This story changed my life. Until then, 1997, I’d always done stories about things where I live, what I call home. When J.J. Yore (producer of “The Savvy Traveler”) asked me to go to Cambodia, I didn’t even have a valid passport.

Then, when the story aired, one night in 1997, David Granger (editor of Esquire Magazine) heard it in his limousine on his way home from work in Manhattan. He listened then called me on the car phone. He said he wanted me to be Esquire’s war correspondent.

“Esquire has always had a war correspondent,” he said, “but now there are no wars going on, so we’re just going to send you to some really fucked-up places.”

It was like a door opened, and I stepped into a whole new world.

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