Carmen Gentile: Blindsided by the Taliban

Transcript

[0:00:23] CH: What’s up everybody, it’s Charlie Hoehn, the host of Author Hour where I interview authors about their new books. Today’s episode is with Carmen Gentile, he’s the author of Blindsided by the Taliban. Carmen is a journalist who’s covered the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and numerous bouts of rest throughout the world. He was very seriously injured while he was reporting in Afghanistan and that’s what this episode is about. What happened when he was injured and how it changed his life after. We talk about the evils of war and what it’s actually like to experience something that so few people have witnessed firsthand. This is an intense episode and you’re about to hear an amazing story right now. Let’s dive into it, here’s our conversation with Carmen Gentile.

[0:01:31] Carmen Gentile: I was embedded with US forces along the Afghan-Pakistani border and we were on a foot patrol walking through a remote village. When I say village, just a collection of mud and stone homes and a tiny narrow road flanked on the other side by a large field of corn. As we were talking to some young men in this village, I noticed that there was – we were getting a really – there was a hinky vibe in the village, the kids had all scattered, which is a telltale sign that something bad could potentially happen. There’s always that concern when you see that there are no children around in these small villages, remote parts of Afghanistan. I was talking to these young men sitting by the side of the road and they were talking to me about what was going on in that region, I asked them about Taliban, I asked them about IEDs and I had this — the whole time, I just knew something was wrong and I had my video camera focused on them and while talking to them, heard this loud whooshing sound from behind me and I turn around and there’s a guy down the road about 30 or 40 yards shouldering a rocket propelled grenade launcher. He had fired inordinants that was coming right at me, it was this rocket with a conical tip just, and the smoke trail behind it just racing right toward me and in that moment, I thought, okay, this is it, I’m going to die. I was resigned to that factor in those split seconds. Then it clobbered me in the side of the head, immediately, blinding me in my right eye and crushing all the bones in the side of my face but it didn’t detonate. It ricocheted off my head, hit the platoon leader in the elbow and then just clattered to the ground. Probably one of the oddest injuries in the annals of modern warfare for sure.

[0:03:19] CH: My gosh, wow. What happened next?

[0:03:26] Carmen Gentile: I soon thereafter realized I had not been killed but in fact was, like I said, immediately blinded in one eye and I dropped to a knee, I hadn’t lost consciousness and I dropped my camera and put my hand to my face and immediately just blood was pouring through my fingers and then pooling on the ground. I realized I have a pretty badly hurt.

[0:03:48] CH: I mean, were you just in so much pain or were you scared? What was going through, what were your experiencing?

[0:03:56] Carmen Gentile: There was the loudest ringing sound I’ve ever heard was going on inside my head, just this constant thrumming of pure screeching noise that was filling the entire inside of my head, reverberating inside of me and I can still hear that noise and I could feel it the way it rattled my head around. Everyone was – the soldiers in the platoon were quiet at first because they were so shocked by what had happened and then you hear someone in the video, which is up on YouTube that says, “Are you okay?” My first answer is, “No, clearly I’m not okay.”

[0:04:34] CH: Yeah.

[0:04:34] Carmen Gentile: Then they started to treat me, it was in that moment that those first few moments I started to get my faculties together and realized, holy hell, I just got shot in the side of the head.

[0:04:42] CH: With a rocket.

[0:04:44] Carmen Gentile: Yeah.

[0:04:45] CH: That’s unbelievable, wow. Jeez, thank you for recounting that story. I want to backtrack actually a little bit. Why were you freelancing in Afghanistan?

[0:04:57] Carmen Gentile: There was a story that I wanted to cover, it’s a story I knew how to do and it was something that I have the ability to – being able to do those types of stories is, in my estimation, a freak ability, I’ll just say that there’s not that many people that could operate in those circumstances and not only maintain their composure but actually produce something out of it. I’m one of those people that can do that and so it’s just something that I feel comfortable doing. I can’t explain the exact – the exact motivations are too many to recall in any one conversation. Every time someone ask me this question, I give a different answer so this is the answer I’m giving you. It is a freak ability to be able to do these things so that’s why I do it.

[0:05:48] CH: Okay, that’s why I do it. Okay. I’m curious, how early on you recognized that you had these freak abilities?

