I was in my office at work and I got a call
from an international number. I always an...
Through the last three years, when it was an international call, I would answer it.
And it was a reporter in Dublin, wanted a reaction for the story.
I said, "Reaction for what?"
And then they were really caught back by that question obviously,
and they said "Uh, I'll call you back in five minutes." And so then I went online
and saw the picture.
It's not the way you want to find out.
I never, ever imagined that it would end in that fashion, right?
For days, that first week, I just would constantly see that image and...
[sighs] It's been, uh... It's been tough.
You go through those emotional swings and, you know, why the hell did you go back,
you know that second time? And then...
But I keep coming back to the same answer.
Name the sports newspaper that hit US newsstands in 1990.
- [buzzer buzzing] - James.
- The National. - It was.
[camera clicking]
[Man] Ladies and gentlemen, please help me welcome, Mr. James Foley.
[audience applauding]
Thanks for that generous... Overly generous introduction.
And I'm definitely not a hero or noble or anything. I'm just, uh...
Trying to do my work and got into a little bit of trouble.
[chanting]
I arrived in Benghazi in mid March, and the night I arrived,
I heard nothing but bombs and gunfire.
[bombs exploding]
I wondered, "What's going on?" Another journalist said,
"The bombs, that's gelatina, that's how they fish."
Blow the fish up. "And the gunfire, no, that's celebratory gunfire."
[rapid gunfire]
If Gadhafi comes to Benghazi, are you guys prepared to fight?
[Diane] I think in some ways, Libya was a turning point for Jim.
You know, I was starting to see his
trying to figure out where he belonged in the world.
You know he tried the Teach for America, and then in Chicago, he worked at the Cook County Jail.
He anguished over his teaching. He didn't think he was a good enough teacher.
And he wanted to write and he loved people and liked to interact,
tell people stories. So when Jim decided he wanted to go into journalism from teaching,
at first we thought, "That would be good, maybe that'll be a better fit, Jim."
But when he decided to do conflict journalism...
[sighs] You know, that was a whole different deal.
Well, he didn't exactly tell us. [chuckles]
He graduated from Medill, and we said "Jim, well, what're you gonna do?"
And he said, "Well, I'm working on it."
So the next thing we knew, he was gonna go to Iraq embedded with the Indiana National Guard.
Well, I guess I'm a conflict journalist at this point, so that's how we found out.
[guns firing]
[Jim] It's an all out sprint, an exhilarating and dangerous run for cover.
Got 'em.
When Jim started the journalism path, we did have some heated discussions on...
views and the military and what not.
My views are a little bit more conservative... [chuckles] than Jim's.
I would say a little bit more liberal.
But when he did his embed, I think, is where we came closer together.
[Jim] As soon as the shooting died down,
the platoon discovered a body limp on the roof.
- Do they know who the guy is? - Yes. These are the family members.
- [Jim] These are the family? - Yeah.
[John Jr.] And he came back to my house and he told me... He was like,
"Hey, John, I'm thinking about going to Libya."
I'm like, "Jim, that's a horrible idea. That is absolutely a horrible idea.
If you go over there... no one's coming for you.
Why would you put your life in danger? We're dropping bombs over there.
And God forbid if you go over there and we accidentally kill you.
I mean, why? Why?
[chanting]
[Jim] Libya was very exciting as a journalist because you had this chance to talk directly
to the people, to see exactly what was going on.
[chanting indistinctly]
There was no U.S. soldiers anymore, no organized army anymore,
telling you what you should and shouldn't do.
But it was also extremely dangerous.
I was actually talking to one of my buddies, Bostey about my brother Jim, and how, you know,
he's this journalist and is like super crazy,
but like badass at the same time, you know? I was like, yeah,
my brother's a badass, you know? He's crazy, he's awesome.
I also was very naive myself. I didn't know exactly what that would mean.
I didn't know he was actually gonna be immersed in actual, like, crossfire.
[bombs exploding]
There's snipers in this building about one kilometer away.
Tank. The groups decided to go in.
Little bit of heavy fighting. Heavy casualties, about 30 wounded, two dead out of the 40.
There's one video that always stands out to me. It's like when he's standing in the square.
There does seem to be a strong sense that they won't give up the fight
and that there are a force of young fighting men,
although unorganized, there's plenty of will to hold out here.
How does my guy know this stuff? Like, how does Jim Foley, like...
He's just my meathead friend, you know?
And it was so foreign to me in terms of an experience.
I'm like, well, how do you get into Libya?
Oh, you're a freelancer, like who wants this? Are you getting paid?
This is Jim Foley reporting from downtown Benghazi, Revolutionary Square, Global Post.
Jim was there at the early stage of this movement of there being more freelancers
in conflict areas.
The world has changed so much in terms of digital publishing
and newspapers started to eliminate things that they didn't see as essential.
International coverage dwindled down to very little.
So we saw an opportunity to fill that void and we needed to work with freelancers.
Freelancers decide to work together just on the basis of this...
initial quick read chemistry.
I saw this new guy who I hadn't met before. He looked friendly enough, so I said,
"Hey, what's up?" He said, "Oh, not much, going to the front line."
And he'd heard a lot about Libya and the fact that it was very cheap to work.
Rebels and protesters were eager to show us their side of the story.
You know, they were driving us all over for free. They were translating for us for free.
Many of us never really experienced the luxury of journalism in its heyday.
What we do is journalism on a shoestring budget.
So we've had to be a lot more resourceful in a way and just more street savvy.
I think in a sense, the way we all got to know each other was the Africa hotel in Benghazi.
It was the cheapest hotel and the crappiest and we were all staying there.
I'd seen Jim talking to, you know, a few other journalists
and he was just really friendly with everybody.
It was unusual in a place like that. You know, there's still an edge of competitiveness
in that environment, whereas Jim was just like, "Yeah, whatever."
He gave off a really good first impression and, you know,
it helps that he's like a super good-looking guy, and I was just like, "Who is this guy?
Who are you?"
Just that jaw man, like, just fucking cut cheese with that thing.
There wasn't anything mundane about the man whatsoever.
He never really like, projected himself onto a situation and he dealt well with people.
[Jim] Who are the Libyan rebels determined to overthrow 42 years of dictatorship?
[Jim] Welder? Off-shore welding?
- Platform, yeah. - Okay, dangerous job.
They're brave as individuals, but many show a dangerous lack of weapons training.
[Clare] There were so many freelancers who came in
at that point in time who were so new,
Jim and I among them, and I found out only later that there were a number
of much more experienced photo-journalists
who'd made one or two trips to the front line
and said "Fuck it, this is way too dangerous."
Jim had a high tolerance for danger.
- [Jim] Shit! - I mean, sure, he was drawn to that. All of us are in a way.
He was cool as a cucumber as well. Hey, like wearing this little like,
tiny vest that he used to wear.
[Clare] The fact that he stayed so calm made it easy to feel calm in that situation,
but, of course, sometimes, I was just like, "Well, that's crazy, I'm not going there with you."
[Jim] I would come back to Benghazi and there was stuff going on there.
