Schools
Meramec Grad Recounts Time as War Reporter
Meet STLCC-Meramec Graduate Greg Myre, a former foreign correspondent who recently co-wrote a book about his years as a journalist in Jerusalem.
Seven years after graduating from , Greg Myre got his break as a journalist. In 1987, Myre was sent to Johannesburg, South Africa, as a foreign correspondent. He was in Cape Town when Nelson Mandela was released in 1990, according to a news release from STLCC-Meramec.
“When I got there, you didn't know what would happen,” Myre told Patch.com. “When (Frederik Willem) de Clerk came to power, he decided to release Mandela. For the next four years, there was tremendous violence and negotiations going on at the same time. It was really a dramatic time to be a young reporter around that. I met my wife there.”
Myre and his wife, Fox News correspondent Jennifer Griffin, relocated to Islamabad in 1993, where the two continued to report on international conflicts.
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When Myre and Griffin moved to Jerusalem in 1999, it seemed like peace was about to be reached in the area, but then an outbreak of violence occurred in the fall of 2000. The couple spent the next seven years reporting on the conflict, which Myre said was particularly intense.
These years became the basis for This Burning Land: Lessons from the Front Lines of the Transformed Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, which Myre co-wrote with Griffin.
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The book examines individuals in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in order to reveal how they feel their actions are justified. It's a detailed look at the struggle based on hundreds of interviews and first-hand experience.
“It expresses how we felt,” Myer told Patch.com. “We liked people on both sides. It was sad and tragic to see people on both sides getting killed. There are some incredibly human stories. It's been going on for 40 years. It's about like if America was still fighting World War II.”
Myer doesn't blame one side or the other for the conflict. “Both sides are to blame,” he told Patch.com. “Both sides have done things that make it difficult to resolve. Both sides have legitimate claims. They've lived there for centuries."
Myre and Griffin now live in Washington, D.C. Myre will take on new responsibilities as the foreign editor for NPR's website in August, and Griffin continues as Fox’s national security correspondent.
This Burning Land: Lessons from the Front Lines of the Transformed Israeli-Palestinian Conflict is available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Books A Million and Borders online.