Speaker 1: You're listening to a Mum and mea podcast. Mama Mia
Speaker 1: acknowledges the traditional owners of land and waterers. This podcast
Speaker 1: was recorded on Hi True Crime Conversations listeners. It's your host,
Speaker 1: Jemmy here and I'm jumping back in your ears today
Speaker 1: to share an important episode with you.
Speaker 2: It's from No Filter, which is another interview podcast we
Speaker 2: have on the Muma Mea network. It's hosted by Mia
Speaker 2: Friedman and this year marks ten years since the heartbreaking
Speaker 2: death of James Foley, the American journalist who has taken
Speaker 2: hostage and killed by ISIS in twenty fourteen. In this episode,
Speaker 2: his mother, Diane Foley, talks about meeting with one of
Speaker 2: the people responsible for her son's murder. What unfolds is
Speaker 2: an incredibly moving conversation about James's life and the grace
Speaker 2: and empathy Diane has shown despite such an unimaginable loss.
Speaker 2: It's really powerful, it's thought provoking, and I think it
Speaker 2: will stay with you long after you listen. Let us
Speaker 2: know what you think of the episode. I'll see you
Speaker 2: next week for another true crime conversation.
Speaker 3: I'm Mea Friedman and from Mama Mia. You're listening to
Speaker 3: No filter. If I said the name James Foley, a
Speaker 3: distant bell might ring in your head. And if I
Speaker 3: showed you a picture of James, you might recognize his face,
Speaker 3: big smile, handsome, dark hair, tan skin. It looks a
Speaker 3: little bit like a movie star in a way. But
Speaker 3: it wouldn't be until I showed you a photo of
Speaker 3: James wearing an orange jumpsuit, kneeling in the desert with
Speaker 3: a black, hooded man standing behind him that it will click.
Speaker 3: James Foley is that guy. He's the American journalist who
Speaker 3: has taken hostage in Syria by isis held for two
Speaker 3: years in shocking conditions, and then beheaded in a public
Speaker 3: execution that was videoed and shared with the world as
Speaker 3: a message from terrorists as a threat.
Speaker 4: Something like ninety four percent of Americans were aware of
Speaker 4: Jim's death and how he died. It's the event with
Speaker 4: the second most recognition in recent American history after nine
Speaker 4: to eleven.
Speaker 5: He would have been horrified by that.
Speaker 4: I mean, he was there to talk about the Syrian people.
Speaker 4: And this is the takeaway.
Speaker 3: How James Foley died is what made him famous, and
Speaker 3: it is difficult to untangle it from how he lived,
Speaker 3: which is what we're going to do today. He was
Speaker 3: the eldest of five kids who grew up in a
Speaker 3: close family. His dad was a doctor, his mum was
Speaker 3: a nurse, and three of his siblings served in the military.
Speaker 3: But that wasn't for James. He wanted to be a journalist,
Speaker 3: and not the deak kind of journalist sitting behind a computer.
Speaker 3: He wanted to work on the ground in war zones.
Speaker 6: I believe the frontline journalism is important. Without these photos
Speaker 6: and videos and first and experience, you can't really tell
Speaker 6: the world how.
Speaker 4: Bad might be.
Speaker 3: James's mother, Diane, who has written a memoir called American
Speaker 3: Mother and He's my guest Today. Diane knew a thing
Speaker 3: or two about having children in dangerous situations the military,
Speaker 3: but she had no idea how big the risks were
Speaker 3: for James until he was kidnapped in Libya in twenty eleven,
Speaker 3: and he spent forty four days as a hostage before
Speaker 3: he was released.
Speaker 7: After successful diplomatic negotiations.
Speaker 8: Two American journalists and a Spanish journalists are finally going
Speaker 8: home after being kidnapped and detained by the Libyan government
Speaker 8: forces for forty four.
Speaker 3: Days because unbelievably. When Isis captured him the year after,
Speaker 3: it was the second time he'd been held hostage. He'd
Speaker 3: only been home for seven months when he went back
Speaker 3: into a war zone.
Speaker 9: There's physical courage, right, for some reason, I have physical courage,
Speaker 9: but you really think about it, that's nothing compared to
Speaker 9: moral courage.
Speaker 3: At the end of twenty twenty one, over seven years
Speaker 3: after millions of people watched her son being executed, Dianne
Speaker 3: got the opportunity to go and meet with one of
Speaker 3: his killers, who had just been convicted, and she said, yes,
Speaker 3: So why on earth did she want to do that?
Speaker 3: What do you say to one of your son's murderers?
Speaker 3: And what did he say over the ten hours that
Speaker 3: they spent together over a couple of days in the
Speaker 3: American jail where he was being held. This is a
Speaker 3: story about a mother's love for her son and how
Speaker 3: it continues to sustain her, how she found a way
Speaker 3: to heal herself after she lost her boy, and how
Speaker 3: sitting down with his killer helped her to do that.
Speaker 3: His Diane Folly, Jim must have been a great kid,
Speaker 3: because you had four more after him.
Speaker 5: He was a great kid. He was a lot of
Speaker 5: fun and I enjoyed being a mother. He really was.
Speaker 5: He was a good boy.
Speaker 3: How old were you when you had him?
Speaker 5: I had Jim when I was young. I was twenty five,
Speaker 5: so I had energy for him, so that was good.
Speaker 3: You talk about him having an amazing imagination.
Speaker 5: He loved books from the time he was very tiny,
Speaker 5: loved to be read to, and once he could read himself,
Speaker 5: he was reading, often reading and pretending to be people
Speaker 5: we read about often first bones.
Speaker 3: And are often quite cautious and very responsible. Was Jim
Speaker 3: very adventurous as a kid, because he certainly was as
Speaker 3: an adult.
Speaker 5: He was very adventurousome. He was definitely not cautious. He
Speaker 5: was very curious about the world, about people. I would
Speaker 5: not call him cautious at all. I mean, you know,
Speaker 5: as he got older, he was aware. He wasn't reckless.
Speaker 5: I mean he was well aware of the dangers in
Speaker 5: the conflict zone and took all the required safety horses
Speaker 5: and equipment and all that was necessary. But no, he
Speaker 5: was not cautious as a child. He was full on
Speaker 5: wanted to know about the world.
Speaker 3: When you have five kids, I've got three, and I've
Speaker 3: always wondered how when you've got that many children, you
Speaker 3: maintain relationships with each of them, particularly when they're small,
Speaker 3: and there's just so much need for attention for meals
Speaker 3: and arrangements. How did sort of the dynamic of the
Speaker 3: children and you and your husband John all play out.
