This book may contain language, sexual content, and themes of grief and loss, which may be challenging for some readers. Reader caution advised.
It Touches Your Soul
by Shane Timson
For High Plains Public Radio, I’m Shane Timson in Colby, Kansas.
Today we are talking about the book American Mother. This is written by Colum McCann and Diane Foley. This is the true story of the tragic beheading of James Foley who was a freelance journalist. I liked this book.
James Foley started out as a military reporter then he got caught with marijuana and he was discharged and then after a period of being depressed, he thought, “’m not going to be known some washed up pothead,” so he set off and became a freelance journalist. He went over to Libya. He was captured in Libya where he was held for a few months and then he was set free.
He came home for awhile and then decided, “I want to go back to the Middle East.” His parents and his friends and other people in his family said, “Why go back there? You’ve already been captured once. You don’t want to go back there.”
He said, “I want to tell the story. The story of the people.” He said that war itself isn’t just about the governments, the governments that send people to war, but it is also about the people and what their story is. How do people suffer during times of war?
So, he goes back to the Middle East and then he is captured by Isis and he is held for months and eventually beheaded.
Diane talks about the months of agony, of hearing from government officials. Everybody says that James is on their high priority list, that they will do everything they can to get him back. But then they don’t do it.
She talks about his death she has a face-to-face meeting with President Obama. She said President Obama seemed to be very sincere. At one point, she breaks down crying in the Oval Office and he hands her a handkerchief.
She talks about her life becoming one of helping other people get free. The American and British journalists were not set free but the other countries that negotiated and got their hostages, their family members released. They did it through insurance and other means, but you can’t do that in America. In fact, she talked about in this book that they told her specifically that she could not do her own negotiations.
This book definitely touches your soul. It doesn’t matter which side of the aisle you are on. You know, I don’t have kids of my own, but I can’t imagine what it would be like to get that sort of phone call that tells you your son has been beheaded.
The grief that she went through! She keeps her son’s memory alive though, by working to help get hostages free and to change the policies of how we deal with hostage-taking that happens in war whether they are journalists or soldiers.
So, it will definitely make you think – think about how we do things. It also makes you feel grateful for the fact that we still have our freedoms and we can still enjoy things. It’s because there are people out there sacrificing their lives so that we can have a better life.
Even the journalists that go out there – and sometimes we criticize the media, but I read this book and I respect Mr. Foley and what he wanted to do. It’s a hard book to read, but sometimes the truth is hard to take.
For High Plains Public Radio, I’m Shane Timson in Colby, Kansas.
