Deep in the North Carolina woods, the men trained at night for what they called "seek out and destroy" missions.

They fought each other in hand-to-hand combat, running drills at a bucolic encampment near Fort Bragg. Glenn Miller, an ex-Green Beret, ran the place. Wiry and mustached, the Vietnam veteran paced its grounds in fatigues.

The former Army soldier told me that in the 12 years since she was taken hostage in Iraq, she had never sought therapy to reckon with that trauma. She’s paid for that in many ways, including suffering constant nightmares. The men come for her every night. They chase her through the woods. The crunching of the earth beneath her boots drowns out her pounding breath. She turns but can’t see their faces. Before they grab her, she wakes up.

This profile was written as the regime of Syrian despot Bashar al-Assad killed thousands of innocent men, women and children and political opponents. Before the Syrian war, al-Assad’s posh wife Asma presented herself as a modern woman who cared about human rights and bettering the lives of Syrian children. When they needed her defense the most, she wasn’t there.

I profiled “Big Al,” a 20-something Syrian blogger trying to survive the war.

I wrote this story in the early days of the Syrian war after hearing people at a party complain that they didn’t understand what the war was about or why they should care. Sometimes story ideas are obvious.