Speaker 5: Our first two were only two years apart, so that
Speaker 5: they were busy, but the others were three and four
Speaker 5: years apart, so that was part of the way we
Speaker 5: tried to give as much attention as possible to each child.
Speaker 5: It's always not perfect, you know, as parents, we just
Speaker 5: do our best. But Jim was a very easy older
Speaker 5: brother because he really was very protective about the others
Speaker 5: and was generally pretty easy going as a child and
Speaker 5: very independent, so they were not needy kids, if you will.
Speaker 3: One of the hardest things I find as a parent
Speaker 3: is the tension between wanting to support what they want
Speaker 3: to do and their passions and their dreams, and also
Speaker 3: worrying about them, and also having them not around when
Speaker 3: perhaps you'd like to see more of them. When he
Speaker 3: first talked about becoming a conflict journalist and traveling to
Speaker 3: war zones, how did you manage that tension? What did
Speaker 3: you say.
Speaker 5: At the time Three of his younger siblings were in
Speaker 5: the military, with one in the Army, one in the
Speaker 5: Air Force, one in the Navy. So I was quite
Speaker 5: concerned about them and ignorant in many ways about the
Speaker 5: high risk of particularly being a freelance conflict journalism. And
Speaker 5: it took Jim a while to find journalism. He was
Speaker 5: initially a teacher than a writer. Eventually found journalism, and
Speaker 5: once he found it, he was so passionate about it
Speaker 5: that we were delighted he'd found something he really loved.
Speaker 3: When he told you he was going to Libya, did
Speaker 3: you know much about Libya and what was happening over there?
Speaker 5: Again, like I say, I think as a consumer of
Speaker 5: the news, I think I was quite ignorant about the
Speaker 5: dangers in the Middle East. To be honest, I really
Speaker 5: didn't know, and Jim didn't emphasize that, but he did
Speaker 5: make a point of taking, as I said, the safety
Speaker 5: courses and doing all he felt he could to be
Speaker 5: as safe as possible. But I was not as aware
Speaker 5: as I could of and should have as a parent.
Speaker 3: What did it actually involve his work in Libya? Like,
Speaker 3: when you're a conflict journalist, what do you do every day?
Speaker 5: Well, first, you get into the country. I mean, that
Speaker 5: is not that easy in some of these areas. But
Speaker 5: then you look for reporting on the ground, what is
Speaker 5: going on on the ground, and that's exactly what they
Speaker 5: would do. Every day. They would go out to the
Speaker 5: front line. They would interview civilians, soldiers, people who were
Speaker 5: living what was going on in the country and looking
Speaker 5: for important stories that he felt people in the West
Speaker 5: would want to hear and want to know. So kind
Speaker 5: of a hectic when they were in country, I think
Speaker 5: because they had to be thinking about their safety, safety
Speaker 5: of people they were interviewing, while at the same time
Speaker 5: looking for good stories and wanting to tell them. So
Speaker 5: rather stressful when in country, particularly in conflict zones.
Speaker 3: One of the things that really came through with what
Speaker 3: I learned about Jim from your book and from watching
Speaker 3: the documentary about him that was made by Brian his
Speaker 3: childhood friend, is how he created families wherever he was,
Speaker 3: which made me think about he was essentially recreating what
Speaker 3: you had and your husband had created in the bond
Speaker 3: of your family and your kids. So when he was
Speaker 3: in Libya, he had this family of other freelance journalists
Speaker 3: and other journalists that he was close to, essentially and
Speaker 3: on the day that they were captured, and when one
Speaker 3: of them was tragically killed, he was taken hostage along
Speaker 3: with a few friends. Yes, how did you learn that
Speaker 3: he was taken?
Speaker 5: We heard from Human Rights Watch called us directly looked
Speaker 5: us up on Facebook and reached out to us out
Speaker 5: of the blue. And then the second person probably was
Speaker 5: one of his outlets he was working for. And then
Speaker 5: eventually US consul called us. So we received several calls,
Speaker 5: but the first one was from a stranger who worked
Speaker 5: for Human Rights Watch.
Speaker 3: Now you're just an ordinary family. Your son has taken
Speaker 3: host did in Libya. He was held for forty four days.
Speaker 3: How did those forty four days play out?
Speaker 5: Well, any parent who's ever lost their child forbid they
Speaker 5: be kidnapped or something like that knows. It's just it's
Speaker 5: a horrific experience because you are powerless. You have no
Speaker 5: idea how to help your child. And so we were
Speaker 5: down on our knees praying most of the time. It
Speaker 5: was Jim's second oldest, next older brother, Michael, who took
Speaker 5: a leave from work and did all he could to
Speaker 5: try to connect with people in Washington, and then a
Speaker 5: lot of his friends did all the rest you say
Speaker 5: creative families. Jim was just friendly and so he was
Speaker 5: always welcomed into any family. That was his one of
Speaker 5: his gifts. He was a very good listener and interested
Speaker 5: in people. So what he was taken, his friends were
Speaker 5: incredibly upset. So they did a website and got on
Speaker 5: social media and had several campaigns for his return.
Speaker 3: Were you asked for a ransom that time.
Speaker 5: No, no, we were not. As a matter of fact,
Speaker 5: the government did not reach out to us at all.
Speaker 5: I don't know Jim was considered a political prisoner. I
Speaker 5: mean it was in the middle of war. I'm not
Speaker 5: sure if they knew what they wanted to do with
Speaker 5: all their prisoners, to be honest. And he came out
Speaker 5: really thanks to the connection of another stranger, David Bradley,
Speaker 5: who at that time owned Atlantic Media. Jim was with
Speaker 5: Claire Gillis, who was one of his freelancers. So David
Speaker 5: and his team, along with Jim's friends from Teach for America,
Speaker 5: did research until they found someone who had connections into
Speaker 5: Gaddafi government, and it was through those good people that
Speaker 5: Jim was eventually freed. When I heard he was freed,
Speaker 5: we were at home. His brother went to meet him
Speaker 5: in Libya.
Speaker 3: How long was he homeful?
Speaker 5: He was home for a good six months. I would
Speaker 5: say he did a gratitude tour to see a lot
Speaker 5: of his friends, so many people he felt he needed
Speaker 5: to think. I did quite a bit of speaking on
Speaker 5: that tour.
