Few expressions of the journalistic mission could be more essential and unflinching than Austin Tice’s reporting on the Syrian civil war for McClatchy and others. Tice was one of the few journalists who left a country that enshrines press freedom in our founding document for one where the government and its enemies targeted reporters for abduction and worse. He took dire risks to bring light to one of the darkest corners of the world.
“No, I don’t have a death wish — I have a life wish,” Tice, then 30, wrote on Facebook from Syria in July 2012, weeks before he was taken hostage. “So I’m living, in a place, at a time and with a people where life means more than anywhere I’ve ever been.”
The Houston native’s family believes he is still living, as do key U.S. officials. That would mean that of scores of American hostages worldwide, he has waited the longest for his country to secure his freedom. This month marks two heavy milestones, one normally an occasion for celebration and the other a cause for national consternation: Tice’s 41st birthday and the beginning of his second decade in captivity.
