Remembering Jim

James Foley in Syria in 2012, credit: Nicole Tung

Remembering Jim

News of a Death

James Foley was a journalist who was brutally executed by ISIS in Syria in August 2014 after nearly two years as a hostage. He was the first American hostage murdered by ISIS.

When the news of James Foley’s death hit my computer screen, I did not think much of it. I did not know who he was, the situation surrounding his awful beheading, or who would ever think of doing such a thing to another human. What I would find out in the coming days would be something that would stick with me forever, even though I was just a high school senior.

Journalists often refer to themselves as family. Losing one of your own, in such a brutal and barbaric fashion, can suck the life out of a journalist. Foley’s death, like Daniel Pearl and others before him, came at the hands of a terrorist group whose sole intent was to strike fear into the hearts of everyday Americans.

Before Foley’s capture and murder, ISIS was a relatively unknown terrorist group to Americans, operating mostly in Iraq and Syria. They had taken control of Falluja, Iraq in January of 2014. Shortly after, President Barack Obama told The New Yorker, “…if a jayvee team puts on Lakers uniforms that doesn’t make them Kobe Bryant.”

The threat of that terrorist group did not seem real until it was. The murder of James Foley put ISIS on the map for many citizens of this country. For some, Foley’s death meant the loss of a friend who they cared deeply about.

“There’s not a day that goes by I don’t think about him and I’m not sad at his loss,” said Tom Durkin, a friend of Foley’s from Marquette University. The two met in 1992 and they maintained their friendship while taking different paths in life.

“I just miss [getting] a call when you’re least expecting it,” Durkin said.

Before War

Foley’s career was in education before embarking on a journey that would change his life forever.

James Wright Foley, born on October 18, 1973 in Illinois, grew up in Wolfeboro, New Hampshire. Wolfeboro sits on the edge of Lake Winnipesaukee, a popular vacation spot for many people in the northeast. Mitt Romney owns a summer home there. He was the oldest of five siblings. In the news, he was referred to as James, but in the company of friends and family, he was simply “Jim.”

The journalist who grew up in New Hampshire was not always a field reporter, but he was always a writer. After graduating Marquette University in 1996, he went on to a program called Teach for America, designed to provide understaffed and underfunded schools with recent college grads. Here, Foley met Rich Griffin in Phoenix, Arizona.

“He was a very friendly, outgoing, and hardworking person,” said Griffin, who lived with Foley for a year during his stint at Teach for America. “He was always committed to doing different work and serving other people.”

Foley went on to receive a degree from the University of Massachusetts Amherst’s MFA Program for Poets and Writers.

Between teaching for TFA and at the Cook County Jail in Chicago, where he taught inmates English, he won an award for his short fiction piece, “Notes to a Fellow Educator…” In it, Foley shows his passion for giving the voiceless an outlet, detailing every student in his class for the new teacher replacing him after a school year in which he struggled. It may have been here that he realized his true passion was to tell real stories of those who weren’t represented in society.

Soon after, he obtained a degree from Northwestern’s Medill School of Journalism and his journalism career began. Initially embedded with US soldiers in Afghanistan in 2010, Foley opted to become a freelance journalist in 2011.

“Telling stories was always part of him,” Griffin said.

Captured in Libya

Foley was captured by Muammar Gaddafi’s forces in Libya in 2011 and was held prisoner for 44 days.

Foley’s time in Libya would prove to be the catalyst in his journalistic career. While embedded with a group of rebels, Foley and three others started taking heavy fire from the Gaddafi-backed army. One journalist, Anton Hammerl, was killed in the one-sided firefight. The journalists had previously opted to continue on a dangerous path towards the front lines without rebel support. This now looked like a bad decision. The surviving members of the group were captured on April 5, 2011.

“The worst day was the day it happened,” Foley said in a 2011 speech at Marquette University. “Once I saw Anton lying there dead, everything changed.”

His prison stint in the Libyan capitol of Tripoli would later be detailed in six articles for his employer, GlobalPost. In the articles, Foley mentions turning to Islam, something that the rest of the people in his cell believed in, to find hope during his moments of despair.

“I had unknowingly proclaimed my conversion to Islam,” he wrote in a 2012 article. “It must have been a sight for them — an American Christian trying to pray to Allah inside a Tripoli prison.”