Speaker 6: Young soldiers sort of spread out across the sand who
Speaker 6: approached me and struck me with the butt of the
Speaker 6: air k forty seven half dozen times punched me. I
Speaker 6: didn't feel hardly anything. Such was my shock at seeing
Speaker 6: my colleague Anton Morley wounded in the sand, knowing on
Speaker 6: level right away that he was dead. And I had
Speaker 6: a lot of time when I got back to the States.
Speaker 6: I had a month to play over those moments, especially
Speaker 6: that one day when we were captured, what I would
Speaker 6: have done, what I could have done, what I should
Speaker 6: have done, and really examining those things and being able
Speaker 6: to talk about it openly.
Speaker 5: And then went to work in Boston, then as an
Speaker 5: editor for Global Post. Soon by the fall he was
Speaker 5: working with Human Rights Watch doing some journalism for them,
Speaker 5: and then eventually went back into the field.
Speaker 3: You must have been thrilled when he had a desk
Speaker 3: job for that brief time.
Speaker 5: Well, we were, I mean, the whole thing was a
Speaker 5: miracle that he returned. It was amazing.
Speaker 3: Diane, How did he tell you he was going back
Speaker 3: and how did you react?
Speaker 5: Well, none of us were very happy. He had been
Speaker 5: in and out, though he chose to go back and
Speaker 5: briefly in the fall of twenty eleven, but full time
Speaker 5: in the beginning of twenty twelve, and that time he
Speaker 5: headed into Syria, and he went back and forth in
Speaker 5: and out of Syria several times that year before his
Speaker 5: kidnapping in November of twenty twelve.
Speaker 3: He did some extraordinary things during that time. He spent
Speaker 3: quite a lot of time at a hospital reporting there
Speaker 3: and when they had the need for an ambulance, he
Speaker 3: helped raise money to buy an ambulance.
Speaker 4: I would say the flip side of his willingness to
Speaker 4: get out there and do things is that like, Okay,
Speaker 4: so you get an ambulance into serious some militia's going
Speaker 4: to commandeer it and use it for their own purposes.
Speaker 10: They're going to put an anti aircraft in the back
Speaker 10: of it, like go blow shit up. Jim was not
Speaker 10: focused on that kind of issue, like he would think about,
Speaker 10: you know, what's the best.
Speaker 5: Case scenario, not how things could go wrong.
Speaker 3: He was always very mindful of the plight of civilians
Speaker 3: where he was working. When he was taken the second time,
Speaker 3: it was very different, wasn't it?
Speaker 5: Yes?
Speaker 3: How was it different?
Speaker 5: Well, the second time it was only witnessed by his fixer,
Speaker 5: and his fixer didn't know who the captors were.
Speaker 3: Can you explain what a fixer is is?
Speaker 5: A fixer is a person who translates and drives for
Speaker 5: foreign reporter who comes in. Like Jim, was not fluent
Speaker 5: in Arabic, so they had to find someone who knew
Speaker 5: the country, knew the language, who could get them where
Speaker 5: they needed to go. So their fixer was a good friend.
Speaker 5: He was very kind and wanted to help. But at
Speaker 5: that time there was a huge influx of foreign fighters
Speaker 5: coming into northern Syria. He didn't know who they were.
Speaker 5: It's kind of come as a surprise to a lot
Speaker 5: of us. This group isis a group that we hadn't
Speaker 5: really heard much about. Who exactly are they? Well, it's
Speaker 5: a criminal, marauding gang. They come out of the original
Speaker 5: very brutal, a rocky terra group. They're the worst, They're
Speaker 5: the worst of the worst.
Speaker 8: Washington does not how's his family in New England going
Speaker 8: to figure that out.
Speaker 5: Right, and so that was part of the problem. We
Speaker 5: didn't know who had taken him. We didn't know if
Speaker 5: it was the Asad regime or one of these foreign fighters.
Speaker 3: What were the circumstances of he's kidnapping that time he
Speaker 3: was with John Canty, the British journalist, was he.
Speaker 5: Yes, yes, And that was one of the differences. Previously
Speaker 5: Jim had been more under the radar. He worked very
Speaker 5: quietly under the radar, but I think he missed some
Speaker 5: male companionship, to be honest, and got friendly with John Canty,
Speaker 5: which was great in many ways, but I think probably
Speaker 5: put them at more risk because John was fairer and
Speaker 5: had a very clear Western accent, whereas Jim was much quieter,
Speaker 5: I think, at least I'm told when they stopped at
Speaker 5: some restaurant on their way out of town, you know,
Speaker 5: they were noticed, apparently.
Speaker 3: And again, how did you find out through the fixer?
Speaker 5: No, we actually found out through one of his colleagues.
Speaker 5: Nicole Toungue and Claire Gillis were both in Turkey and
Speaker 5: they were planning to meet Jim that afternoon, and so
Speaker 5: they called us the day after that we celebrate Thanksgiving
Speaker 5: Day in the United States. It was rather odd that
Speaker 5: we didn't hear from Jim because he always called on holidays,
Speaker 5: but we did not hear from him. So that morning
Speaker 5: Claire and Nicole called us to say he had been kidnapped.
Speaker 3: When you didn't hear from him, Diana, did you have
Speaker 3: that spidery sense of unease?
Speaker 5: I did. It was just a deafening silence not to
Speaker 5: hear from Jim because he always called. And of course
Speaker 5: when they called, it confirmed our fears.
Speaker 3: I imagine there is a huge amount of adrenaline, but
Speaker 3: nowhere for it to go in terms of Jim's family
Speaker 3: and how you felt like knowing he'd been taken, like
Speaker 3: what do you do? Do you call nine one one?
Speaker 3: Do you call the White House?
Speaker 5: Like?
Speaker 3: What do you act? Actually do?
Speaker 11: Well?
Speaker 5: That was the problem. I mean, I'm a nurse, my
Speaker 5: husband's a doctor. We had no idea what to do,
Speaker 5: and we were shocked that it happened a second time,
Speaker 5: I mean really shocked, and of course we went to
Speaker 5: pray right away. That was my first reaction. It was
Speaker 5: more and more frightening the fact that nobody knew where
Speaker 5: he was. He had disappeared. He truly disappeared. In the
Speaker 5: other in Libya, we knew where he had been taken.
Speaker 5: It was still a miraculous that we were able to
Speaker 5: get him out. But in this case we had no
Speaker 5: idea even if he was alive, we had no idea
Speaker 5: he had disappeared.
Speaker 3: When did his captors first make contact.
