Summary of No Ordinary Assignment a Memoir By Jane Ferguson

By Willie M. Joseph

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Summary of No Ordinary Assignment a Memoir By Jane Ferguson

 

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Jane Ferguson's memoir, No Ordinary Assignment, is a haunting account of ambition and war, covering war fronts and humanitarian crises. Ferguson, an award-winning journalist, has covered the Arab Spring, Syrian civil war, and the fall of Kabul. Born in Northern Ireland during the Troubles, Ferguson began as a scrappy one-woman reporting team, despite facing challenges and a lack of connections. Her memoir showcases her open-hearted humanity and the importance of building an authentic career against the odds.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Willie M. Joseph
• Release date: Jul 11, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223590163

Willie M. Joseph

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The author aims to answer the question Why do you do this work? with honesty and dedication to human rights, truth, and helping the world understand itself. War reporters, like other professionals, are driven by their personal journey and experiences. The author shares personal details of their life and career to help readers understand their choices and the road they traveled. The book is not intended to glamorize or gloss over parts of their life, but rather to tell the true story of a real person. The author uses pseudonyms for key people in the book, and the author's personal journey is not infallible, but the use of sweary language, bad jokes, and excessive mentions of chicken excrement is entirely intentional.

Prologue

Kabul, August 2021

A group of reporters in the Serena are forced to leave their hotel and seek a safe place. A British former soldier offers to take them to the Baron hotel near the airport. The Taliban arrive, and the city becomes dangerous with chaos surrounding the airport. The Taliban drive back into Kabul, marking the first time in two decades that they have taken back the city. This war and the city they were driven out of will define the author's life and the war they faced.

Part I

Uncle Desmond Got Kicked by a Cow

The author, a child growing up in Northern Ireland, was exposed to the Troubles, a secret war that was a part of the Irish nationalist uprising against British rule. The Troubles were a secret that the author's parents whispered about in the kitchen at night, and they were not allowed to discuss the topic with their children. The author's mother would field questions about the events she saw on TV, such as car bombings, murders, and hateful politicians, with growing unease.

The author grew up on a small pig and sheep farm in rolling green hills, near the restive, lawless rural areas of South Armagh. The IRA, the latest iteration of armed Irish uprising against British rule, had launched a deadly campaign against the British in the 1970s. The author's parents' whishts taught her that she would obey the unspoken rule of acknowledging The Troubles only when she was old enough to be told.

Uncle Desmond's life was marked by violence and the death of his mother, Iris, and his cousin Stephen. The author learned the truth in her twenties when her sisters finally answered her questions over a beer in the pub. The author's childhood memories of the Troubles and the IRA's actions were shaped by her parents' whispers and the growing unease surrounding the topic. The author describes the repercussions of bullets in Northern Ireland, a society that was deeply patriarchal and influenced by secrecy. The Ulster Scots Protestant community was known for its strict secrecy and cautiousness, leading to a culture of cautious circumspection when discussing violence. The IRA bombing of a police station in their village was a prime example of this, as the community was dominated by Protestants and infiltrated by loyalist paramilitaries.

The author's childhood experiences in Northern Ireland were far from the trauma millions of children in Syria have experienced, but they recognized the sense of normality and tolerance of ways of life that seem disastrous to the outside world. They also recall the parades celebrating military victories over Catholics, which were filled with marching bands from local sectarian armed militia.

The author's parents' body language and whishts at checkpoints showed the tension between Protestant and Catholic families. They were told that the British army was there to fight the IRA, the terrorists, and the Bad Man. However, the tension at checkpoints was still evident, as the author's parents' body language and whishts showed a serious business.

Northern Ireland was a completely yet informally segregated society, with neighborhoods, streets, grocery stores, pubs, and schools being either Protestant or Catholic. The author attended a Protestant school on the Protestant side of Armagh town, while Catholic kids attended schools run by the Catholic church. The rural Ulsterwomen in this society held a gender identity wrapped tightly around motherhood, farming, God, and Britishness. The author's experiences in Northern Ireland have left a lasting impact on the author's understanding of the complex and harsh realities of war and the complexities of human nature. The author's mother, grandmother Isabella Anderson, was a Protestant Ulsterwoman who raised seven children in a small farmhouse.

She insisted on reading the Bible and cooking from scratch every meal. The family's tradition of cooking from scratch was followed, and the author's sisters and I were expected to do the same. Laura, the youngest of the siblings, was the protector, but she seemed more grown up.

Mother's mood swings were unpredictable and frightening, with her anger often causing fear. The author's mother was rarely violent, but her anger seemed to center around a deep hatred of her children. The author's father was an intense presence at home, often silently fuming at the children. He seemed to resent any softness in the child, and he was affronted by my sentimentality if I wept when lambs on the farm died or worried that the injections he gave to the piglets hurt them.

One day, his father brought home a puppy named Samy, which he intended to be a sheepdog. Samy was a runt without a shepherding pedigree and no one on the farm took the time to train him. He saw Samy's uselessness as shameless freeloading, an existence that only someone with indulgent sentimentality would tolerate. One day, Samy wasn't there, and the author's heart closed over.

In keeping with the traditional patriarchal family structure, Dad concentrated on ensuring that we were maintaining his standards. He saw the world as a competition, and failure was catastrophic, and he would dispense lectures on our shortcomings of character if we got anything but As.

In summary, the author's family was a traditional Protestant Ulsterwoman who had a strong sense of family and a strong desire for personal growth. Their family's expectations were based on their father's expectations, which were based on a fear of coming in second and an anxiety to excel. The author's experiences with their family highlight the challenges and challenges faced by those who struggle to navigate their family's expectations and the challenges they face in their lives. The author's childhood was marked by constant comparisons and competition, with their parents constantly comparing them. They were constantly studying and trying to improve their grades, but their parents never expressed love or affection.

They felt safe in their house only when they knew their oldest sister, Lesley, was there. Lesley was a bodyguard, protecting them from their brother Andrew's bullying and teaching them to ride a pony.

The author's family was away a lot, often to relatives' houses when their mother needed a break. Fanny Marr's cottage on the rugged County Down coast was his favorite place to go, and she introduced him to new words and movies. The author always went home with a heavy heart, fearing that his mother would go insane. This fear left him with a sense of being on the edge of disaster, and anxiety became a state of being.

The emotional turmoil had physical manifestations, such as a panic attack at around twelve. The author developed a deep sense of anxiety and grew hardened to it, growing a separate, quiet strength. They learned to live with fear as a presence, growing impenetrably strong. Their siblings also developed their own physical signs of trauma, with their own being primarily emotional.

Lacking Lesley's charisma, the author was socially awkward for hard partying and did not interest boys. His acne, thick government-subsidized glasses, and thin, boyish frame were perfectly aligned with his choice of escape: books. Books allowed the author to escape the farm and into a wider world with freedom. The author is a young woman who has been fascinated by books, travel, and adventure. She reads Martha Gellhorn's biography, which explores the lives of remarkable and pioneering women, and reads books by the BBC's lead