None of us slept the night of Aug. 19.
There were four USA TODAY editors and a reporter on a WhatsApp chat with Afghan journalist Fatema Hosseini, U.S. Navy Reserve Lt. Alex Cornell du Houx and Ukrainian military commander Iryna Andrukh.
Alex, in his civilian capacity, was guiding Fatema through the Taliban gantlet at the airport in Kabul, Afghanistan – a crush of people, gunfire and tear gas. Iryna, in Kyiv, Ukraine, was directing a special forces soldier in the military portion of the airport who was trying to find her.
The rest of us were watching it play out text by text, feeling completely helpless – and completely responsible. Fatema, 27, had put her trust in our judgment, her life in our hands.