Speaker 5: We first heard that he was alive in September of
Speaker 5: twenty thirteen, and he was taken in the previous November.
Speaker 5: It was a good ten months not knowing if he
Speaker 5: was alive or not.
Speaker 8: The first email came to me, Hello, we have James
Speaker 8: and want to negotiate for him.
Speaker 6: He is safe, he's.
Speaker 8: Our friend and we do not want to hurt him.
Speaker 8: If you want cooperation, we have rules. You cannot go
Speaker 8: to the media ever about this. If you do, we
Speaker 8: will not negotiate. We want money fast.
Speaker 3: What people hearing this story might expect is that you
Speaker 3: had a huge amount of government support and official support,
Speaker 3: because there's a lot of admin involved in being the
Speaker 3: loved one of a missing person. In terms of trying
Speaker 3: to find information isn't there, and you felt like you
Speaker 3: had to finance your own trips to Washington. You had
Speaker 3: to try and make people understand about Jim's story and
Speaker 3: get his name out there and get some action. That
Speaker 3: must have been a very heavy burden to bears along
Speaker 3: with everything else.
Speaker 5: Well, I had to quit my job and do it
Speaker 5: full time. But I failed. I mean, there was no
Speaker 5: one in our government in twenty twelve through twenty fourteen
Speaker 5: to help, no one whose job it was to help
Speaker 5: an innocent American family even find out where Jim was,
Speaker 5: never mind get him out. It was a horrible time.
Speaker 5: But what was even worse was that our government kind
Speaker 5: of falsely assured me that they were on it. And
Speaker 5: that was difficult because I spent a lot of the
Speaker 5: year just trusting that our government was telling me the truth,
Speaker 5: that they were in fact on it and you know,
Speaker 5: working on getting Jim home when that wasn't true. I
Speaker 5: think the people felt uncomfortable and didn't know what to
Speaker 5: do with me.
Speaker 3: To be honest, you know, I know you have deep faith, Diane.
Speaker 3: Did you have a sense, as his mother like, were
Speaker 3: you like is he alive? Is he not alive? Can
Speaker 3: I feel him?
Speaker 5: Yeah? I really felt he was alive during that time.
Speaker 5: I never felt that we had lost him. I really
Speaker 5: never felt that way. So I just had a feeling
Speaker 5: that he was alive, but we had no idea where
Speaker 5: and who had him. And I struggled to get any
Speaker 5: interest in his plate. I struggled with the media, I
Speaker 5: struggled with the government, and I was really quite ignorant
Speaker 5: about how to go about it. Mia.
Speaker 3: When the kidnappers made contact and asked for money, you
Speaker 3: were told very explicitly that not only would the US
Speaker 3: government not pay any kind of ransom, if you tried
Speaker 3: to raise money yourself, you could be prosecuted.
Speaker 5: Well, we were told that, but much later in twenty fourteen,
Speaker 5: when that initially came through, FBI just reassured us that
Speaker 5: don't worry, they're going to keep negotiating. Let's keep them talking.
Speaker 5: Just tell them you don't have the money, that kind
Speaker 5: of thing. So nobody said anything like that until later
Speaker 5: in twenty fourteen when we discovered that it wasn't just Jim,
Speaker 5: that Jim was also with three other Americans and three
Speaker 5: British citizens, and also several other Europeans. So it was
Speaker 5: that spring of twenty fourteen that a person from the
Speaker 5: National Security Council told us that threatened us actually three times,
Speaker 5: but in way, Mia he was the one who was
Speaker 5: telling us the truth. He's the one that was telling me,
Speaker 5: you know, our government's not going to do anything for him,
Speaker 5: and if you try, you could go to jail. So
Speaker 5: we went ahead and raised pledges anyway. But at the
Speaker 5: time the captors did not engage with us again. They
Speaker 5: stopped talking to us after a month after they proved
Speaker 5: to us that they had Jim. They stopped communicating essentially
Speaker 5: until two weeks before they murdered Jim.
Speaker 3: During the time during that second year, not a lot
Speaker 3: is known about that first year that Jim was in captivity.
Speaker 3: In the second year, though, you have learned quite a
Speaker 3: lot because a lot of the men that he was
Speaker 3: held with, the Europeans, the British, some of them have
Speaker 3: been released and they paint quite an extraordinary picture of
Speaker 3: a time when I think it was up to eighteen
Speaker 3: of them were held together. What have you learned about.
Speaker 5: That time, Well, it's really thanks to many of them
Speaker 5: and Jim's dear friend Brian Oaks, the talented director of
Speaker 5: the film Jim, the James Foley Story, that I found
Speaker 5: out what Jim's last two years were like really, and
Speaker 5: I was just so grateful he was with such good people,
Speaker 5: all brave people who were either journalists or aid workers.
Speaker 5: So they were all people who were interested in others
Speaker 5: and really cared about the suffering that was going on
Speaker 5: in serious So they were all very good people, very
Speaker 5: interesting people. They managed all kinds of things to try
Speaker 5: to survive. Jim was there the longest. Jim was one
Speaker 5: of the very earliest. Jim and John Pantley were the first,
Speaker 5: so they were held the longest and the first part
Speaker 5: of their captivity. They were starved and tortured a lot.
Speaker 11: You never know what's going to happen next, and that's
Speaker 11: much more difficult to handle and to deal with than
Speaker 11: the beating.
Speaker 5: You know, at some point we were so hungry.
Speaker 12: We ate banana piles.
Speaker 11: Arrange pills were like our candidates.
Speaker 5: We received the chicken.
Speaker 3: Ones at the boons.
Speaker 11: If you are staff, you think about food, but once
Speaker 11: you eat, you only think about going on the sea.
Speaker 11: Are going on the forest in the open space is
Speaker 11: the only thing you want.
Speaker 5: But later on, as others came in, I think the
Speaker 5: captors began to realize they needed to keep them alive
Speaker 5: because European nations were negotiating for the release of their people.
Speaker 5: So all those people did come out, and they're the
Speaker 5: ones that have been able to share stories with me
Speaker 5: very much.
Speaker 3: The descriptions of Jim was as the big brother of
Speaker 3: the group. He being an American, was the target of
Speaker 3: a lot of horrific treatment by the gods and by
Speaker 3: the captors. But you know, they did things like they
Speaker 3: played games of risk. He managed to draw aboard, and
Speaker 3: they used little beans the pieces, and how they supported
Speaker 3: one another. On Christmas Day, they didn't have, obviously anything
Speaker 3: to give one another, so they all sat in a
Speaker 3: circle and gave one another the gift of each saying
Speaker 3: a lovely thing about everyone else in the group.
