Carmen Gentile | |
---|---|
Born | |
Alma mater | Villanova University |
Occupation(s) | Journalist, author |
Years active | 1996–present |
Known for | Blindsided by the Taliban |
Website | www.carmengentile.com |
Carmen Gentile (born June 21, 1974) is an American journalist, author and public speaker who specializes in reporting on conflicts and the developing world. He is the author of the memoir Blindsided by the Taliban, a dark-humored retelling of his unusual injury in Afghanistan while embedded with American troops near the Pakistani border. In September 2010, Gentile was shot in the side of the head with a rocket-propelled grenade that did not detonate, although it blinded him in his right eye and crushed part of his skull. [1]
Gentile was born in New Kensington, Pennsylvania and attended Shadyside Academy. He graduated from Villanova University with a degree in philosophy and Islamic studies.[ citation needed ]
On September 9, 2010, Gentile was walking through a remote village in mountainous, eastern Afghanistan in the company of American and Afghan troops. While reporting for CBS - Gentile was a freelance radio reporter who also occasionally contributed video - he was injured when an assailant fired a rocket-propelled grenade from a very short distance away. The ordnance struck Gentile in the side of the head, blinding him in his right eye and crushing bones in his cheek. The rocket then ricocheted off of Gentile and struck a young platoon leader, Lt. Derek Zotto, in the elbow. [2]
Gentile managed to capture his highly unusual injury on video. [3]
He underwent several surgeries including one at a U.S. military hospital at Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan. After numerous operations and months of rehabilitation, Gentile returned to Afghanistan and resumed front line reporting, which is chronicled in his critically acclaimed book Blindsided by the Taliban (2018). [4]
Since its publication, Gentile has been featured on NBC Today [5] CNN Sunday Morning, C-Span [6] and other leading programs.
In November 2019, it was announced that George Marshall Ruge will direct the feature-film length adaptation of Blindsided by the Taliban. [7]
Gentile is the recipient of the Galloway Award, named for UPI combat correspondent and McClatchy Newspapers columnist Joseph Galloway, for a story in Salon that is excerpted from Blindsided by the Taliban and is said to be both "straight-forward and harrowing." [8]
In recent years, Gentile has combined storytelling from places like Iraq with his passion for motorcycling, writing stories for publications like Motorcyclist and Postindustrial, the media outlet Gentile founded in 2018 covering the Rust Belt, Appalachia, and Postindustrial Communities around the world.
A rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) is a shoulder-fired missile weapon that launches rockets equipped with an explosive warhead. Most RPGs can be carried by an individual soldier, and are frequently used as anti-tank weapons. These warheads are affixed to a rocket motor which propels the RPG towards the target and they are stabilized in flight with fins. Some types of RPG are reloadable with new rocket-propelled grenades, while others are single-use. RPGs are generally loaded from the front.
The following lists events that happened during 2002 in Afghanistan.
The following lists events that happened during 2004 in Afghanistan.
Markaz-i Bihsūd District is one of the districts of Maidan Wardak Province in Afghanistan. It is located less than an hour-drive west of Kabul and south Bamyan. The main town in the district is Behsud. The district has an estimated population of 134,852 people, majority of which are ethnic Hazaras.
Volker Handloik was a German freelance journalist and reporter. Born in Rostock, East Germany, he worked for the Hamburg-based Stern for 10 years and also did some correspondence for newspapers, journals, and magazines such as the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Süddeutsche Zeitung, taz, Berliner Zeitung, National Geographic, Stern, Focus, mare, Geo, Merian, and the Spiegel Reporter. Handloik, who spoke Russian and Spanish fluently often traveled to the former Soviet republics and to South America and had been working in northern Afghanistan since October 2001.
Johanne Sutton was a French radio reporter and journalist.
Pierre Billaud was a French radio reporter and journalist. He started his career on Radio France then joined Radio Tele Luxembourg as international reporter. He covered the conflicts of Algeria, Israel, Palestine, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo. Billaud devoted various reports to the situation of the children and the women in Afghanistan.
The Balamorghab ambush occurred on 27 November 2008, when vehicles carrying Afghan security forces were attacked by Taliban insurgents led by Ghulam Dastagir. The ambush took place near Balamorghab in Badghis Province, in northwestern Afghanistan, and resulted in heavy casualties for the government forces. It was described as "one of the most humiliating attacks the Afghan security forces had ever suffered".