There was families and they were out there in the protest,
and they were out there maybe handling medical supplies,
which is probably more important to what this revolutionary movement was...
but then being called out to that front line again like some kind of siren song.
It was one of those mornings where we decided we were gonna get out there early.
We wanted to get a fresh look at the front lines.
It was myself, Clare Gillis, Manu Brabo and Anton Hammerl,
a South African photo-journalist.
- Meet my new friend. Anton. - Anton.
And what it was really was just a highway, a coastal highway going all across Libya,
and this is where the battle was going on.
So it was kind of like a Mad Max type war.
Now this was something common that some reporters did.
Freelancers like myself didn't have big budgets, we'd jump in with the rebels.
And it was at your own risk if you wanted to go further or not.
We got to the points where we saw another group of rebels
saying Gadhafi forces are 300 meters away.
And myself looking at Clare, like, that's impossible.
And I remember, you know, Anton turning to me and saying "Hey, this isn't safe."
But we didn't turn around, and we said, "Well, let's get off the road anyways."
Well, that was the exact wrong thing to do.
Two heavily armed Gadhafi pickup trucks came over that rise firing.
I remember so clearly the sound of it,
the volume of it, the sound of something eating metal...
and I remember hoping against hope that there would be some kind of out, out of this,
there was some kind of trap door in time.
I crawled back to the sand dune, Anton was at the other sand dune in front of me,
I heard him call for help.
It appeared he was cut across the midsection with AK fire
and it was a serious amount of blood. He had already lost consciousness
and probably already died.
A group of young soldiers approached me and we were thrown in the back of a truck.
I remember getting photographed with a cell phone,
and thinking, you know, this is where they find all these photographs
that are evidence of war crimes some day, and realizing this is me now.
[Diane] I was with my mother.
We were out to lunch and I received a phone call,
and, um, that's how we first heard, you know?
I think I was in denial about how dangerous this really was, Brian.
I was furious, just furious.
Scared for him, furious.
I hate to revisit it, but it's just like... I told you, Jim.
I think we all went through the stages of total shock, you know, and then just...
What are we gonna do, and then anger. After all we're family, you know?
[Jim] You're so humble. You lost everything,
your freedom, your control, your ability to talk to anybody and tell anybody you're okay,
thinking one minute, "Oh, yeah, I'm a foreign correspondent,
and the next minute somebody who you respect killed, and you have nothing."
[Clare] Jim was concerned that his own competitiveness
with Manu, with Anton, with himself, his own, sort of macho aggressiveness
had driven him to make decisions that were not the best decisions.
We were all questioning our judgment.
One of the main things that affected all of us is that Anton had kids
and none of us do.
[Jim] Every day I have to deal with the fact that Anton is not
going to ever see his three kids anymore,
and I was part of that decision-making process... that took him away,
that took him away from his kids, and his wife.
[Jim] And I had a lot of time to play over those moments,
especially that one day when we were captured.
I tried to question myself, "What are your reporting on, what is this all about?"
It was quickly apparent that this was about being what
you think is an authentic conflict correspondent,
seeing the front line and it not being enough to just see it
from a distance, but to push it to the next level.
You were basically waiting to get shelled and the question is, why?
You know, why are you doing this?
[Michael] A lot of us were just scratching our head, right? There's no money.
Maybe you get a story here or there that you sell.
You know I used to "loan him money."
You know, my credit report has one ding on it and it's the one loan that I co-signed with Jim.
I think Jimmy was just a little outside the lines, you know.
Well, he was wicked disorganized.
[Mark] We had to tell him to come to dinner.
Like if dinner was at 5:00, we'd tell him it was at 3:00,
so he'd show up at 5:00.
He always lives in the moment.
I don't know if Mike ever told you that Jim was late to his wedding.
"John, can I sleep at your house?" "John, can my friend stay at your house?"
"Yes, Jim, yes."
Even though you just were like, "Jim, just wake up! Wake up! What are you doing?
Get a real job, start saving up for retirement."
I remember I said like, you know, why don't you come to Chicago, my dad runs this
boot camp, it's teaching young felons.
He goes there for the interview and I call him afterwards and I'm like,
"How'd the interview go?" He's like "Oh, it was great, I think it went great."
I call up my dad, and he goes, "He said it went great, did he?
'Cause I just talked to the lady at the hiring board and when she went out there,
she found Jim sleeping with his head back on a wall and he's wearing jeans with like
paints or something all over them." And I called Jim back, I'm like,
"Jim, what the hell happened at the interview?"
He's like, "It was hot in there, Tom. It was hot. I just put my head back and I nodded off."
And I'm like, "Did you have jeans on with paint?" He's like,
"Yeah, they had like these like, symbols on it, what was I supposed to wear?"
I'm like, "Jim, it's an interview,
it's an interview. You can't do this!" And so my dad always says that,
"Jim has a million dollar resume and a ten cent interview."
He came and he started teaching reading and writing, some literature
and he was really good with these kids 'cause Jim was into hip-hop and rap
and he liked to grab a mic himself.
Jim connected with these guys. He'd find out about their backgrounds,
talk to them. I think that really hit him.
Like he was seeing young guys that came from terrible neighborhoods
that never really had a chance.
And I think he started seeing like, there are people who need their stories told.
[Jim] The prison that we were transferred to was filled
with all these political prisoners from all walks of life.
Some were fishermen, some were engineers.
It was the warmth of these Libyans that said, "Here, you're our guest, take this bed.
You don't have a cigarette, here's a cigarette," you know.
"You want an extra piece of chicken, here."
These guys understand that I'm a journalist and I'm trying to get the truth
and perhaps wrongly they think I'm on their side, but I certainly feel like it now.
[chanting prayers on PA]
You know that if you are kinda without hope, you're totally humbled,
you tend to go to your faith if you have faith.
Praying five times a day, it was the life, it was their only source of life in prison.
I was up nights talking to them. Eventually, you know, one of them said,
"Why don't you pray with us?"
And I said, "No, I don't pray to east, I pray to Jesus," when you guys are praying.
He sort of looked at me, like, "Okay."
Well, I guess I'm experiential person so I started praying with them.
Well, little did I know I just proclaimed my conversion to Islam.
[audience laughing]
So from then on out, I prayed with them five times a day
and it was just... It was so powerful and it was something that I needed to do.
But it was difficult, I was thinking, you know, "Jesus, am I praying to Allah?"
"Am I violating my belief in you?"
I don't have an answer to that.
I just know that I was authentically praying with them and I was
authentically also praying to Jesus.
[Michael] Jim and I were very close in age,
looked enough alike that you know, I used his ID in college,
but that's about it. We couldn't be more different.
I mean, Jim was really different from most of us, right?
I mean, to do what he went on to do. It's not a normal path.
When Jim was taken in Libya, I just went to overdrive at that point.
It's a nightmare. Each day, it becomes harder you know, with the lack of information.
We know he's in Tripoli.
We believe he's in a detention center. We really don't know much more beyond that.