[0:05:58] Carmen Gentile: I first learned about the ability to do that when I covered a coup and unrest in Haiti in 2004, that to this day was some of the worst things I’ve ever seen in terms of bloodshed and violence and cruelty and I was very young still, I was 29 and I remember covering that story and being scared all the time. But still being able to do the job and I had no idea whether or not I was going to be able to do that. I dropped into that story without really knowing how bad it was going to be and it was bad. I was able to do it and I soon after learned that this is something that I know how to do and I know how to operate in these places and not lose my composure or panic and you know. I don’t qualify it as anything other than just something that I know how to do, like some people can hit a curve ball, you know? That’s the way I look at it.

[0:06:57] CH: When you started doing this type of work, I mean, I’d imagine I know myself but I’d imagine some listeners have an idea off what it’s like but what surprised you about when you started doing it?

[0:07:13] Carmen Gentile: I don’t think I really fully comprehended just how cruel one person could be to another until I saw it up close, until I saw what people could do to one another. I don’t want to get into too many gory details but death and mutilation and starvation and other kids of atrocities that one man commits against another is only really palpable in my mind, in my estimation unless you’re there to see it. That’s when it really resonates. That we have this capacity for cruelty as a species that is unparalleled on this planet.

[0:07:52] CH: Did it change how you view people in general? Did it change your relationships with people you knew growing up or anything?

[0:08:01] Carmen Gentile: Yeah, absolutely.

[0:08:03] CH: How so?

[0:08:05] Carmen Gentile: It creates a space between you, as someone who has witnessed these things first hand and other who have not. There’s no getting around that fact, that’s why other people who have done this type of work, while you’re working with them or you have these shared experiences or similar experiences can become fast friends because we have that terrible thing in common and it’s something that only a handful of people can really relate to over here and let’s say in the friendly confines of America. You know, there are millions of people suffering these, enduring these kinds of atrocities first hand in ways that I can’t comprehend even though I’m there to see it, I’m not the one subject to it. That’s a different level of understanding that they have of these situations and like I said, the cruelty of man. But I can’t adequately explain it no matter how much I write about it or talk about it or tweet about it or podcast about it. There’s just – you can’t comprehend it fully unless you’re in it, no matter how much I try.

[0:09:16] CH: Can’t comprehend the acts or how seeing those acts make you feel or is it something else?

[0:09:25] Carmen Gentile: Yeah, both, you know, I wrote a book about my experience and how I dealt with it and some of the harsher realities of what had happened. Not just to me but what was happening in Afghanistan at that time and place but it’s not enough. I could have – if I wanted to adequately explain it, I would have written a book that was a million pages and it still wouldn’t get there, you know? I just don’t know how to get to the core of it unless you’re right there and it’s – that’s probably another reason why I would say I’d do it. Because these are things that I’ve – I want to understand and I’ll do whatever it takes to try to figure it out just for my own edification.

[0:10:13] CH: Well, I want to talk about your book, Blindsided by the Taliban, and some of the stories that you have in here, I mean, just the chapter titles alone, tell you exactly what type of book this is, you know? Eyepatch Porno Fantasy is chapter six. Lady Luck is a Sneaky Bitch. Head Cracked Open, Chest Kicked In, Chapter 13. A Cyclops In Cranberry Sauce. I mean, you got great chapter titles in here.

[0:10:52] Carmen Gentile: Thanks.

[0:10:53] CH: I want to cover some of the other stories. I mean, the one you started off with is amazing but what are some of the stories in the book that your readers have really grabbed on to?

[0:11:06] Carmen Gentile: It’s funny, if the reader is someone who has – let’s say firsthand experience dealing with these things and there are a lot of them, I’d say, the majority of my readers are not journalists or veterans or active duty. They’re civilian folks who have never had the opportunity or experience to see that part of the world firsthand or those experiences. Those readers seem to identify the most with those parts of the story that have to do with my personal life at that time and place, I don’t want to give away too many details. But the utter mess that I had made in my life on a personal level, during that period, that seems to really resonate with people because everyone’s had that, you know? I know my story seems unusual because like it’s an extremely unusual injury in a faraway place but the story itself was about trying to figure out how to overcome a terrible situation and doing so with humor. We’ve all been in a position where we’ve had to do something just like that where we’d either laughed at our own m is fortune or you succumb to the misery. You do the best you can to laugh. Those are the parts of the book that people who don’t have firsthand knowledge of this part of the world or my experience or the military or those are the stories that seemed to resonate with them. Folks that – let’s say, who have served, veterans, they always mention to me the chapter where I have an interaction with General Petraeus and they think that’s hysterical. Because they know the racket with upper brass in the military and like again, I don’t want to give away too much of it but they love that story. That part of the book where I’m talking to him.

