that enormously increases the level of stress. Knowing that a friend, a colleague or I might die at any moment can easily color my views, my reactions or my interpretation of a particular situation. It is a struggle in the war zone to keep my head clear.
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Is there anything else you'd like to say about "Chaplain Turner's War"?
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When I left for Iraq, I had no idea what form this story would take. I certainly did not know it would end up being an eight-part narrative series. We decided to break it up in chapters because I had so much ground to cover. But I also learned how difficult it is to write eight ledes and eight endings, seven of which had to be cliffhangers.
I did not have the luxury of returning to Iraq to fill in blanks in the story. I did more reporting once I began writing, via e-mails to Turner and his soldiers but at best, communication was sketchy. I tried to describe scenes to the chaplain and make sure that I interpreted his words and actions properly. That was obviously extremely important in this story.
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