We organized this huge group of Jimmy's friends, we called them FOJ's. Friends Of Jim.
We had a lot of outside help, but Michael was sort of the CEO of the group.
His statement was, you know, "There are no immeasurables other than getting Jim home."
Our biggest fear is that it becomes yesterday's story and people forget about it.
We love Jim and we miss him. We want him home.
[Brian] Tell me about the release, what was that day like for you guys?
[Reporter] After successful diplomatic negotiations,
two American journalists and a Spanish journalist are finally going home
after being kidnapped and detained by the Libyan government forces for 44 days.
- What's your name? - Manu Brabo.
- Are you okay? - I'm fine.
If you didn't catch it the first time around, get it from your buddy.
Guys, could you please give them some space.
[Michael] What was really interesting about that whole process,
there was a day where we were making some progress and I just decided that I have to go,
I have to get on a plane and go.
I don't know, I can't... I can't describe it.
I knew, at least felt strongly that it was gonna work out.
And all the security guys wanted to debrief him first,
and finally I said, "Enough of this shit" and just went into the hotel room,
and I remember seeing Jim, he had a full beard, and he just grabbed me and said,
"Mike." We both kinda just grabbed each others arms like just to... Is it real?
I ordered pizza and as many Heinekens
as they could put on a card and about two packs of cigarettes
because I knew that's all they had over there.
I looked at them and I said, "I guess I got this one."
And we just stayed up all night.
[Katie] All the family and friends, we were all together waiting for them...
and all of a sudden we see these blue lights just rushing at us.
We're like, "Oh, my God, this is Jim. This is... He's actually here."
I don't know, it was like a movie. He was just so happy to see everybody.
[Jim] You have a close call. That's pure luck that you didn't get killed there.
It's not worth seeing your mother or father bawling
and worrying about your grandmother dying because you're in prison.
It's not... It's not worth these things.
And outside in my parent's home in a comfortable house
in New Hampshire, I sort of had to start processing.
I was horrified to learn how much my friends and family had done to help me.
I was inspired and I was horrified.
It was a weird feeling of like going to your own funeral, you know?
There's no going back from something like this.
Some of the things that I'll never be able to change, but I wish that I could.
This is Jim's blazer from when he spoke at Marquette, this brown one.
Bunch of stuff to go through.
Yeah, so Jim lived with us for what, three months? Summer...
Summer after he was released from Libya?
Summer until... Yeah, up until he went back.
He used to have all his clothes in here. You can still see his Camelbak from the field.
- Sleeping bags. - All his sleeping bags.
Yeah.
That was his bed right there. He'd always crash out there.
So it was cool having Jim here, especially after him having been gone to Libya because...
I think when he came back, you know...
Like you just wanted to touch him a lot because...
I don't know, for me it was like, poke and just make sure he's real and it was almost,
you're just more appreciative of him and especially with the kids,
you know, getting to have him here because he was always on the go.
They loved him, Uncle Jim. They'd come downstairs at the crack of dawn and wake him up.
It was good as much as it... I think he kind of like, you know,
had an itch he couldn't scratch when he was domesticated.
When Jim came back from Libya, I offered him a full-time job here as an editor
and while he sorted out what he would do next.
And he sat right outside my office.
He was grateful to have the job,
but working in an office was clearly not
uh, what he liked the most.
He was quiet, I don't want to say he was withdrawn...
but he was quiet.
And I just remember like, Brad my fiancé and Jim were in the basement
and Brad doesn't even remember a time when Jim was sleeping.
You know, after the family had kind of settled down,
Jim just went right to business, right to work.
We had found him a very good psychologist to talk to,
but he seemed so "well," if you will,
that we didn't push it.
But he was so restless here at home. He didn't want to be here at home.
[Jim] Feeling like you survived something,
there's a strange sort of force that you are drawn back to.
I think that's the absolute reality.
Everything else becomes foreign. Like, it was strange
coming back to the real world, like it was weird. It was normal in there.
[Clare] Yeah, if I go to Wal-Mart and I'm looking at, like literally an entire
aisle full of Tupperware, it boggles my mind.
There's a deep absurdity to understanding
the peace that we're lucky enough to have in this country
and the questions that it raises about
how do we make our money? What is the basis of our peace, of our economic viability,
of the fact that, you know, I can look at all of this Tupperware
and someone else, somewhere else is looking at the ruins of their home?
[Zac] You know, you just start missing like all the bombs and the fighting and everything.
I just used to love sitting up at like at night and just listening.
[guns firing at distance]
It's really kind of sick.
But it also... it feels like super fortunate for being there.
And so you think like, out of 25 million people in your country,
you're the only person who's got to experience that.
Like fuck man, like how fortunate am I?
Like, you're witnessing history unfolding and you're just getting this perspective
that is so unique.
I believe that front-line journalism is important.
Without these photos and videos and firsthand experience, we can't really...
tell the world how bad it might be.
[singing]
[bomb blasting]
[Reporter] James Foley joins us now live from inside Northern Syria with more on what he saw.
Tell us more about you were able... What you were able to witness.
Yes, thank you. You've heard about indiscriminate shelling, but to see
those bodies left over from a direct mortar hit was... Was really shocking.
They were civilians and they are under pretty continuous shelling.
[chanting]
It seemed like he started thinking about going to Syria
and by the time he mentioned it,
it was like he'd already kind of made up his mind...
and he said he was going with John Cantley, who's another colleague,
a British photo journalist that we'd all met in Libya the year before.
- What's your name? - Jim.
- John. - Jim and John.
Johnny, you say I love you, you say.
I don't know. I really... didn't really...
get into it with Jim. I think I made it too easy for him.
I mean, it was something he wanted to do and so...
we were trying to be supportive about his decision to do that, you know?
You just want to punch him in the face. You know, in a loving, brotherly way,
you know, but you're like, "Come on, Jim! Come on!"
[Tom] The last conversation I ever had with Jim, I said to him, like,
"Jim, man, why do you keep going back into Syria? Like, I mean,
what's it like?" He's like "It's crazy, its crazy." I'm like,
"Well, is it more dangerous than Libya?"
He's like, "Yeah, it's more dangerous than Libya!" I'm like, "You got captured in Libya!"
You remember, you couldn't talk him out of it.
[local music playing on radio]
[Jim] You know the thing is, is there's physical courage, right?
For some reason I have physical courage.
But really, think about it, that's nothing compared to moral courage.
I can go and get those shots, but if I don't have the moral courage to challenge authority,
to write about things that are gonna maybe have reprisals on my career.
If I don't have that moral courage, we don't have journalism.
Jim chose one story in particular about this hospital,
The Dar Al Shifaa hospital in Aleppo.
It was actually Jim's idea to spend a week in that hospital
documenting what the doctors and the staff there were doing on a daily basis.
[Jim speaking]
From what he and I witnessed, they were literally shuttling people with
drips and you know, bandages and everything in these tiny little taxis and cars.
And Jim was the one who came up with the idea of raising money
to get an ambulance for the hospital.
