When 21 year-old Catherine Leroy hopped on a plane in Paris, headed for Vietnam, she had no idea what she was getting herself into. Despite having no experience of either war or photography, Leroy was determined to make her mark as a world-class combat photojournalist. And somehow, against all odds – and against massive opposition from most of her male colleagues, top-ranking military officers, and the press itself – she did it. But at what cost? Olivia brings us the story of this incredible, indomitable woman with guest Elizabeth Becker, author of You Don’t Belong Here: How Three Women Rewrote the Story of War.

View Catherine Leroy’s photos on the website of the Catherine Leroy foundation. 

Guest Elizabeth Becker is an award-winning journalist and author, most recently of You Don’t Belong Here: How Three Women Rewrote the Story of War. She began her career as a war correspondent for the Washington Post in Cambodia. She later became the Senior Foreign Editor of National Public Radio. As a New York Times correspondent she covered national security and international economics and was a member of the team that won a Pulitzer Prize for coverage of 9/11. Her earlier books include Overbooked: The Exploding Business of Travel and Tourism and When the War Was Over: Cambodia and the Khmer Rouge. In 2015 she testified as an expert witness at the international war crimes tribunal of the senior Khmer Rouge leaders. She was a fellow at Harvard’s Shorenstein Center, holds a degree from the University of Washington and studied language at the Kendriya Hindi Sansthaan in Agra, India. She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the board of the Oxfam America Advocacy Fund.

Music for this episode was provided by Aaron Kenny, Doug Maxwell, Jeff Cuno, Josh Lippi and the Overtimers, Esther Abrami, Kevin Macleod, Dan Lebowitz and Quincas Moreira.

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