Guards would often tell him that his release was imminent, with every time but one being a lie. Time passed and he got to know his cellmates well. He mentioned that he enjoyed the company that they gave him, but all he wanted to do was get out of there.

Over time, as a shift in the outcome of battles started to unfold, the guards started treating the prisoners differently. They were friendlier. The people in the cells got the feeling that the conflict was starting to go in favor of the rebels.

“In four days I will have been in captivity over a month,” he wrote on the back of a cigarette carton. “It’s passed with slow conversations, cigarettes, praying, eating, sleeping and hoping the next day it will happen.”

After 44 long days, Foley was released by his captors. He was the last Western journalist to be released from that Tripoli prison.

Once home, he posted a memorial note on his Facebook page in honor of his fallen friend.

“We believe he saved us by being closest to the road when the shooting began,” he wrote in the July 2, 2011 post. “What more is there to say about the spirit of a man.”

He returned to Libya later that year as Gaddafi was captured by rebel fighters. To return took the strength that most of us do not have. Going back to the land where you were captured, where your future is not certain in the least bit, shows how much Foley cared about wanting to tell the stories of those who did not have a platform.

“He wanted to get back out there but he certainly knew the dangers,” Griffin said.

Captured in Syria

Foley headed back to a conflict area, this time covering the Syrian Civil War in 2012.

James Foley headed to Syria with the intent of shining light on a very serious situation: the Syrian Civil War, which started in 2011 and still rages on today. His first article for GlobalPost about the conflict appeared on March 28, 2012.

His reporting was stellar, giving Americans a glimpse of day-to-day Syrian life, with citizens constantly in fear of being persecuted by Bashar al-Assad’s regime. In his first post, he details first-hand accounts of the atrocities of war.

“The small town of Seramin, about 20 kilometers away, might be an indicator of how Saraqeb will look after the Syrian security forces are done with it. A week ago, regime forces shelled Sermin before entering,” Foley wrote. “And then Shabiha burned houses belonging to revolutionaries. Activists claim a handful of people were executed.”

It was immediately clear that this was not the same conflict as Libya. This was a new beast, something that few journalists had seen before.

Nicole Tung, a photojournalist who worked and was friends with Foley in Syria, had plans to meet him in Turkey on November 22, 2012. She spoke to him via email an hour before he was planning to leave Syria. She would never see Jim again; he was kidnapped at the border by a then-unknown terrorist group.

“He didn’t seem suspicious or uncomfortable with the situation at all,” Tung said in an interview with CBS News. “He was just ready for some time out because he had a close call the day before with a tank shell.”

Foley was now gone, but the driver of the car and the interpreter also present in the vehicle were not abducted. Tung waited hours before phoning the journalist’s family, attempting to put together a search party before the situation became desperate.

Tung waited six hours before contacting Foley’s family to inform them that Jim had yet again been captured in a foreign country.

Foley was with British photojournalist John Cantlie at the time. He is still considered missing.

 “I’m really sorry, Nicole, Jim was kidnapped,” the translator told Tung.

Two Long Years

Foley was held captive by ISIS for almost two years, with no attempts at contact from the terrorist group in the first year.

Tom Durkin did not learn the fate of his friend until he decided to post on his Facebook wall and ask where he was. Foley was due back in Chicago for Thanksgiving and Durkin hadn’t heard anything from him in a while. Almost immediately after posting something, he heard his phone buzz.

“His brother, Mike, texted me immediately,” Durkin said. “’Can you take that down? Jim got abducted again.’”

The family was told by the United States government to take different approach this time around. Members of the press were not contacted. Only close friends were to know that Foley was missing. The government felt that if everyone knew he was missing again, he could turn into an asset for the group and become more vulnerable. At that point, no one was sure what group was responsible for the abduction.

Initial thoughts from inside Foley’s camp were that the Syrian government had him. As time went on, different terrorist groups jumped onto their radar, but none claimed responsibility. Durkin was silent through Christmas, having to lie to his friends, saying that Jim was alright.

Durkin remembers watching an execution video, put on the internet by terrorist group al-Nusra (which later became Hayyat Tahrir al-Sham) looking for the face of his friend among the dead. Thankfully, Foley was not part of this video.