And he was in touch with everybody and there was an ambulance
that was like a secondhand ambulance that was
coming from Austria and Jim and I actually made one trip in and we saw the ambulance
sitting outside of the hospital.
And that moment of joy on his face was priceless. He was just like,
"It made it, that's awesome."
[Clare] I would say the flip side of his willingness
to get out there and do things
is that like, okay, you get an ambulance into Syria,
some militia is gonna commandeer it and use it for their own purposes, they're gonna
put an anti aircraft in the back of it, like go blow shit up.
Jim was not focused on that kind of issue.
Like he would think about what's the best-case scenario,
not how things could go wrong.
[Nicole] It becomes very personal because
we have to live amongst the local population,
and it's such like this brutal, endless conflict
that you just, you feel so, kind of alone in the sense that
you can't do anything about it, you can't do anything for these people.
For the people you've made friends with, and for the people who took you in
and shared their food with you
and wanted you to play with their children.
We become the intimate chroniclers of this conflict.
We don't have bureaus to go back to.
You're there and every moment, you share with the locals.
And I think there was just this enormous guilt that rode on Jim's back
that made him feel so compelled to do much more than just
record video and file it.
There were times where he was offering up video for free
and I would chastise him for it. I'd be like, "What are you doing?"
He was like "Nah, you know, whatever, it's fine, it's all good,"
and "I just want to make sure the video gets out there."
[Diane] Jim's the kind of guy who never needed much.
Some of the lifestyle of a conflict journalist is tough,
but that didn't bother Jim.
The only possessions I think Jim cared about were books and CD’s.
I mean, his camera ultimately.
He'd come home without a toothbrush, just use whatever toothbrush was available.
Jim could fall asleep anywhere. All he needed was just a little space on the floor.
He was like a cat.
This is a good one.
[Diane] Over time, you know, he slowly got rid of his apartment, sold his car.
He just ended up really owning nothing.
So, what he would want for Christmas, this last time before going to Syria,
he wanted a tough pair of pants.
He really did have less and less and it didn't bother him at all
because he seemed richer and richer.
[Nicole] There was one day in August, one Syrian activist
was taking us around this neighborhood called Bustan Al Kasa,
and this fighter jet just started circling above and just swooped right down
and hit a building that was a couple hundred feet from us.
[explosions]
We started seeing the civilians coming out and just clutching nothing really,
just ashen faces, there was rubble everywhere.
It was chaos.
And the plane came around again, dropped another bomb
really close by and actually we were right across the building
and we looked up and we can see the rubble start coming down.
That bomb had hit a family of, uh... seven.
[Jim] Who was killed?
[Jim] Who?
[Nicole] It was horrific in the scale of it, but also just...
I think nothing prepares you for seeing kids being killed and maimed in that way,
and I know that Jim really loves kids, so, you know, we were both just... We didn't say anything
until we got to the field hospital where they were bringing the bodies.
And we were both just in this mode of just needing to get the pictures out.
I think when we were finished that night though, we kinda like sat down, and lit a cigarette
and we just started talking about it and really there wasn't very much to say though,
you know, like,
what is there to talk about when you witness something like that?
So we just sort of sat in silence.
[Zac] Nothing prepares you for that, like no amount of courses, nothing.
You just go there and you'll either handle it or you don't.
And that's cool. Like either you run, or you stay.
And there's... Not one is better than the other,
but just don't delude yourself. Some people aren't meant for that.
[screaming]
[Diane] The shine was starting to come off in a way.
There was a period of time where journalists were welcomed with open arms
because they'd seen what had happened in Libya
and when that didn't come about after a year,
after year and a half, after two years,
it's just like, okay, what are you guys doing? You know I had a doctor
tell me at the hospital that Jim helped raise money for an ambulance.
He was like, "Look, you guys are in and out of here since one year,
and it's the same exact thing except it's worse. I don't wanna talk to you."
If the populace on the ground whose side you're documenting
is getting more uneasy with you, or less willing to help,
you're very dependent on the goodwill of the people you're around.
It's just that moment of like, how well can you know anybody?
Even say you know someone very well.
Two years of war, three years of war, that's going to change anybody.
They warned journalists, they were like, Al Qaeda is coming, you know,
maybe even worse than Al Qaeda is coming
and nobody is going to help us against the Assad regime except for these guys.
So it was all there.
One of the main things I noticed the last time when he came out,
he looked really hollow and he was quite silent.
You know, he had like that amazing room-brightening smile
even if he had seen terrible things, as one does. It was disheartening to see.
[Mark] Before he left for Syria, I think we made it a point, we were gonna bring him down
to Nathaniel Hall district and go to the comedy club down there.
The comedians were horrible, but like I was in the mood to laugh,
so I'm just laughing at you know, anything.
And I just remember looking at Jim and he was just dead faced.
And then me and Jim went outside for a cigarette, like we always do,
he said he had to go. We had a long hug,
I remember I hugged him a really long time.
Just like hugged him really tight. I said be careful.
Obviously I didn't feel like that was the last time I was gonna see him,
but it was a good night... A good end of the night, you know?
[John Sr.] I guess If I had any regrets, Brian, that I
regret that I found it difficult to communicate with Jim.
I don't know if it's the male thing or whatever it is, but I just wish I was able
to share more of who I was
with Jimmy and get him to share who he was with me,
which might have been just as difficult, you know?
He would interview us when he came home,
and he did a great job interviewing us 'cause
you felt like talking because he was listening.
You know, he wanted to know how we were.
And that was when he came home, that's what he wanted to know.
He wanted, "Well, how are you, how you doing?"
You know, "How's Grandma, how's Katie and Mark?"
And he just wanted to know how everyone was doing, you know?
So in that way, Jim was kind of solitary.
He was home, end of October, right before he went back for Syria that last time
and he was going... I remember he was leaving here
and he was going to New York to get a helmet
from somebody which was good, we were like, "Getting safety equipment, we like this!"
Yeah, I remember we left and we dropped him off at a train station
and he, you know, we were gonna see him again in December,
He was supposed to come home kind of...
Oh, yeah, you have a good memory, yeah.
He was supposed to come home mid December. And we were like, be safe, see you soon,
- and unfortunately, that didn't... - Yeah.
- [sobbing] Sorry. - It's okay, I think that's enough.
[Nicole] We'd spent the beginning of November in Aleppo again with Jim,
John Cantley and Mustafa, our translator who's become a friend of ours.
I had had some issues with my camera that week,
so, I just was like, "Jim, I gotta go back to Istanbul, I'll see you guys in a week."
You know the moment when I said bye to Jim,
I had this feeling of reluctance to leave,
I think in a way maybe it did upset the balance that he and I had shared for so long.
There are superstitions when you're in a war zone.
There's like this one thing he and I shared which was our lucky lighter.
It's very common in the middle east. It's like the evil eye to ward off evil spirits, you know?
We'd used it for everything and for some reason it never ran out of lighter fluid.
It's just like this stupid idea, you put your hopes into one object
to make it feel safe.
I think about it a lot afterwards that he didn't have it with him.
