What is and isn’t justified by military necessity is, naturally, open to interpretation. One of the key concepts, though, is the law of proportionality. A military attack that results in civilian casualties – ‘collateral damage’ – is acceptable as long as the military benefits outweigh the price that is paid by humanity. Sebastian Junger Read Quote
The combat environment has the effect of flattening out civilian identities. If you’re young or old, or a graduate from Harvard or the son of a farmer from Alabama, or if you’re gay or straight or good-looking or ugly: none of those things matters much in combat, as long as you can conform to the group expectations. Sebastian Junger Read Quote
My wife, Daniela, and I live in an old house from 1810 with three fireplaces at the end of a dead-end dirt road on Cape Cod, so I turn the trees into firewood for us and a friend of mine sells the rest. Sebastian Junger Read Quote
People really in the meat grinder of the front lines are not, for the most part, insured or salaried network correspondents. They’re young freelancers. They’re kind of a cheap date for the news industry. Sebastian Junger Read Quote
There are no journalistic ethics that transcend the value of human life. There are none. In a situation where you can save a human life, you must. There isn’t any conflict in my mind. Sebastian Junger Read Quote
There are photographers who don’t really engage with their subject. It’s a really unfortunate phrase, but they take their photo and they leave with it. It works but I think it ultimately limits how profound the work can be. Sebastian Junger Read Quote
One could reasonably argue that the Turkish pogrom against the Armenians during World War I qualifies as a crime against humanity, as does the United States’ ethnic cleansing of Native Americans. Sebastian Junger Read Quote
When you’re scared, you’re still hanging on to life. When you’re ready to die, you let it go. A sort of emptying out occurs, a giving up on the world that seems oddly familiar even if you’ve never done it before. Sebastian Junger Read Quote
The only thing that makes battle psychologically tolerable is the brotherhood among soldiers. You need each other to get by. Sebastian Junger Read Quote
