Welcome to Rumbel Strip, Vermont, I'm Erica Heilman.

This week features a story by radio producer and writer Scott Carrier of Salt Lake City.

The program aired nationally on Hearing Voices in 2011 and is aired here at

WGDR with permission from the great folks at hearing voices.

I'll let Larry Massett take it from here.

Soon after the World Trade Center fell in autumn 2001, it became clear the United States was going to invade Afghanistan.

Producer Scott Carrier thought he needed to go over there too.

Why? To see for himself, which is what writers do. Who are

these fanatics, these fundamentalist, the Taliban, and the like, and what do they want? In his new book, Prisoner of Zion, Carrier talks about his

adventures but also about something larger. Having grown up among Mormons in Salt Lake City, he suspects it will never work to deal with true

believers by attacking them head on. The faithful thrive on persecution.

Somehow, he thinks, we need to find a way inside ourselves to rise above fear and anger.

Total order, right?

Scott's going to read his excerpts now from Prisoner of Zion.

We will be focusing on just one of the stories in the book,

the story of Naji Bulla, a young Afghan who became Scott's guide and later his student.

We begin as Scott is crossing into Afghanistan for the first time. Late November 2001, I step on a tugboat with four other journalists and we start across the river that separates

Uzbekistan from northern Afghanistan.

The current is vast and deep.

For the first time in weeks, I relax. I breathe deep. For the first time in weeks I relax. I breathe deeply. I feel the line being

crossed and yes I want to go. I've been afraid I wouldn't get in.

Afraid I'd have to stay home and watch the war on

...