Maybe if I just gave him the lucky lighter, everything would have turned out okay?
I don't know.
That day, I was in Reyhanli, which is the border town,
and I would have seen them in about 5:00.
So I checked in and I told Jim, I'm like,
"Hey, you know I'm here so text me when you get in."
You know, 5:00 rolls by and I started to worry.
7:00, 8:00 rolls around and I'm like, "Something is really wrong."
So I called Mustafa,
and the first thing he said to me was "Nicole, I'm so sorry.
Um, I didn't... I couldn't do anything," I was like, "What are you talking about,
what happened?"
He was like, "You know, we were coming. We were in the taxi, we were coming to Turkey
"to meet you and this van with these four guys with guns,
"they stopped us on the road and they told us
"to get out and they were pointing their guns at us and screaming
"and the gunman made Mustafa tie up their hands
"and they put John and Jim into the back of their van."
So I hung up and I just started crying. I was like, um...
I didn't know if I was gonna see Jim again and that was the first thought that came to my head.
It was like almost surreal... Just, this is a bad dream. It's not...
It's not really happening, you know, it's not happening.
This can't be, you know, this can't happen again... We can't do this again.
Yeah, it was... You know, and I dove in just like before.
I felt like, okay, it's going to be 45 to 100 days of hell and then we'll have him back.
In a matter of a week, you could tell it was very different.
A lot of misinformation as opposed to last time in Libya,
after a week went by, we knew where he was,
who to deal with, so we just concentrated on routes to get to one person.
Here was a mystery right out of a crime show or something, right?
Where you're trying to piece together bits of information.
For the next three weeks, there was just dead ends and false information
and rumors and people being scared of talking because
they had a suspicion of who maybe was responsible,
and they didn't want to get entangled in it.
[Diane] Phil Balboni offered to stand up a security team to try to find Jim.
So all these people were trying so hard to get in place,
but it was a very, very chaotic, confusing time.
[John Jr.] You're on eggshells, you're just waiting to hear.
It's exhausting and I know Jim felt guilty for that
and I'm not trying to make him feel more guilty,
but it's just... It's just a toll that's taken by the families.
[Brian] What were the hurdles getting White House and FBI involved?
It's very tough to get action, and I understand that, you know, the world is a big place,
and so I actually felt guilty sometimes
trying to not to ask too much of them.
You know, Jim made this decision, you know, but just,
just give it your best attention and we'll trust you.
That's kind of where it started, the relationship.
And then I met the first agent that came over
and it was just a kid out of school and his first question to me was,
had I asked the regime for assistance?
Are you fucking kidding me? I called the regime and asked them for assistance?
No, I hadn't thought of that, thank you. Thank you very much for that tip.
They told us... They advised us to be quiet,
because hopefully they could find him and get him out and such.
So we didn't say anything, so we went through Christmas and all that,
you know, not telling anyone, but our closest family that Jim was missing.
In some ways, it was better because I didn't have to explain it.
Because at times, it could feel like accusatory, like,
"Well, he was in Syria." That's not fair, like,
you don't do that with police or firemen or something like that, who do dangerous jobs.
You don't say, "Well, you were in a fire, what did you think would happen?"
My friend doesn't need to explain why he's a journalist.
[Diane] Come the new year, I couldn't stand it.
I was frantic.
So we chose to go public.
[John Sr.] I appeal to the people who have Jim,
to give us some information in terms of his welfare, his health?
It breaks my heart that the persons who have captured him
don't understand his goodness.
My personal feeling is that silence helps two people.
One is the government, it doesn't push them to do more sooner,
and the captors, it allows them to do whatever they want.
It's difficult now with all the talk about the Islamic State,
they've become so famous or infamous,
but the Islamic State, ISIS/ISIL
was on nobody's radar at the time.
With a very high degree of confidence,
we now believe that Jim was abducted
by a pro-government militia group and was subsequently
turned over to Syrian government forces.
This is the first time we've really heard anything like this, so,
we are very hopeful like John says, you know?
Well, it turned out we were dead wrong about that.
[Michael] All the information upfront was just a bunch of BS.
No one knew what the heck they were talking about because we had no access.
That whole year, I don't care what anyone says, all the efforts, all the leads,
all this and that,
we were in the wrong area of the country. You know, and Syria is about the size of New England,
maybe, a little smaller.
So here you go, Brian, go into New England, find Jim.
I think the moment I learned that he had been kidnapped,
I was just like this is going to be a really long process.
Um, but I'm gonna do anything that I can in my power to get him home.
Because, um, I can't stand the thought of him being in a cell somewhere,
cold and hungry, and I can't sit here and not try to look for him.
My name is Daniel and I'm a Danish photojournalist.
I started as a gymnast,
and while I spent all my time in gyms
all around the world doing gymnastics, I...
got bored when I didn't do anything else and I started to take pictures.
I only planned to be inside Syria for two days.
I had one day of work when I walked around this small, quiet town.
It was spring.
So the weather started to be very better and people seemed happy and relaxed.
And we were told to go and speak to some guys in the area.
Very calmly, we're sitting in sofas, they were offering tea.
Everything was calm and quiet. Even though I knew that something was...
strange, something was wrong.
And then they just asked me to stand up,
and they took off my glasses, and they said,
"Don't worry" and "This is just a procedure."
That was how everything began so, you know, a quiet Sunday,
beautiful spring morning became a nightmare for me.
The longer you are a hostage, the easier it becomes in some way, the better you get at it.
And I had like one and half month by myself. After I believe, two and a half month,
I was put together with two other Westerners,
and then we were put together four.
I think we were five together, and then seven together, then came another one, eight.
Then it just started to evolve.
We were in that cell, British, Americans...
French, Italian, German, Belgian, Danish, Russian, Spanish.
We were 19 at one stage.
And one day we had to sit faces to the wall.
But I could see under my arms.
I could see some mattress were moved in and there came some guys in
traditional Syrian clothes
and then they closed the door again, the big metal door, and I looked up
and there was James and John Cantley.
Everybody was like "Yay, welcome, welcome!" You know, it's two new friends.
You know, I created this, this picture in my head of this big, like,
war journalist and so I could only get disappointed in a way,
but he... I remember him being like,
"Uh, what's happening?" Yeah and...
So that was-basically the first time I met him.
But it was real different to be put together with James and John
because they've been together in prison for almost a year. When I first saw them,
they was the most experienced of us and I started
from the beginning and I think the whole group started to lean a little bit against them.
[Daniel] James was very silent most of the time.
He was very good at listening.
He managed to make the room bigger in a way by being small himself
and that is a very, very difficult thing to be.
And you really want to scream in the head of everybody like, "Fuck off!"
[Nicolas speaking]
I remember one time James was asked to stand up the whole night
in the middle of the room.
[Daniel] Late at night, there was no light at all,
so we were just sitting there in completely darkness
and that time really, really, really went slowly.
What we did, James and I, we started to develop a way of
passing through these hours of darkness
by giving each other, like, massages.
And It sounds a maybe a little bit strange or gay, or whatever, but...