Speaker 12: And I remember that I said to James that, James,
Speaker 12: first time I met you was you know, in this prison,
Speaker 12: and you looked as confused as if you were just
Speaker 12: dumped down on the Earth from the moon or something.
Speaker 12: And you basically destroyed my whole idea of this great
Speaker 12: war journalist, Jeames right folly. And then suddenly I find
Speaker 12: out that you are very clumsy, you're very bad at sports,
Speaker 12: But then again you you're the most honest person. There
Speaker 12: is no evil at all to find in your dams.
Speaker 3: And there were times when they would fight, and Jim
Speaker 3: would be the one who would say times break up
Speaker 3: physical fights. And I got a really strong sense by
Speaker 3: listening to these other men of the character of Jim,
Speaker 3: his incredible resilience, his incredible optimism, and just being a
Speaker 3: good guy.
Speaker 5: He was a good guy. And you know, speaking of
Speaker 5: the film, the film gets into all that. The book
Speaker 5: American Mother is more about what's happened since Jim's murder.
Speaker 3: When you talk about the difference between the fact that
Speaker 3: a lot of the Europeans though, and people were negotiating
Speaker 3: and they were released, were you in contact with the
Speaker 3: other families.
Speaker 5: No, because I really, I mean, our FBI did not
Speaker 5: even tell us who the American families were. We didn't
Speaker 5: know that until about twenty fourteen. So the European families,
Speaker 5: we really didn't know, except when I went to France.
Speaker 5: I did go to France and too Spain, trying to
Speaker 5: see if they could help me. I did have a
Speaker 5: chance actually to meet some of the French friends of
Speaker 5: the hostages anyway, and one family member, but I didn't
Speaker 5: know they get to know them well until afterwards.
Speaker 3: After the break, Diane tells me about the day the
Speaker 3: unimaginable happened. A journalist called her and told her to
Speaker 3: look at Twitter, where she saw an image of Jim.
Speaker 5: At that time, I just hoped it was a cool
Speaker 5: joke and it had been photoshopped.
Speaker 3: We'll be back shortly, Diane. I want to ask you
Speaker 3: about the call you got. It was from a journalist,
Speaker 3: wasn't it. It was what happened in that phone call,
Speaker 3: if it's not too painful to recount.
Speaker 5: No, it was a beautiful August day and my sister
Speaker 5: was visiting and we received this call out of the
Speaker 5: blue from this journalist who was crying. She was sobbing
Speaker 5: on the phone, and I could hardly understand what she
Speaker 5: was saying. But finally I figured out she was saying,
Speaker 5: look at Twitter. And then she hung up, and so
Speaker 5: I looked at Twitter, and that's when we saw the
Speaker 5: horrific picture of Jim being beheaded. And I did look
Speaker 5: at the image because I wanted to make sure it
Speaker 5: was Jim and it was. At that time, I just
Speaker 5: hoped it was a cruel joke and it had been photoshopped.
Speaker 5: That was my hope, and so I reached out to
Speaker 5: everybody I knew. I wrote emails to everybody I had
Speaker 5: worked with for the past two years. But nobody answered
Speaker 5: me that day. That in itself was difficult not to
Speaker 5: hear from anybody that morning. You'd been visited by the
Speaker 5: FBI for the first time in a long time, exactly,
Speaker 5: but they didn't seem to know anything. I really don't
Speaker 5: think they were disings. They didn't seem to know. It
Speaker 5: seemed odd to me after two years that they're asking
Speaker 5: from a DNA now it seems so odd, But they didn't,
Speaker 5: you know, make a deal about.
Speaker 3: It, Diane. The video and the photo I've not looked
Speaker 3: at either, but I know the image is seen in
Speaker 3: the minds of many people of Jim in the orange
Speaker 3: jumpsuit in the desert, with the man behind him hooded.
Speaker 3: I don't even know what to ask you, Diane, in
Speaker 3: terms of when you talk about that and the image
Speaker 3: that you have. Is it something that you compartmentalize. I
Speaker 3: know you never watched the video, but you did see
Speaker 3: the photo. Is it something that exists quite separate from
Speaker 3: your memories of Jim and your feelings about him as
Speaker 3: someone you love and your son.
Speaker 5: Of course, Mia, I mean, it's nothing I will ever
Speaker 5: dwell on, and that's partly why the work of the
Speaker 5: James Fallow Foundation has been so important to me because
Speaker 5: that's been a way of keeping Jim's goodness and moral
Speaker 5: courage alive. So that is what I strive to focus on.
Speaker 5: Jim would have wanted something good to come out of
Speaker 5: his sacrifice, if you will, for his country and fellow Americans.
Speaker 5: So Jim has challenged me big time. But thanks to
Speaker 5: my faith in God and the goodness of so many people,
Speaker 5: that's what has made anything good possible. So I'm very grateful.
Speaker 3: In American Mother, you write about Jim's moral courage, Can
Speaker 3: you explain what you mean by moral courage?
Speaker 5: I write about it only because Jim was talking about
Speaker 5: it when he came home from Libya.
Speaker 9: There's physical courage, right, for some reason, I have physical courage,
Speaker 9: But really think about it, that's nothing apart to moral courage.
Speaker 5: That we couldn't have true journalism without the moral courage
Speaker 5: to report on stories that might affect one's career or
Speaker 5: be dangerous to tell. And so I was, really and
Speaker 5: I'm still today challenged by that to dare to have
Speaker 5: the moral courage to fight for what is right and
Speaker 5: to try to make a difference for others. But That's
Speaker 5: what I feel Jim was talking about. And so we've
Speaker 5: used that idea of inspiring moral courage in all our
Speaker 5: work in our government work, trying to inspire the best
Speaker 5: of our government to care about fellow citizens, do the
Speaker 5: right thing, to help families, support families, actually listen and
Speaker 5: tell them the truth. And the same with our Journalist
Speaker 5: Safety program. We work with aspiring journalists and freelancers and
Speaker 5: we talk about having the moral courage to report the truth,
Speaker 5: to do it as safely as possible, obviously, but to
Speaker 5: aspire to have the courage to do the right thing
Speaker 5: in terms of reporting.
Speaker 3: You have some pretty extraordinary moral courage. Doing what you're doing,
Speaker 3: writing the book, giving interviews, speaking about your son.
