A Sobering Picture of War

He’d witnessed mayhem in Bosnia, Sierra Leone and Cypress, but none of that prepared journalist Sebastian Junger for the 30 days he spent in Afghanistan last November. The visit, chronicled in the “Frontline Diaries: Into the Forbidden Zone” documentary to air Tuesday at 9 p.m. on the National Geographic Channel, threw even this seasoned war correspondent for a loop.

“I’ve been in a few wars, but I’ve never really been caught in the kind of stuff that was flying around us there,” Junger said by phone from a New York hotel room. “It was pretty heavy fighting. I’d just never been targeted by artillery, and it gets a little while to get used to. And, boy, the four of us up there were pretty bug-eyed. I just wanted out.”

Junger and his three colleagues found themselves dodging government gunfire a few days after arriving in a mountainous enclave in northeast Afghanistan controlled by anti-Taliban rebel forces known as the Northern Alliance. The crew entered the country by helicopter under cover of nightfall as guests of Ahmad Shah Massoud, who was killed earlier this month. (Access had been arranged in part by National Geographic’s worldwide clout, and through personal connections of an Iranian photographer known as Reza with the guerrilla fighters.)

Known as the Lion of Panjshir for his canny leadership in Afghanistan’s war against the Soviet Union in the ‘80s, Massoud comes across in the documentary as a charismatic figure who gets by on very little sleep, reads poetry by campfire and commands his ragtag band of guerrilla fighters with fierce elan.

“You couldn’t travel around Europe or the Middle East without hearing about Massoud, and he was one of the reasons I wanted to go there,” says Junger, known for his bestselling book “The Perfect Storm.” The Massachusetts native was not disappointed. “I’ve never felt another person who affected me like that, on assignment or otherwise,” he says.

“Massoud was just an incredibly powerful person and also, I felt, very fair-minded. At least taking him at his word about a lot of things, he really seemed to want a fairly open and free society. His charisma was overwhelming, and he really held that place together.”

Escorted by their rebel host, the team of Junger, photographer Reza, producer Charles Poe and cameraman Stephen Cocklin visited a refugee camp inhabited by thousands of Afghans who had fled the Taliban regime. There, Junger saw 2-month-old twins with the faces of sad old men. He interviewed a woman teacher who had been denied medical treatment because, under extremist-Muslim rule, male doctors wouldn’t dare view an undressed female. One man showed off a belly-creasing scar, caused by a bayoneting suffered at the hands of Taliban soldiers.

“You walk around for a couple of hours, and it’s just overload,” Junger recalls. “At one point, the guys were still filming, Reza was still taking photographs, but I maxed out on it. I walked away, sat in the back of the truck, and this guy, maybe a little older than me, he walked up, pointed to the camp and sort of shrugged his shoulder--the universal gesture of ‘Why?’ And I didn’t know. But I thought about that. Why am I in the truck going home, and he’s staying there?”

“Into the Forbidden Zone,” rescheduled from its original October air date in light of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, offers sobering footage detailing the hazards of war, Afghan-style. Junger encounters a field hospital--a tent, really--where doctors tend to Massoud troops who’ve stepped on land mines. One 16-year-old “soldier” dies before Junger’s eyes.

“When we saw those guys who’d had their legs blown off by the minefields,” he said, “I left the tent because at first, I just couldn’t look at it. Eventually I went back in to do my work.”

In the documentary, surreal touches abound. There is, of course, the lush natural beauty one expects from a National Geographic production.

But in the foreground of one shot, showcasing a gorgeous range of mountains, sit twisted Soviet tanks that have been rusting in the foothills for 15 years.

Amid the misery, Junger and crew managed to savor a few instances of everyday life. One afternoon, for example, Junger attended a bachelor party for a peasant wedding, complete with dancing and picnic.

He says, “The people themselves were incredibly hospitable. I was just amazed at how generous they were. It’s just ... I don’t know. It’s such a tragic situation. There’s so many people with absolutely nothing, but there was no rancor, no hostility toward us. I was just amazed at their sweetness and their patience: They’ve been waiting 20 years for this ... to end, and they’re still waiting.”

After a month in Afghanistan, Junger was more than ready to leave.

“We all lost a lot of weight. I had one bath in a month. We all got filthy, absolutely filthy. I basically lived and slept in my clothes for a month.” Covertly slipping back over the mountains by helicopter, the Geographic team missed the once-a-week plane from Dushanbe, Tajikistan, to Paris.

“We couldn’t wait to get the hell out of there,” Junger says, “so we drove 24 hours straight in this old van through these brutally cold mountains of Uzbekistan and made it to Tashkent.” Twenty-four hours later, Junger landed in Los Angeles. He took a bath and slept for 57 hours.

Months later, Junger says he’s still haunted by the experience. “I saw a level of human misery that I knew existed abstractly but had never seen. We were in these refugee camps where these people, tens of thousands of people, were eating grass to survive. It was unbelievable.”

Junger emerged from the turmoil in Afghanistan physically unscathed. His friend, Massoud, was not so lucky.

On Sept. 9, the resistance leader was attacked by two suicide bombers posing as journalists. On Sept. 14, Massoud died.

Junger was traveling home from covering a civil war in Macedonia when he learned of Massoud’s fate. “I spent the night with Reza and his family, and I walked into the garden in Reza’s place, and as soon as I saw his face I knew Massoud died. And, um, I really broke down over that.

“He was such a tough bastard, and at the same time, there was something about him that was sort of compassionate and gentle, and you just don’t see that combination very often.”