But there was something, there was something nice about it.
And James asked me, "Can you teach me how to give like a real nice massage,
so when I get out, and I meet a woman, I can really impress her?"
So we started having these kind of lessons, you know?
Our body had witnessed a lot of trauma
and the fact that somebody is actually touching you
and it's a nice feeling,
for me, it was a nice way to feel a little bit human again.
And James, he never learned how to give a proper massage, it was awful every time, so he really,
he really managed, to get a good deal out of that one.
I remember one time, we were given a lot of dates to eat
and at some point we were moved and you just don't
leave food behind, or destroy it or whatever, but sometimes you have to do it
because there's no where to put it.
[Nicolas speaking]
James, he just took out his pants and he took out like two-kilos of dates.
"Don't worry, guys."
He could have taken all the food by himself later that night
or whatever, but he always took the things so he could share it around
or give it to the people who didn't have it.
In the beginning of James' and John's captivity, they were really starved.
They didn't like to talk about it, they didn't find it very interesting to talk about,
but one thing I know was that...
That they really, really, really had a difficult time.
But they managed to get back on track to gain strength again.
It was very interesting to see what happened between James and John
because they've been together for almost a year.
When I first saw them, that meant they have spoken about
every single thing there is to talk about.
So I was basically the one starting to listen to all James' story again.
There was a period of time in the prison where we
was not interrupted by the guards very often.
It had meant that we could get a routine, so we worked out, we did a trivia,
we had lectures and stuff like this.
We managed after, I don't know,
three weeks, one month or so, to make this Risk game.
[Nicolas speaking]
We had a small bucket that we received some yogurt in
and we cut out a piece of cardboard and we made three lines
and we put it in the bottom of the bucket and then you should hold up a date seed
and let it go,
and it would fall down and whatever number it landed on,
it would be that number. So that was our dice for the game.
[Daniel] You know, take like ten journalists, war, and put them into one room
and make them play the game
about taking control over the world, you know,
it's basically like putting gasoline to a bonfire.
[Daniel] We started to have our own small world
that made everything much easier to survive in a way. It was much easier to understand.
We didn't have to think about economy, we didn't have to think about bank loans...
or the prices of gas at the moment.
You adapt into the situation
and then suddenly this whole thing becomes a part of your life.
This is your life.
When you look back on it, that's what I remember was our small society,
where we really start to know each other.
You know who made this fart, you could smell, this is the fart of you.
[Nicolas speaking]
I remember James' 40th birthday,
it was late at night, it was completely dark. James said, "Oh,
by the way, I turn 40 today."
I was just like, "What?" So we sang a song for him and I remember that we said,
"We hope it would be a much better birthday next year."
Right here. One, two and three.
Come on! Smile! Please! Nice! Good!
We've been through a lot together. Michael has co-signed loans for me.
He has lent me his professional clothes,
his car, his dental plan.
[people laughing]
And I think sometimes we struggle to understand each other
and where exactly we're coming from and why we do the things we do.
Michael has entirely too much common sense...
and sometimes I have entirely too little common sense.
We've somehow grown closer despite the differences
and it's, I guess it's about being brothers.
I'd say the first 100, 150 days I was all in, but I definitely retracted
pretty strongly after that. I have a lot of regrets about not, uh,
not continuing full steam,
and... I don't know if it was because I was trying to protect myself,
or I was just trying to protect my family, and that you know,
give the kids the attention I have, you know, I could argue that that's what Jim
would prefer, and I don't know it was all kinds of, of ex...
Excuses or reasons but I... It's something I do feel terrible about.
But then, uh, then I got pulled right back into it very strongly,
and very immediately when the first e-mail came to me.
"Hello, we have James and want to negotiate for him. He is safe. He is our friend,
"and we do not want to hurt him. If you want cooperation we have rules.
"You cannot go to the media ever about this.
"If you do, we will not negotiate. We want money fast."
We shared everything we had with everybody, you know, FBI knew,
security team knew, everyone knew.
They said, "Just keep them talking" and all that,
"they're just beginning their negotiations,
we've got time. Just keep at it."
[Michael] So I, uh, after coordinating with some officials replied to them.
"We've been concerned about Jim and want to know that he's okay. Please provide us
"with proof that you have Jim,
and we will be happy to work things out with you."
[Diane] We still didn't know who was holding him.
It was obvious that they were people against the Assad regime,
but they didn't identify themselves any more than that at all. They were very shrewd.
And their e-mails unfortunately were totally undetectable.
About a week goes by, and they responded.
"James Wright Foley is being detained by us.
"At this stage no video or picture evidence of his
"well-being will be provided until
"we see tangible progress in your efforts to negotiate.
"However you will be able to ask three questions of a personal nature
"that nobody except James will know the answers to.
"And our primary demand is that you use your influence to
"pressure your government to release our Muslim prisoners,
"who they have imprisoned, whether innocent or 'guilty'
"according to 'your laws.'
"If this fails to bear any fruits,
then our secondary demand is the sum of 100 million Euros."
FBI, um, seemed to have their hands tied
because all they were able to do was
okay our family e-mails,
and they really weren't able to help us much with strategy.
They just told us to be yourselves, be family.
Tell them, "The truth is we can't release any prisoners,
we certainly don't have a hundred million Euro."
Michael came up with some questions I didn't know the answers to,
but we sent those back to the captors.
[Michael] Then there was some brief comment.
It says, "James was detained whilst operating as a 'journalist'.
"After his capture,
"and the following interrogations we came to learn that he had been
"embedded with the US troops serving in Afghanistan.
"And that his brother, Michael Patrick Foley
is a serving officer in the US Air Force."
But I was never in the Air Force. That was John.
My brother Jim said that Mike was the Air Force officer.
It may have been a typo, it may not have been, but I believe it was my, you know, my big brother
trying to protect me. You know, you love your brothers, but...
For him to put... Be willing to put his life on the line or his body on the line...
for my protection is significant.
[inaudible]
[Daniel] I think they came in with the proof of life for John
and then everybody else got their proof of lives.
Everybody came in like, "Yes!" and "We are happy,"
and... But James didn't get his proof of life.
Until one day that they came in
and they asked James to follow...
and when he came back, you know, he came back with his arms over his head
and he said that this was the best day of his life.
And then him and John, they...
they hugged each other and they were dancing around like they just won the big lottery.
[Diane] That was early December of 2013.
All the answers came back right on. We knew they had Jim.
But by the end of December,
they e-mailed us back and said, "This is the last e-mail you'll get from us."
And cut off communication.
[John Sr.] I mean, the first year we just trusted
that the government would have this in hand
and that, um, despite our lack of information, etcetera,
they had been through this before, they knew what to do,
and you know, we were in good hands.
At the end of that year we realized that nothing was being done,
and that we were really going to have to do something on our own.
[Phil] Diane was great about meeting with ambassadors
in Washington, from other countries
that might have some influence.
It turned out that no one had any influence,
because the group that had him didn't listen to anybody. But we didn't know that.
[Male reporter] It's kind of come as a surprise to a lot of us this group ISIS.