[0:12:50] CH: Yeah, I have to press you a little bit. Can you give a little bit of background on General Petraeus for those who don’t know?

[0:12:58] Carmen Gentile: Oh General Petraeus was very prominent who later had a very short stint as the Director of the CIA after he retired from military because he had been discovered to have had extra marital dalliance while he was in Afghanistan and was sloppy with his top secret info. And the woman with whom he was having this dalliance was actually in a room where I was at the time that I interacted with him, although I didn’t know at the time that there was a special relationship there. But she has a cameo in my book and I had followed him around all day trying to get a 15 minute interview with the guy. You know he gets the rock star treatment. He was the commander of US Forces in Afghanistan at the time and was a very prominent and a public figure who had been a commander in Afghanistan or excuse me, in Iraq and he was one of Obama’s handpicked generals. So I didn’t really want to do an interview with him but I knew that I had to because I was in his vicinity and my editors would never forgive me. Those kinds of interviews never amount to anything. The guy is going to say a bunch of canned answers that I’m never going to get around and sure enough, I finally get my 15 minutes with the guy he just gives me a whole bunch of prepared statements and BS that I had no way of working around other than to just chronicle and be like, “Okay I got my gratuitous interview with the general.” It was wholly unsatisfying. And I felt like an idiot having spent all day following him only to get these — like practically on par with sports clichés. You know, “We had to give it a 100%. It is a team effort.” I was like, “I can’t believe I am doing this.” I just never like to talk to those people because like I said, you are not going to get any real answers from them. All my stories are focused on what is going on the ground, frontlines, combat outpost, young guys, you know?

[0:15:02] CH: So do you have and I know this might sound like a weird question but the book is filled with humor and do you have a particular story or even a joke in your book that is your personal favorite?

[0:15:20] Carmen Gentile: Which of my babies are my favorite, let me think. There is a moment in the book after I’m recovering from a major operation I had in the United States after I was brought back. I had my first operation in Afghanistan at Bagram Airfield. There was a military hospital there, they were able to patch up some of my eye but I was flown back to the US to New York for a number of surgeries to further repair it and repair all the damage to my face. And when I wake up from my prolonged surgery, I had been out — they did two surgeries back to back. I had been under anesthesia for like – I woke up 24 hours later. I was out, I mean they had me under the knife for 12, 16 hours. I can’t remember the exact amount of time and I woke up and I had a catheter and then I had never had one clearly. That is not a comfortable situation and with this huge bandage on my face and my body just wracked from being sliced open and put back together. I remember the nurse telling me to take a deep breath and then blow out and then she pulled this catheter out of me. The pain was so excruciating and the pressure mounting that I just remember peeing all over this poor woman. But at the same time, I apologized for doing that most, “Sorry I did that to you.” But I really was not sorry, not in the least after what she just did to me and all I did to her. I had to blame somebody for it and she just happened to be in the vicinity. So she had to bear the front of it. So sorry about that.

[0:17:01] CH: Well, you know she earned it so — your book has got 50 five-star reviews, people love it but what I am more curious about is after they’ve read it, the book has been out for a year now, what’s been the impact that it’s had on other people’s lives?

[0:17:24] Carmen Gentile: You know folks who’ve read it told me, that haven’t had a previous experience working on these types of things and doing these types of stories or having any notion of what’s going on over there have told me that they felt like I’d introduced them to a world they knew nothing about. So they had only seen the surface of it and the new stories that they read or see on television. It helped to illustrate that there is a human element to the gathering of stories. And telling stories and conveying this to people, that is not visible in the final products that are being produced whether it be print or audio, video, photos, etcetera. So it gave them that background and also illustrated that even like I said, even though it was set in a faraway place that are in extreme conditions, these are the situations I was dealing with that everyone deals with. You know, heartache and loss and pain and suffering and how do you overcome those things and build your life up again and so that is a common story set in — under unusual circumstances in an exotic locale for a lot of folks.

[0:18:33] CH: And where are you today Carmen? What does your life look like now?

