J. Malcolm Garcia
Fire in the Hole
The convoy stops, and the lieutenant lowers his binoculars and opens his door and points at four Afghan men standing on a ridge beside a red telephone tower. They look little more than dots against the horizon. Boulders lie strewn across the slope of...
The Defector
He steps through the splintered front door of an apartment building, leans stoop-shouldered against a charred wall. Twenty years old. Gashes of stubble on his drawn cheeks, sharp chin. A sweatshirt too big for his narrow chest. Jeans, sneakers. Brown...
Weather Did Not Destroy This Man's House
This morning, I woke up and decided to take a bus out of Kabul. Any bus to the first village it stopped at just to leave the city. Its congested streets and thick layers of smog had begun to bear down on me. I needed a break from what in my mind was a...
A Mercy Killing in Kabul
Fifteen days ago, I saw the guy my cousin hired to kill my father. He was in a garden in Kabul. I was carrying a gun and I was walking down the street and I shot him and I killed him. A friend had offered me two, three guns to kill the guy but I only...
Broken Hearts, Lost Minds, and Missing Limbs
I am an American reporter. Aziz and I have worked together in Afghanistan since 2004. On this trip, I am reporting on the consequences of more than 30 years of war by spending time with a handful of its victims.