A group that we hadn't really heard much about. Who exactly are they?
[Woman] Well, it's a criminal marauding gang.
They come out of the original, very brutal
Iraqi terror group.
[Michael] They're the worst. They're the worst of the worst.
Washington doesn't know how to deal with them.
How's this family in New England gonna figure that out, right?
I mean, you're dealing with, pure evil,
but a capable and organized group.
[Pierre speaking]
They were very tough towards me also, but no matter what,
they meant freedom for me, because they were the one negotiating for me.
But James and John were destroyed by the Beatles in the beginning.
[Pierre] He had this ability to escape the situation.
To, enjoy, you know, the sound of children playing outside.
Or enjoy the view of just some sun entering through the window.
[Didier speaking]
[Daniel] James converted in the beginning of his captivity.
And I know that was at the same period as he was getting really bad treatment.
It gave a good routine. Normally we have a tradition of going into church every Sunday.
But if you cannot do that,
you need another way of feeling that you are doing something with your faith.
And you can call it a surviving skill.
You can call it just a way of being interested in another culture.
What James used to say to me was that,
for him God is the same.
[Diane] We had such great Christmases when the kids were little.
Oh, just wonderful, wonderful Christmases
and you know as they got older and Jim's siblings married,
they weren't always able to be home. But Jim was always home.
Most of my memories of Jim culminate around the holidays.
You know, the playing of the video games, the board games, the Ping-Pong tournaments,
the anything tournaments.
[laughing]
Grandma. Grandma.
You wake up and you open the gifts and you're like, "Ah, crap,
Jim has my name." [laughing] "What's he gonna give me?"
So, I shouldn't say that. It was good times.
And then the last Christmas he was home,
I remember him, like, rolling on the floor with Michael's son Matty.
He loved that kid.
There's a million Christmas stories though.
[Daniel] You know it's difficult for us to celebrate Christmas in any way,
and um, we didn't have any presents to give each other.
So we... We decided to sit down in a circle,
then we had to say something nice to each other,
and I remember that I said to James that, "James, the first time I met you was,
"you know, in this prison and you looked as confused as if you were just
"dumped down on the earth from the moon or something
"and you basically destroyed my whole idea of this great war journalist,
"James Wright Foley, and then suddenly I find out that you are very clumsy,
"you're very bad at sports, but then again,
you're the most..." I think I said to him, you know,
"you're the most honest person, there is no evil at all to find in you, James.
"You are pure good. Sometimes too good.
And I'm, I'm really happy that I've, that I've met you."
That was our Christmas night. When I went to bed that night
I really felt that I had the best Christmas night in my life.
[Didier speaking]
[Pierre speaking]
[Diane] So that's when I started to get more frantic.
I mean I thought, There's gotta be some way to get
the French and the US to talk.
"Didier, this is my husband John."
They were willing to share all kinds of things about Jim personally, how he was,
what they did. So I was starting to get all this hope,
and they have a hostage crisis unit in Paris,
and they were very generous with their time. So it was so different than what
I was experiencing, so I was just kind of like, "jeez," you know.
"Jim and the others, our other Americans are as important as these guys, aren't they?"
And it was the last night I was in Paris
and I got a phone call from John.
He said, "Diane, we got another email from the captors."
I thought, "Oh, great, what did they say?"
And that's when they threatened to kill Jim.
But me and my cluelessness,
I was just excited that they reached out to us.
We had raised about a million dollars in pledges
and so I was so excited to hear from them because we thought,
now we can tell them we have this money.
And I was just so clueless.
We knew that paying a ransom was illegal
and we also knew that it wouldn't have stopped us.
Foleys were prepared to mortgage their house
and do what needed to be done to make a payment.
I have a lot of evolving thoughts about this whole process, and what the government
didn't do that it should have done. I mean...
if you just look at the facts, there are 15 European hostages who are alive
and with their families and friends and loved ones today.
I wish we had started raising money sooner.
I wish we had negotiated. I wish it had turned out differently.
In some sense, I was okay with the fact that he got captured.
'Cause I knew he was doing what he wanted to do.
You know, and as a good family member and as a good brother, I knew to understand that.
My mom did a great job in, you know, keeping faith,
and working as hard as she could, but...
from the get-go once it happened, I kind of felt like he was already gone.
[Daniel] So after a group of the other hostages was released, the Beatles,
they came back, the day after...
And they...
They beated the shit out of James and I.
I think it's called a "Charlie horse"
when you put your knee into the legs of a person and...
They did that to me and James while we had to sit in a stretched position.
I don't know how many they gave us, but, it just continued...
never tried anything that hurt so much in my entire life.
And then they just left.
And I was just laying there crying, and I couldn't be in my own body of pure pain
and James in the other corner of the room, he...
I knew he got exactly the same treatment as me, but I couldn't hear it.
He just... I don't know if he kept it inside, or how he did it,
but only a few minutes after they left James he kind of looked up
and asked me if I was okay.
I was like "shut up, James", I remember I said, "shut up, James," you know.
"Don't ask me if I'm okay," you know...
"Don't worry about me," you know, "worry about yourself."
But yeah, we just laid there until the pain started to disappear a bit.
Two or three days after they came in again.
This time, the Beatles just told us that, "Now guys, everything's changed."
And they took all our food, our games, most of the blankets.
And they started to use, like police clubs.
So every time we went to the toilet we got beatings with a stick.
We were so scared, we lost all hopes.
No matter what came through that door, it was evil.
Those 14 days before I got released was the absolute worst times.
When people started to get released, we decided to send out letters
with the person who was released.
But James he didn't... He didn't want to bother any of us.
And I remember one day that, I saw that John and James
had been talking for some times in the corner.
And after that John, he came over to me and said "Daniel,
James he want to ask you something."
"Okay, okay. What up, James?" And he's like,
"Oh, uh, it's just if, if, if you want to carry out a message or something."
You know, he was very, he said it fa... He said it fast like,
like he didn't wanna bother me.
There's many ways of dealing with a situation like this
and James, I think one of the reasons why he remained so strong,
was because he managed to think about all the good things.
He saw the light instead of the dark spots,
where a guy like John, he was much more realistic.
He knew when it was bad.
But I couldn't bring out the letter. I was too afraid after these 14 days.
So I decided just to memorize it as fast as I could.
So I started waiting, I knew they will come in the morning to pick me up.
One day went, two days went,
and then fourth day, fifth day.
Shit, man. And then I woke up the sixth day in the morning,
and I couldn't sleep, I couldn't sleep all night,
because I was so afraid of what if they are playing a trick on me.
And James he walked over to me and he, he sat down right next to me and, and he said,
"Are you okay, Daniel?" and I said "Yeah, uh."
And then I just couldn't hold it back and I said "Fuck, man,
"I am really, really scared. I really really, really, really scared right now.
I don't know what to do, what to think. I..."
And he said "Daniel, calm down. Calm down.
"Everything will be fine. You are going home.
"They will come in a few hours or tomorrow,
but one thing is sure Daniel, you will go home."