Speaker 5: It keeps Jim's spirit alive, Miya, and that is very important.
Speaker 3: Is it a way to keep mothering him, mothering him?
Speaker 5: I don't know. He's challenged me, so I almost feel
Speaker 5: like he's parenting me, challenging me to dare to do better,
Speaker 5: dare to be better, and dare to speak the truth
Speaker 5: to power, you know, when it's necessary, but also to
Speaker 5: try to inspire youngsters. I really think it's important that
Speaker 5: our children and youth are challenged to make a difference
Speaker 5: in the world. We need people who aspire to do
Speaker 5: good things. Nya, speaking of truth to power.
Speaker 3: It took three days for then President Obama to reach out.
Speaker 3: He had a phone call with your husband, he did.
Speaker 3: It was some time later that you were invited to
Speaker 3: the White House to meet with him. The line he
Speaker 3: kept using with your husband and then with you, as
Speaker 3: you write in the book, is Jim was our highest priority.
Speaker 3: Jim was my highest priority. Okay, exactly was he?
Speaker 5: Though, of course not. And that's why I was not
Speaker 5: particularly impressed with that comment, because maybe in his head
Speaker 5: he was telling himself that, but he totally failed. He
Speaker 5: tied the hands of the FBI. He chose very definitely
Speaker 5: not to negotiate, and that costs the lives of four
Speaker 5: young Americans. He did not value their lives, and that
Speaker 5: made me angry. My righteous anger, if you will, fueled
Speaker 5: the start of the Holy Foundation and also fuel the
Speaker 5: star of a lot of good people stepping up to
Speaker 5: help me, because a lot of people saw the tragedy
Speaker 5: in it all, and so here our great nation can't
Speaker 5: even have the backs of the innocent Americans who go
Speaker 5: out to report the truth or help others who are
Speaker 5: suffering in the world. It was horrible. It was the worst.
Speaker 5: I was so embarrassed and angry as an American.
Speaker 3: You make the point so eloquently in your book that
Speaker 3: the argument made by officials to you is that if
Speaker 3: we negotiate with terrorists and we pay ransoms, that puts
Speaker 3: every American abroad at risk and makes it more likely
Speaker 3: that more people will be kidnapped. But you say that
Speaker 3: other countries do it very well. They do it quietly,
Speaker 3: they do it behind the scenes, they do it successfully
Speaker 3: to negotiate the release of their citizens. And you also
Speaker 3: point out that in terms of the actual money involved,
Speaker 3: it costs forty million dollars to send a drone into
Speaker 3: a country that might never come back, and so from
Speaker 3: a financial point of view, it can hardly be argued
Speaker 3: paying ransom is out of the budget, so to speak.
Speaker 3: And you actually have made a difference, perhaps not with
Speaker 3: the negotiating with the terrorists, but in terms of some
Speaker 3: of the things that have happened, some of the things
Speaker 3: that the James Foley Foundation has made happen. What are
Speaker 3: some of those things? Because Obama it obviously did have
Speaker 3: an impact on him. He made some announcements after meeting
Speaker 3: with you.
Speaker 5: First of all, there was no evidence that showed that
Speaker 5: paying ransom increases the captivity of others. Americans are targeted
Speaker 5: all the time. If anything, the research showed that if
Speaker 5: you do not negotiate, your citizens are going to be killed,
Speaker 5: and that's exactly what happened. The British and the US
Speaker 5: chose not to negotiate and all their citizens were killed.
Speaker 3: So why do they do that, Diane, Why do they
Speaker 3: well have that policy?
Speaker 5: It was because they went by this slogan that it
Speaker 5: makes sense. I suppose when you think about it, that
Speaker 5: it would incentivize, but the reality that is not the reality. However,
Speaker 5: I do think more and more countries now are starting
Speaker 5: to copy some of the terrorist groups and targeting our citizens.
Speaker 5: So I do feel very strongly. The Fully Foundation strongly
Speaker 5: feels we must as a nation not only bring find
Speaker 5: ways to bring our people home, but also to deter
Speaker 5: the horror and practice of people being taken and used
Speaker 5: as political ponts. It's a dual challenge. It's not only
Speaker 5: the challenge of trying to help citizens who are taken
Speaker 5: hostage abroad, but also at the same time we must
Speaker 5: work to deter the practice and sometimes they are are
Speaker 5: in conflict. So that is the challenge we have before us. However,
Speaker 5: every nation, in my opinion, should have the moral courage
Speaker 5: to have the backs of innocence citizens who are targeted
Speaker 5: simply for being a citizen of their country.
Speaker 3: Up next, why Diane decided to meet with one of
Speaker 3: the men responsible for killing her son and what she
Speaker 3: said to him.
Speaker 5: All of us are flawed, right, We all make good
Speaker 5: decisions and bad ones. But in his case, he's made
Speaker 5: such an extraordinarily bad decision to join an asis, and
Speaker 5: all the horrific deeds that he's lost out on his life.
Speaker 3: Stay with us. Speaking of moral courage, you chose to
Speaker 3: meet one of the men who worked to murder your son.
Speaker 3: Alexander Coti was one of the Beatles, as they were nicknamed,
Speaker 3: members of ISIS who one was killed in a drone strike,
Speaker 3: two were brought to America and tried and charged and convicted.
Speaker 3: When did the opportunity come up to meet with him
Speaker 3: in jail? And what were the conversations in the Foley
Speaker 3: household about that?
Speaker 5: First of all, it took seven years Alexander Cody and
Speaker 5: al Shaffio shake the two surviving Beetles if you will,
Speaker 5: or Jahadis were kidnapped in twenty eighteen, but it took
Speaker 5: years for them to be extradited to the United States
Speaker 5: for a trial. That was thanks to a lot of
Speaker 5: hard work with the British government and our Department of Justice.
Speaker 5: When they finally did arrive, one of them, Al Shaffiel
Speaker 5: Shak was very defiant, wanted a full trial, and he
Speaker 5: had it in twenty twenty two. But Alexander pleaded guilty
Speaker 5: to all eight counts accounts of kidnapping, torture, all of
Speaker 5: it accessory, and part of his plea deal was his
Speaker 5: offer to speak to victims. So when I heard that,
Speaker 5: I was interested in speaking to him because I knew
Speaker 5: Jim would have Jim would not have wanted me to
Speaker 5: be afraid of him, and Jim would have wanted me
Speaker 5: to hear him out. Jim often worked with many disenfranchised
Speaker 5: youth ex felons in Chicago and troubled inner city kids
Speaker 5: in Phoenix and Holyoak, so Jim kind of had always
Speaker 5: had a heart for the underdog. He definitely would have
Speaker 5: wanted me to hear him out. But also as a mom,
Speaker 5: I kind of wanted to tell him who Jim was.
