Evan Vucci

Faces of the Uninsured

Evan Vucci — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 16:39:22 +0000

Faces of the Uninsured-

Remote Area Medical is an organization that was originally founded by former “Wild Kingdom” co-star Stan Brock to provide medical services to remote areas in the Third World. Since being founded in 1985 RAM has grown into an organization providing medical services in the poorest countries of the world, and the richest. They rely on donations from the public to complete their mission, and they can stretch a dollar like no other organization I’ve ever seen.

Matt Ford and I spent a weekend in Harriman, Tenn., at a RAM clinic to see the organization in action, and talk with people who would wait in line for hours and days for basic dental, vision, and medical questions.

I’ll never forget arriving at Roane State Community College and seeing the parking lot already full of cars. It was 2am the night before the RAM would open the doors and the lot felt like a tailgate at a rock concert, or football game. The state guard was brought in to do crowd control, and hand out tickets that would determine your spot in line.

Every assignment I do I try to imagine myself walking in the shoes of my subjects. What would it feel like to drive 4 hours from Atlanta to get a few teeth pulled? What would it be like to wrap my newborn baby in a blanket and live in my car for two days to get my eyes looked at? How would it feel to work 40 hours a week as a shift manager at a fast food restaurant and not be able to afford your insurance co-pay?

Looking around I couldn’t shake the feeling of disbelief that this was happening in the worlds richest nation.

For more information on Remote Area Medical visit http://www.ramusa.org/

Afghanistan ER

Evan Vucci — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 11:07:11 +0000

Rafiq Maqbool and I spent two weeks with medivac teams, and the emergency room staff at Bagram Air Base. It was an assignment I’ll never forget. Everyone has a story to tell, and the hardest part is wrapping your head around what’s happening in front of you. It’s so easy to just shut down, go on autopilot, and do your job. But it’s really hard to conceptualize what war actually is.

I posted the following piece on my Facebook for friends and family after a particularly violent day.

To the hardened war junkie the stories are cliché, but each day here is another story of the tragedy and triumph of the human condition. There’s the Army sergeant who was hit with shrapnel from three RPG’s as he directed his Humvee driver to press on during the attack. Once his guys saw him laid up in the hospital bed they blamed his bad luck on the “porn mustache” he’d been growing.

There’s the truck commander who fired his driver for taking off a rearview mirror when he hit another Humvee. Fifteen minutes later that humvee was hit by an IED killing three soldiers instantly. The guy that should have been driving will live with survivor guilt for the rest of his life. Rather then praying to god for sparing him, he was pissed off for not being behind the wheel.

There was the photographer who showed up on that same scene sticking his camera in the faces of six friends as they loaded a body bag full of pieces onto a chopper. As you would imagine they weren’t happy with the intrusion. Minutes later I had to help the sergeant who led those troops into combat buckle his seatbelt because his hands were shaking with rage and fear. That chopper ride would end at a fallen hero’s ceremony, but not before we picked up another member of the same platoon who didn’t have a body bag. He was wrapped in a camouflage tarp that couldn’t conceal his face or mangled body.

The only thing I have to remember that scene is four seconds of video that stops abruptly as a soldier screams at the camera in a mixture of disgust and frustration. I guess I failed that day. There’s the eight year-old Afghan girl who was burned beyond recognition by the white phosphorus round that fell through the roof of her home killing her two sisters and changing her life forever. The doctors looked on in horror as the phosphorus reignited in the emergency room several hours after the incident. They had no idea what they were dealing with. All they knew is they wanted to save this child who hasn’t even had a chance at life yet.

Then there’s the 21-year-old soldier who was riding in an MRAP when it hit an IED. He walked away unhurt — nothing broken, nothing missing. Hours later his buddies sent him to see a doctor. He couldn’t remember the incident, couldn’t remember the day, and couldn’t remember the time. As they loaded him on the chopper for the ride to the hospital the medic told him they were heading to Bagram Air Base. Every 10 minutes or so he would ask where he is, and where they’re heading. A man that looks as normal as you or I, but he couldn’t remember the simple details like how he got on a helicopter or where he was going. A traumatic brain injury- one can only hope he’ll recover.

There’s the soldier who, after losing three friends, called his dad from the emergency room and said “Dad, I think you’re going to be mad at me. Remember when you told me not to join the infantry…” A day later that soldier was wheeled outside in his hospital bed, IV’s and all, and shared a cigar with a chaplain and a fellow brother in arms.

Then there’s the kid who was trying to figure out how he was going to tell his wife that part of his ring finger was blown off. He can no longer high five- it’s more like a four and a half. Kinda fitting for an infantry grunt, at least his buddies thought so.

So what does this all mean? Well, it doesn’t mean anything. A wise reporter once told me that trying to gain a handle on what’s going on theatre-wide from your embed is like “looking at a landscape through a straw.” They’re just stories. War sucks, but I guess I already knew that.