Once again it was a weird feeling because I was sitting there crying
and making a scene in front of James
and I was about to go home
and James he didn't have anything to look forward to.
James, he went back to his, his side of the room.
Ten minutes after they knocked on the door,
they came in and asked me to put a blanket over my head and follow them.
That was the last time I... I saw James.
I call on my friends, family, and loved ones to rise up against my real killers,
the U.S. government.
For what will happen to me is only a result of their complacency and criminality.
I wish I had more time.
I wish I could have the hope of freedom and seeing my family once again.
But that ship has sailed.
[Michael] I hadn't heard Jim's voice in... two years.
You know, I guess, you can see it in his neck, in his face he's just...
This strength he has at that moment.
And, I think of myself I'd be calling for my mother or something.
Just the strength he had and I...
I wanted to feel what he felt was the reason I watched it.
I kept getting messages saying, "John, are you okay?
John, are you okay about what they said, about what your brother said?"
I'm like, "What are you talking about?"
I call on my brother John, who is a member of the US Air force.
Think about what you are doing.
Think about the lives you destroy, including those of your own family.
Even though he was reading that script, he seemed defiant... to the end.
I mean, for sure, I still have some guilt regarding...
me and just me and unfortunately my profession,
but I'm sure that he endured torture.
Interestingly, John and I have... We've argued a lot about things since that.
We've been communicating a lot more, we've come a lot closer as a result of it,
and I think Jim would have loved that.
And you know Jim as well as I do,
he wouldn't have said those things if there wasn't someone else
that was going to be harmed as a result of it, he never cared about himself.
[Katie] My only thought when I found out about Jim was, "how am I gonna get home?"
I had missed the initial chaos of when it all happened,
but slowly we all kind of came together.
We literally chose the smallest room possible in our house.
But everybody was just kinda huddled together.
Jim always found a way to bring people together. Always.
[Diane] I really don't think I...
came to know Jim as a man, as an adult.
I came to know him through his friends.
It's hard as a mother, you know, they're always
your children somehow...
and it's hard to see that they're adults
with heir own gifts in their own way in the world.
The day before his memorial,
I was like, "shit."
I was like, now I get it. Now I get it.
You know, jokingly, I was always like, you know Jim get a job.
Jim, you know, save for retirement.
And so what I didn't recognize, he was trying to teach me,
John, you need to look outside of yourself.
John, It's not about physical or monetary things.
It's about how you act. It's who you teach,
who you mentor.
Who's going to remember you? What are they going to remember about you?
Jimmy was included in the long line of journalists who gave their lives to tell the truth.
We were just totally humbled by the fact that the committee in Bayeux would nominate him
to be included on one of the markers with,
2,000 other deceased journalists.
It was a very important moment.
This was Jim, and it... made me feel very warm inside that, um,
he was accepted as one of them.
[Didier speaking]
[John Sr.] And that's the difference with Jim.
He was just a you, and a me, friendly guy, until tested.
[voice breaking] Where that came from I don't know, Brian.
Because you can't... Just can't grit something like that out.
You have to have an inner strength... to do that.
We discovered Jim just like the world did.
He was truly a man for others.
Witnessing Jim's murder this publicly. It sends a message to all of us,
and my... I guess response to that is,
having lost so many friends and knowing that
people are purposely out for journalists now...
I mean, we have to fight back with our pictures and our words.
I just... I don't wanna let them win.
The extent to which the media coverage took off,
it was just staggering. It was absolutely staggering.
Something like 94% of Americans were aware of Jim's death
and how he died. It's the event with the second most recognition
in recent American history after 9/11.
He would have been horrified by that, I mean, he was there to talk about the Syrian people
and this is the takeaway.
[Brian] What is your response to people who would say that Jim shouldn't have been there?
[Clare] My response is, do you read the newspaper, do you watch TV?
You're depending on someone to bring you that information.
If you care about what's going on in Syria, you don't have the right to be like,
"Oh, why's he there?"
How do you even know what "there" is? Because he told you.
I remember the video, and there was a desert...
and in the background you could see that the desert stopped.
And there was all the valley of Euphrates.
So I called into what I know from James.
I'm like 100% sure
that even though he was convinced he will be killed, he enjoyed the view.
[Nicolas] He died as a free man. This is not the death of a hostage.
And that is the difference eventually between... Between Jim and myself.
I ended up being released...
but, he ended up free.
And when we came to James' funeral, everything started to become real again in a way.
The fact that I managed to say goodbye to James together with
all his loved ones was really powerful.
It reminded me how important it was that...
That James, he gave that letter to me.
[Michael] "Dear family and friends, I remember going to the mall with Dad...
"a very long bike ride with Mom.
"I remember so many great family times that take me away from this prison.
"Dreams of family and friends take me away and happiness fills my heart.
"I know you are thinking of me and praying for me and I am so thankful.
"I feel you all especially when I pray. I pray for you to stay strong and to believe.
"I really feel I can touch you in even in this darkness when I pray.
"I think a lot about my brothers and sister.
"I remember playing werewolf in the dark with Michael
"and so many other adventures.
"I think of chasing Matty and T around the kitchen counter,
"it makes me happy to think of them.
"If there is any money left in my bank account,
"I want it to go to Michael and Matthew.
"I'm so proud of you, Michael,
"and thankful to you for happy childhood memories,
"and to you and Kristie for happy adult ones.
"And big John, how I loved visiting you and Cress in Germany.
"Thank you for welcoming me.
"I think a lot about Ro-Ro and try to imagine what Jack is like.
"I hope he has Ro-Ro's personality."
[Priest] So Mark and Casey, what name have you given your son?
- James Michael Foley. - James Michael Foley.
"And Mark, so proud of you too, bro.
"I think of you on the west coast and hope you're doing some snowboarding and camping.
"I especially remember us going to the comedy club in Boston, together,
"and our big hug after. The special moments keep me hopeful.
"Katie, so very proud of you. You were the strongest and best of us all.
"I think of you working so hard, helping people as a nurse.
"I pray I can come to your wedding. Now I'm sounding like Grammy.
"Grammy, please take your medicine, take walks and keep dancing.
"I plan to take you out to Margarita's when I get home.
"Stay strong because I am going to need you to help reclaim my life.
"Jim."
* If I should close my eyes *
* That my soul can see *
* And there's a place at the table *
* That you save for me *
* So many thousand miles *
* Over land and sea *
* I hope today *
* That you hear my prayer *
* And somehow I'll be there *
* It's but a concrete floor where my head will lay *
* And though the walls of this prison are as cold as clay *
* But there's a shaft of light where I count my days *
* So don't despair *
* At the empty chair *
* Somehow I'll be there *
* Some days I'm strong *
* Some days I'm weak *
* And days I'm broken I can barely speak *
* That place in my head *
* Where my thoughts still roll *
* Somehow I've come home *
* And when the winter comes and the trees lie bare *
* And you just stare out the window and the darkness there *
* Well, I was always late for every meal you swear *
* But keep my place *
* On the empty chair *
* And somehow I'll be there *