Speaker 5: But you know, the end result of the whole thing
Speaker 5: was just incredibly sad. Mia we all lost. You know,
Speaker 5: when hatred reigns, everybody loses. We lost our beloved Jim,
Speaker 5: a very talented journalist, and he's lost his free them.
Speaker 5: Perhaps he'll never even see his family or his homeland again,
Speaker 5: so he too has lost. Everybody's lost. It was a
Speaker 5: very sad but good experience in many ways. Odd as
Speaker 5: it seems, but there was an odd grace in those days.
Speaker 5: In many ways.
Speaker 3: It sounds like you have empathy for him, or maybe,
Speaker 3: if not empathy, sympathy.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I think I do. He's the same age as
Speaker 5: one of our other sons. Because of his choices, he
Speaker 5: will be in jail for the rest of his life
Speaker 5: and never be free, never see his family again. I
Speaker 5: have a lot of empathy and sympathy for him. It's
Speaker 5: very sad. It's tragic. All of us are flawed, right,
Speaker 5: we all make good decisions of bad ones. But in
Speaker 5: his case, he's made such an extraordinarily bad decision to
Speaker 5: join in Isis and all the horrific deeds that he's
Speaker 5: lost out on his life. It's very sad. I mean,
Speaker 5: I think accountability and justice is important. I don't mean
Speaker 5: to imply that it's not, because it is extraordinarily important
Speaker 5: that captors and people who are so violate human rights
Speaker 5: in such horrific ways as they did, they must be
Speaker 5: held accountable. And I think it's a very just sentence
Speaker 5: for him. But it's still sad. As a mom, it's
Speaker 5: still sad.
Speaker 3: When you sat across from him in the hours that
Speaker 3: you spent with him, was there ever a moment where
Speaker 3: you just wanted to lunge across the table and scratch
Speaker 3: his eyes out? No?
Speaker 5: Not really, no, yah No?
Speaker 3: Is that just me, Diane, I clearly don't have any
Speaker 3: grace like the rage.
Speaker 5: I didn't have that rage towards him to me. In
Speaker 5: many ways, Alexander is also a victim. He's a victim
Speaker 5: of poverty, of brainwashing, the jihadis hatred in many ways,
Speaker 5: he's a victim that doesn't excuse the horrific things he
Speaker 5: did in any way, and he certainly needs to serve
Speaker 5: as sentence. But it's sad. It was our government I
Speaker 5: was angry at because our government has the power to
Speaker 5: do a lot, and our government considered our son and
Speaker 5: the other Americans as collateral damage. So I was very
Speaker 5: angry at our government. So all my anger was fueled
Speaker 5: towards writing that wrong and helping our country to do
Speaker 5: much better, to have the backs of brave Americans.
Speaker 3: Did Alexander say sorry to you?
Speaker 5: He expressed much remorse many times for what our family
Speaker 5: had gone through. He very humanly justified his actions as
Speaker 5: being a soldier in war, but he expressed a lot
Speaker 5: of remorse to me multiple times and in letters to me.
Speaker 3: And when you left there, how did you feel?
Speaker 5: I had more peace. I felt like I had told
Speaker 5: him who Jim was, and I feel like I had
Speaker 5: encouraged him in his faith. He's an intelligent young man,
Speaker 5: hopefully in his incarceration, and who knows, maybe he'll become
Speaker 5: a writer or do some good is what I hope
Speaker 5: for him, to make amends for the horrible sadness he's
Speaker 5: inflicted on so many people.
Speaker 3: Are you still in contact with him?
Speaker 5: No, I mean the prisons don't allow that, especially for
Speaker 5: a prisoner of his caliber. If you will, he's in isolation. Yeah,
Speaker 5: I don't know if I'll ever hear from him, but
Speaker 5: they're very strict about who the prisoners are allowed to
Speaker 5: communicate to and when and how all that.
Speaker 3: I just want to finish, Diane by asking about when
Speaker 3: you experience loss and grief in such a tragic, horrific way,
Speaker 3: the public element of it, how does that impact the grief?
Speaker 3: What happened to Jim was so deeply personal to your family,
Speaker 3: and yet it was something that was so public. I mean,
Speaker 3: the fact that that image is so seared into the
Speaker 3: minds of so many people. How do you feel about that?
Speaker 3: How do you process that well?
Speaker 5: I think the only good thing about that was that
Speaker 5: it was horrifying to everyone, and therefore good people stepped up.
Speaker 5: I mean that's when we had an outpouring of donations
Speaker 5: that has helped sustain the work of the James Foley Foundation.
Speaker 5: Part of the reason for the book so that people
Speaker 5: would be aware and if it's of interest to them.
Speaker 5: Small NGOs like ours are always looking for support any
Speaker 5: generous people who are concerned about the national security threat
Speaker 5: that it is and wanting to inspire moral courage and journalists.
Speaker 5: We always need the good people. We need the generous
Speaker 5: people mia and so that was the only good part
Speaker 5: of it being so public, is that we were able
Speaker 5: to reach all the best people in the world. I mean,
Speaker 5: we received gifts money from all over the world for
Speaker 5: an entire year, and in our work we continue to
Speaker 5: look for good people who care about having the moral
Speaker 5: courage that our countries would do the right thing in
Speaker 5: the world, would care about others, and would have the
Speaker 5: backs of people who are suffering by being kidnapped or
Speaker 5: wrongfully arrested abroad. So we always meet the good people
Speaker 5: Mia and that's the positive part of anything public is
Speaker 5: we can reach the good people also.
Speaker 3: Well, Diane, you are very much the good people, and
Speaker 3: I thank you for your moral courage in talking about
Speaker 3: Jim and continuing to talk about him and fighting for
Speaker 3: the rights of other hostages. You have created such a
Speaker 3: legacy for him and extended the legacy that he created
Speaker 3: for himself. So I just wanted to thank you for that.
Speaker 3: I really have a sense of him, you know, after
Speaker 3: reading your book and talking to you, he would be
Speaker 3: so chuffed. He would just be so chuffed.