The Battle of Dahaneh was a battle in the town of Dahaneh, Helmand Province, and its surrounding areas as part of the Afghanistan War. It began when U.S. and Afghan troops launched an Operation to capture the town from the Taliban, in the Helmand Province of Southern Afghanistan. Coalition troops met heavy resistance, and believe the Taliban were forewarned of the incoming attack, though they were successful in securing Dahaneh.
Operation Perth was an Australian military operation in Orūzgān Province undertaken in July 2006 during the War in Afghanistan. The nine-day search and destroy operation occurred as part of a wider multi-national coalition operation to clear the Chora Valley, 40 kilometres (25 mi) north-east of Tarin Kowt, involving more than 500 troops from six nations, including the Netherlands Korps Commandotroepen. The operation was undertaken by the Australian Special Operations Task Group, including personnel from 4th Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment and the Special Air Service Regiment, under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Mark Smethurst. Fixed and rotary wing support was provided by a range of Coalition air assets, including Australian CH-47 Chinooks from the 5th Aviation Regiment. Heavy fighting with Taliban insurgents resulted, and during the intense combat the Australians fought their way through the valley, clearing it in a series of synchronised and closely coordinated operations. Despite meeting stiff resistance from several hundred insurgents, the operation was ultimately successful with the Taliban sustaining heavy casualties and eventually fleeing the valley.
The Battle of Kandahar was an attack by Taliban forces on May 7, 2011, in the city of Kandahar. The battle was the biggest Taliban offensive of 2011, marking over 40 total deaths and over 50 total wounded. The fighting demonstrated that, despite heavy losses since 2001, the Taliban forces remain a threat to coalition and Afghan forces, and show that morale in insurgent groups has not died since the death of Bin Laden.
On 6 August 2011, a U.S. CH-47D Chinook military helicopter operating with the call sign Extortion 17 was shot down while transporting a Quick Reaction Force attempting to reinforce a Joint Special Operations Command unit of the 75th Ranger Regiment in the Tangi Valley in Maidan Wardak province, southwest of Kabul, Afghanistan.
Clinton LaVor Romesha is a retired United States Army soldier who received the Medal of Honor for his actions during the Battle of Kamdesh in 2009 during the War in Afghanistan.
The 2013 Afghan presidential palace attack occurred on 25 June 2013, in a highly secure zone of Kabul, the capital city of Afghanistan.
The U.S. consulate in Herat, Afghanistan was attacked on September 13, 2013 by a group of Taliban militants. Reports indicated that the assault began at 5:30 am on the front gate of the consulate. A large truck drove up to the consulate's primary vehicle entry point and detonated a massive improvised explosive charge, causing extensive damage. A minivan carrying an assault team armed with assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenades arrived and opened fire, moving into the consulate compound. Then, the driver of the minivan ignited a bomb inside the minivan, which exploded a short time afterwards. Eight Afghan members of the consulate's guard force and one Afghan police officer were killed. An unknown number of bystanders were wounded. A gun battle ensued, and all seven attackers were killed. No Americans were killed or seriously injured. The U.S. Department of State awarded Heroism Awards to several of the consulate's defenders.
Mark L. Donald is a retired United States Navy SEAL, hospital corpsman, and physician assistant who served in the United States Navy. Donald is one of the few American warriors to have earned three high-level combat valor medals for displaying the highest levels of battlefield heroism on more than one occasion. Donald, a recipient of the Navy Cross and Silver Star awards in support of Operation Enduring Freedom during the fall of 2003 and the Bronze Star with V device denoting combat heroism for Operation Iraqi Freedom during the spring of 2003, is one of the most decorated heroes of the War on Terror.
The September 2011 Kabul attack occurred when Taliban fighters attacked multiple locations in Kabul, Afghanistan including the US Embassy and NATO headquarters, on 13 September 2011. The insurgents and at least seven others were killed and 15 were wounded. It was the first incident in the capital in which widely separated targets came under simultaneous attack. Elements within the Afghan and Pakistan governments were suspected of complicity in the attacks.
Danny Phillip Dietz Jr. was a Navy SEAL who was awarded the U.S. Navy's second highest decoration, the Navy Cross, along with the Purple Heart, for his actions during the War in Afghanistan.
Amina Azimi is an advocate for disabled women's rights in Afghanistan. In 2012 she won the N-Peace Award.