Carmen Gentile is a journalist who has reported from war zones, embedded with Army units, to get the real story on the ground for the public to learn. In September of 2010 while in Eastern Afghanistan however, his livelihood and passion took a horrific turn when he was hit in the face with an RPG. This all happened as Carmen was capturing stories on the ground, and due to this, the entire ambush was caught on film and is now up on Youtube. As you can imagine after shattering and blinding his right eye, this led to a long and trying recovery process dealing with a lot of physical and emotional pain which he documents in his book, “Blindsided by the Taliban: A Journalist’s Story of War, Trauma, Love, and Loss.” Incredibly, Carmen went right back to work in the Middle East once he was healed despite many thinking he was crazy for it.

In this interview we not only discuss Carmen’s story, but what it means to be a journalist working from war zones in this era. Carmen also relays a funny story involving the idol worship of Army generals he’s seen during his time, and in this case, General Patraeus. In addition to his work, Carmen is a motorcycle enthusiast and he’s currently tying this passion with a future story on the ground in Iraq. You’ll hear all about that right here on Episode 415…crank it up!