Crossfire

Evan Vucci — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 17:09:46 +0000

Caught in the Crossfire- A Child’s Story

I didn’t want to look. Sitting in front of me was the epotime of innocence — a beautiful 8-year-old Afghan girl named Razia. This job prepares you for the darker side of human existence, but to see a child a become a victim of white phosphorus, a lethal chemical, is something you will never forget. White phosphorus will burn until it is gone. It will burn down to the bone. White phosphorus will melt an oxygen mask on a child’s face. White phosphorus will reignite hours, and days later when it comes into contact with the air.

It’s amazing that Razia even survived. A medivac team and a group of dedicated doctors performed a miracle bringing her back. The doctors and nurses at Bagram Air Base see all the horrible consequences that war deals up each day: gunshot wounds, amputations, head injuries, etc… You get the sense from talking to them, that the one thing they will take away from all the tragedy, is saving this little girl. Bringing innocence back to life is something anyone would be proud of.

No one will admit to firing the white phosphorus round. It could have come from NATO forces, it could have come from Taliban. I would imagine that Razia is more concerned with her two sisters who were killed, then assigning blame.

I can’t imagine trying to raise a family in the crossfire. I can’t imagine seeing my little girl on fire, or living in constant fear. That’s why I’ll always remember that no matter how much time I spend on the ground in Iraq or Afghanistan, I’ll never truly understand what’s happening in the lives of civilians or soldiers.

After all, I can always go home.

Killer Blue

Evan Vucci — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 00:00:39 +0000

Killer Blue- Baptized by Fire-

The day I arrived at “Combat Outpost Killer,” Staff Sgt. Chad Caldwell walked up to me, extended his hand, and said, “I hate the media.” I liked him right away.

Maya Alleruzzo, Rick Bowmer, and I spent the next year covering Killer Troop on the ground in Iraq, and on the homefront. We were there when Sgt. Jose Regalado met his baby for the first time, and we were there when Jose Regalado was laid to rest. We were there through big moments, and small throughout their tour.

I’ll never forget the moment I found out Chad Caldwell was killed. It’s nearly impossible to capture the real sacrifices that soldiers and their families make in war. What an enormous strain that the constant deployments cause, what it feels like to leave the wire each day, or how loud an IED actually is.

It’s impossible to show the fear an Iraqi family feels when Americans kick in the door in the middle of the night, or how hard a young lieutenant works to calm them.

It’s easy for Americans to say they support their troops, it’s much more difficult for them to understand what those troops actually go through. The memories of seeing your friends die, and the emotional and physical toll that takes on a human being.

The final week of this story was spent at Fort Hood, Texas, to do the last interviews with the guys at the end of their tour. My most vivid memory from that week was sitting in the middle of the food court on post and watching 22- and 23-year-olds walk by with canes or on crutches. Take a drive in a military town sometime and you can see for yourself.

Iraq and Afghanistan are thousands of miles away, and for the vast majority of us life goes on uninterrupted. But there are thousands of families out there who’s memories of a son end at the age of 24. And there are children out there who’s only memory of their father will be from an old Facebook page that hasn’t had a new entry in eight months.

Killer Blue isn’t a story of patriotism or pride. It’s a story of sacrifice and friendship.

An Apollo Legend

Evan Vucci — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 16:37:31 +0000

This story was done during a workshop with the best multimedia producers in the business. Bernadette Tuazon, Ricky Montalvo, and I spent a week at MediaStorm learning how to plan, shoot, and edit a story. It was one of the most influential experiences in my career, and I would recommend it to anyone who wants to learn the craft of multimedia storytelling. The vast majority of heavy lifting on this project was done by Bob Sacha, Brian Storm, and everyone else at MediaStorm, but I was just happy to be a small part of a very cool project.

Cribs: Iraq

Evan Vucci — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 10:19:35 +0000

The question I get asked the most about my job is what’s it like to work in a war zone. No one wants to hear about the countless press conferences I’ve covered on Capitol Hill, or even what a camera spray is like in the Oval Office. But there is a misconception about what happens on a compbat outpost in the middle of a war. The idea that guys sit around and ponder their fates, or talk about how dangerous things are just isn’t true. Don’t get me wrong- those conversations do happen, and there are horrific days while on tour. But it’s not like the big battle scene at the end of Saving Private Ryan where everyone is waxing poetic about back home, and praying they make it out. One infantry grunt said it best when he told me “you get one cigarette to talk about the crazy shit that just happened, after that you’re just a whiner.” The majority of time is spent fighting boredom between patrols outside the wire. Cribs: Iraq came about on a slow day at Combat Outpost Rabiy in Mosul when the soldiers wanted to show me around.

Lucky Charms

Evan Vucci — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 16:34:34 +0000

Good Luck Charms

Combat Outpost Rabiy is in the middle of one of the worst neighborhoods on the planet. Kidnappings, suicide bombings, IED’s, and gun battles are an almost daily occurrence. If you worked there, what would you carry with you for good luck?