Speaker 5: He was an incredible person. But these are the kind
Speaker 5: of people we need. Me We don't remind any of
Speaker 5: your listeners to read American Mother, to watch Jim, the
Speaker 5: James Foley story, and to consider donating to people who
Speaker 5: are trying to make a difference in the world.
Speaker 3: Do you know there's no word in the English language
Speaker 3: for a parent who has lost a child, and there
Speaker 3: should be. I've had the privilege of interviewing several parents
Speaker 3: who've lost children during the years I've done my filter,
Speaker 3: and it never ceases to be shocking. That order of
Speaker 3: things is just not right in the scheme of the
Speaker 3: way the universe is meant to work. It cracks the
Speaker 3: universe a little bit. And for many of the parents
Speaker 3: that I've interviewed, like Diane, the loss of their child
Speaker 3: has opened their heart and put a fire under them
Speaker 3: in a way that you might not actually expect. They
Speaker 3: create foundations and they raise money and awareness, and it's
Speaker 3: almost how they keep their child's memory alive, and it's
Speaker 3: by nurturing a very different kind of relationship with them.
Speaker 3: One memory that Diane will always have are Jim's final
Speaker 3: words to her and the rest of his family. There
Speaker 3: was a hostage who spent a year with Jim who
Speaker 3: was freed, and each time one of the prisoners that
Speaker 3: Jim was held with, they're about eighteen of them. Each
Speaker 3: time one of them was about to be released, some
Speaker 3: of the other prisoners would try to smuggle letters out
Speaker 3: to their family, and Jim had written this letter for
Speaker 3: his family, but the hostage that was about to be
Speaker 3: released suddenly got scared and he said, I can't smuggle
Speaker 3: it out, but what I'll do is I'll memorize it.
Speaker 3: And he did. He memorized this letter, this extraordinary letter
Speaker 3: from James to his family, and when he was released,
Speaker 3: he called them up and he recited it down the phone.
Speaker 7: Dear family and friends, I remember going to the mall
Speaker 7: with Dad, a very long bike ride with Mum. I
Speaker 7: remember so many great family times that take me away
Speaker 7: from this prison. Dreams of family and friends take me
Speaker 7: away and happiness fills my heart. I know you're thinking
Speaker 7: of me and praying for me, and I'm so thankful.
Speaker 7: I feel you all, especially when I pray. I pray
Speaker 7: you stay strong and to believe, I really feel I
Speaker 7: can touch you, even in this darkness when I pray.
Speaker 7: Eighteen of us have been held together in one cell,
Speaker 7: which has helped me. We've had each other to have
Speaker 7: endless long conversations about movies, trivia, sports. We've played games
Speaker 7: made up of scraps found in our cell. We have
Speaker 7: found ways to play checkers, chess, and risk and have
Speaker 7: had tournaments of competition, spending some days preparing strategies for
Speaker 7: the next day's game or lecture. The games and teaching
Speaker 7: each other have helped the time pass. They have been
Speaker 7: a huge help when we repeat stories and laugh to
Speaker 7: break the tension. We've had week days and strong days.
Speaker 7: We are so grateful when anyone is freed, but of
Speaker 7: course yearn for our own freedom. We try to encourage
Speaker 7: each other and share strength. We're being fed better now
Speaker 7: and daily. We have tea occasional coffee. I've regained most
Speaker 7: of my weight lost last year. I think a lot
Speaker 7: about my brothers and my sister. I remember playing Werewolf
Speaker 7: in the Dark with Michael and so many other adventures.
Speaker 7: I think of chasing Maddie and Tea around of the
Speaker 7: kitchen counter. It makes me happy to think of them.
Speaker 7: If there is any money left in my bank account,
Speaker 7: I want it to go to Michael and Matthew. I'm
Speaker 7: so proud of you, Michael, and thankful to you for
Speaker 7: happy childhood memories, and to you Christy for happy adult ones.
Speaker 7: And Big John. How I enjoyed visiting you and Cress
Speaker 7: in Germany. Thank you for welcoming me. I think a
Speaker 7: lot about Rowro and try to imagine what Jack is like.
Speaker 7: I hope he has Roro's personality and mark. So proud
Speaker 7: of you, too, Bro. I think of you on the
Speaker 7: West Coast and hope you are doing some snowboarding and camping.
Speaker 7: I especially remember us going to the comedy club in
Speaker 7: Boston together and to our be cargafter. These special moments
Speaker 7: keep me hopeful. Katie, so very proud of you.
Speaker 3: You are the.
Speaker 7: Strongest and the best of us all. I think of
Speaker 7: you working so hard helping people as a nurse. I'm
Speaker 7: glad we texted just before I was captured. I pray
Speaker 7: I can come to your wedding now I'm sounding like Grammy. Grammy,
Speaker 7: please take your medicine, take walks, and keep dancing. I
Speaker 7: plan to take you out to Margariteas when I get home.
Speaker 7: Stay strong, because I'm going to need your strength to
Speaker 7: help reclaim my life.
Speaker 3: Jim, Oh, that packs a punch. You might want to
Speaker 3: go and watch the documentary Jim The James Foley Story
Speaker 3: if you want to know a little bit more about
Speaker 3: what the type of person James was. He was truly remarkable,
Speaker 3: and that documentary that was made by a childhood friend
Speaker 3: of his and a documentary maker. It really paints a
Speaker 3: picture of the time that Diane didn't know about those
Speaker 3: few years where James was held and she had no
Speaker 3: contact with him. The hostages who were freed, who were
Speaker 3: entued in this documentary say that he kept them alive
Speaker 3: in there, and he shared food when he didn't have to,
Speaker 3: and sometimes he broke up fights between the hostages, and
Speaker 3: he took beatings so that other hostages wouldn't have to.
Speaker 3: They said things like there was not a bad bone
Speaker 3: in his body and that he was just pure good.
Speaker 3: Folly founded the James Foley Legacy Foundation. They do amazing
Speaker 3: work advocating for the freedom of all Americans that are
Speaker 3: held hostage abroad, and it also promotes the safety of
Speaker 3: journalists worldwide who are working in combat ziones. If you
Speaker 3: want to read Diane's book, American Mother, we will pop
Speaker 3: a link to all of those things, including the foundation
Speaker 3: and the documentary in our show notes. This episode was
Speaker 3: produced by Gam Moylen and Kimberly Bradish, with sound production
Speaker 3: by Leah Porges and music by Tom Lyon. I'm Mayor
Speaker 3: Friedman and it's been a little treat to be your
Speaker 3: years