[0:18:38] Carmen Gentile: I am still doing the reporting. In the last couple of years, I spent a lot of time in Iraq. I was covering the fighting in Mosul but this time I was embedded with Iraqi Special Forces as they were fighting the Islamic State and that was terrible. But I am also working on other projects. I did a story recently about motorcycling in Iraq along with a really great photographer, Nish Nalbandian. He also rides motorcycles. We found this great motorcycle in Mosul that we ended up buying from a guy, having it fixed up and then rode it around Northern Iraq as part of this story — we were trying to tell the story of what was happening in Iraq at that time and place through this bike. We were looking for an original angle to a story that people weren’t giving as much attention as we thought it deserved and we use the bike as the literal and figurative vehicle for that story. So we told the story about the guy who had fixed it, what he had been through during the period that Mosul had been under Islamic State tyranny. How he had been forced to fix Islamic State fighters’ bikes and what life was like during those several years that the Islamic State was in power. And it got me hooked on this idea that I could combine good storytelling from places that I want to go and things I want to see and motorcycling. So this past November, I had another assignment for a story that is going to come out in the spring about motorcycling in Mexico City and I was riding motorcycles with an all-female motorcycle club there. And I was talking to them about their efforts to subvert traditional machismo values and what it is like to be a female rider in a past time that is often dominated by men and it was great. First of all, they ride super hard and fast and aggressively through the streets of Mexico City. And I was just struggling to keep up, it was a great time and I want to do more stories like that. So that’s what I am trying to do.

[0:20:47] CH: Very cool, well I have just a couple of more questions for you, just in our time together, I have many, many more questions. But the way I like to wrap this up is one, what is the best way for our listeners to follow you in the journey that you are on and potentially connect with you?

[0:21:11] Carmen Gentile: I am easy to find on Facebook, Carmen Gentile, just look for the guy with the girl’s name and the eye patch, you can’t miss me there. Same with Twitter, you can always find me on Twitter @carmengentile on Twitter. Look for my book on Amazon of course or wherever you purchase books at your local bookstore. If you go to Indie Bound and type in “Blindsided by the Taliban” you’ll find where it’s available near you.

[0:21:37] CH: And potentially, someday, hopefully in the not too distant future, seeing your story on the big screen. Your book just got optioned.

[0:21:48] Carmen Gentile: Yes that’s true. It’s an option, there is a screenwriter working on the screenplay right now. That’s step one of hundreds that require — before it makes into the big screen. Someone asked me the other day who I thought would play me in a movie and I said, “I don’t know. I bet he hasn’t even been born yet.” So I have no idea, yeah.

[0:22:10] CH: I know, you think how long it took to get Atlas Shrugged to the big screen and it’s horrifying. It’s like it’s this crazy validation that you get that hey, I’ve got a really good story but getting it onto the screen is just — oh man, it takes a ghoulish to get it there so.

[0:22:33] Carmen Gentile: Oh absolutely and you are competing with Marvel for eyeballs. I’m not going to out the track Iron Man, it is not going to happen.

[0:22:47] CH: While I agree with you there, a good story is a good story and you’ve got a good story. So maybe it will make its way out there in some way, shape or form on the screen, which would be really, really cool. But anyway, Carmen, my final question is and maybe it is a little, I don’t know, a little disjointed from the topic of your book but I always like to leave the listener with a challenge. The one thing that listeners can do maybe from your book or maybe just advice that you have that can have a positive impact on their life. So what would that be for you?

[0:23:26] Carmen Gentile: Wow, me giving people life advice, what a terrible idea. I can’t be qualified to give anyone advice about and you know what? When people do ask me a question like this I always say to them listen to what I say and then just do the exact opposite.

[0:23:44] CH: Yes, that reminds me of George Costanza on Seinfeld now.

[0:23:48] Carmen Gentile: Exactly, if my instincts tell you to do something, you should really question my instincts and then maybe do the exact opposite and you will have much greater success at life. That is my advice.

[0:23:59] CH: That’s fair. Well the book again is Blindsided by the Taliban and Carmen, this was great. Thank you so much for being on the show.

[0:24:08] Carmen Gentile: Thank you for having me. I really appreciate it.

[0:24:11] CH: Thanks so much again to Carmen Gentile for being on the show. You can buy his book, Blindsided by the Taliban, on amazon.com. Be sure to check out authorhour.co for show notes and a full transcript of this episode and be sure to leave us a review on iTunes. It makes a big difference. We’ll see you next time. Thanks for tuning in on today’s show. If you liked what you heard, here is what I want you to do next. Open up the podcast app on your phone or iTunes on your computer and search for “Author Hour with Charlie Hoehn” and then click “ratings and reviews”. Take 10 seconds to rate this show or leave a review. It is a small favor but it’s really the best way to show your support and give me feedback and if you know someone else who’d love Author Hour, take another three seconds to text them a link to this episode. We’ll see you next time.