They tell you not to meet your heroes — but what if they meet you first?
At The Association of Foreign Press Correspondents USA dinner and awards in DC this past December, I was standing alone when Jere Van Dyk spotted me, introduced himself simply as “Jere,” and then immediately began introducing me around. He probably could tell I was a first-time FPC member and attendee.
As many of you know, I’m a people person, so before long, I was deep in conversations with journalists of all stripes, from a wide range of outlets and backgrounds, and I never saw Jere again that evening.
But during dinner, while flipping through the evening’s program, I noticed that “Jere” was on the AFPC board. A short Google search revealed a bio that read like the backstory of a fictionalized Hollywood War Correspondent Film — the kind that would make Hemingway blush, and Bruckheimer salivate.
Farmboy turned journalist. Vietnam veteran. Former DC staffer for a powerful senator who ran for president in the primary against Jimmy Carter. Off-the-grid world traveler. Track star who nearly made the Olympics. Middle East expert. Film, TV, and government consultant and author of five books. Educated in the U.S. and then college in Paris on the GI bill, he then celebrated his graduation by traveling by car through Afghanistan — for pleasure — before it became a war zone for the Soviets and later, the U.S.
That Afghanistan trip set the course of his life, and he found work on the ground there as a journalist after the Soviets invaded, then again after 9/11, as his career in journalism specializing in Pakistan and Afghanistan blossomed.
Jere has written five books, including the one I’m holding in the photo, “Captive,” which chronicles his time as a Taliban prisoner while reporting for CBS during the US war in Afghanistan. (Talk about “travel gone wrong.”)
He was the first American abducted by the Taliban since Daniel Pearl. Jere spent much of his captivity in a dark dungeon, as the only non-Muslim, and was convinced he would be killed, and possibly publicly beheaded like Daniel Pearl, yet somehow he found the presence of mind to keep detailed notes — originally for an article that ultimately became the book “Captive.”
Once I grasped who I’d just casually met, I bought “Captive” immediately and moved it to the top of my reading list. I became so absorbed that I abandoned two other books and focused solely on his during the holiday break.
It soon became clear that Jere and I shared more than our farm boy background and AFPC membership, so I reached out to see if he’d be up for lunch, and he graciously agreed.
Today, we finally made it happen — and two hours flew by like two minutes. We both vowed to do it again, and soon.
So maybe the saying should come with a qualifier: don’t meet your heroes — unless they meet you first.