The first story to be published about Foley in America actually came by way of Turkey. A friend of Durkin’s called him up and asked why a Turkish newspaper was writing about the disappearance of Jim. The American news media did not have the story yet. Soon after the article started circulating, the green-light was given for the family to go to the press.

Although the effort was strong, Foley’s loved ones soon realized that the path they took during the first time Jim was captured was not going to work.

“You can put pressure on a government by calling them out,” Durkin said, in regards to Foley’s imprisonment in Libya. “You’re dealing with ISIS [now]. They didn’t give a shit who we were. There was nothing we could say to them.” 

For the first year, the group hell-bent on bringing their beloved Jim home thought that he had been captured by Assad’s regime. This would prove to be a year of dead ends and false hope.

Sometime into the second year of captivity, 2014, Jim’s brother Michael received an email from ISIS. The group said that he was alive and allowed three “proof of life” questions to be asked to prove that Jim was alive and they were not bluffing. The answers came back and were correct. He was still alive.

There was hope. Members of the Foley camp desperately wanted their brother, son, and friend home. ISIS was asking for 100,000,000 Euros for his freedom, something that was unattainable. The United States doesn’t regularly negotiate with terrorists.

“You and your citizens will pay the price of your bombings!” a member of ISIS wrote in a later email to Michael Foley. “The first of which being the blood of the American citizen, James Foley!”

“You’re not going to keep someone alive unless you’re going to get something,” Durkin said of ISIS’ request.

The Video and Everything After

After two years held hostage, James Wright Foley was beheaded by ISIS. The video was posted on the internet and sent shockwaves throughout the globe.

“It’s heartbreaking for those of us that knew Jim,” Griffin said. “It was a tremendous effort, but it was just too late.”

Foley left behind two parents, Diane and John, and four siblings, John Jr., Mark, Katie, and Michael.

The impact of his death was felt around America. Steven Sotloff, a journalist for Time Magazine, was also killed by ISIS less than a month later after over a year in captivity.

One thing was for sure: there was a new enemy and the only satisfaction they found was through American blood. This new terrorist group had now taken a large part of Syria and Iraq, and at the time, it seemed like they were unstoppable. Foley’s death cemented a fear of ISIS into all of us.

Pope Francis reached out to the Foley family after the death of their loved one to offer his condolences. It’s not often that one gets a phone call from the Pope. This was for the worst reason imaginable.

Jim was gone at the age of 40, his life cut short by people who wanted nothing more than to see Americans suffer.

Instead of sinking into the depths of sorrow and depression, his family and friends have worked endlessly to keep his name alive. The James Foley Foundation was founded less than a month after their loved one was murdered.

Durkin, now a program director for The James Foley Foundation, works every day in his friend’s name.

“Our main focus is to get hostages home,” Durkin said. “We want Americans that are detained unjustly to be brought home.”

The foundation attempts to do this by holding the government accountable. The hostages need to be a priority; they believe that there is a process that can be put into place to achieve this goal.

The other focus of the group is teaching journalism safety. They have an online curriculum that is shared with universities that helps to educate journalists who are entering into potentially dangerous situations. These situations include riots, political protests, and now, reporting on day-to-day American life.

“We have a president saying that journalists are the enemy of the people,” Durkin said. “There’s a target on journalists’ backs.”

In addition to education and advocacy, the Foley Scholarship has been created at Marquette University for two students, every other year, for ten thousand dollars a year.

“I think what to do next always weighed on him,” said Griffin.

It seems as though the future of James Foley’s name is bright. Loved ones are constantly reminding the American public not to forget who they lost and why they lost him. Journalists often risk their lives to tell the stories that would otherwise go untold. Foley gave up everything he loved to help those struggling, both at home and abroad. His memory will live on forever, thanks to the diligent work of the James Foley Foundation and others like it. Nothing can truly kill a free press, no matter how many times it’s attempted.

Jim Foley is an American hero and should be remembered as such. Since his murder, many journalists have either gone missing or have been killed. Please remember them, as well. Although it might be hard to picture, every one of them has a story like Jim’s.

Update: Time Magazine awarded “The Guardians” People of the Year honors. These guardians are journalists that have been killed or captured while reporting. This is immensely important; Time is doing their part to make sure that we never forget those brave faces.