Cork Graham

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Cork Graham

El Salvador: circa 1986
Born Frederick Kurt Graham
November 29, 1964 (1964-11-29) (age 43)
Trinidad and Tobago
Occupation Author, Screenwriter, Journalist
Nationality American
Notable work(s) The Bamboo Chest
Influences
Official website

Cork Graham (born November 29, 1964) is an award-winning American journalist, film producer, director, screenwriter, best-selling author, and actor.

Contents

[edit] Early life

Born Frederick Kurt Graham in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago, he goes by the name Cork Graham since he was adopted by an Oglala Lakota family on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. Out of respect to his extended family, he goes by the first name of the family’s son who died as a result of spinal meningitis.

Cork Graham is an 8th generation descendant[1] of David Graham[2], who was born in Ballymoney, County Antrim, Ireland in 1731, arrived in Charleston, South Carolina aboard the Pennsylvania Farmer[3] on December 19, 1772, was granted 400 acres (1.6 km²) of land near a branch of Rocky Creek in Chester County, South Carolina in January of 1773; and then, fought for the Continental Army at the Battle of King's Mountain[4]. Cork Graham has Scots-Irish, German, Swiss, Spanish and Quechua heritage. His last name origin is Clan Graham.

The son of an American businessman and Ecuadorian mother, Cork Graham lived his early years in Southeast Asia. From 1968 to 1977 he lived in Saigon, South Vietnam and the Republic of Singapore, attending the Phoenix Study Group and Singapore American School. As a result of cultural immersion he was by age six fluently speaking English, French, Spanish and Vietnamese.

Returning to the United States in 1977, Graham graduated from Carlmont High School in Belmont, CA in 1982. Entering UC Berkeley as a midshipman 4/C with a Naval Aviator option at Naval Air Station Pensacola, he studied electrical engineering (He would receive a BA in English and journalism from SFSU in 1997).

[edit] Professional Life

[edit] Vietnam

His studies suffered due to post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) that had been plaguing him since living in and observing the war in South Vietnam, starting with the Tet Offensive (Second Phase May Offensive)[5] of 1968, he dropped out during his freshman year at Berkeley; and on a dare, bought camera equipment and a plane ticket to Bangkok, Thailand in order to become a combat photojournalist[6] like his heroes: Robert Capa, Tim Page, Dana Stone, Larry Burrows and especially Sean Flynn.

He freely admits the idolism had a morbid propensity. Not having any standard training in combat journalism, much less photography, Graham’s venture seemed more like a lark than an actual career decision.[7]

Surprisingly, Graham got assignments from Reuters and the Associated Press, through the luck of gaining the mentoring of such journalistic luminaries as the father of Thai actor, Ananda Everingham, John Everingham, an Australian photojournalist, who garnered fame by sneaking his wife out of Laos in the late 1970s, by swimming her out under the Mekong River using scuba (the story was turned into a movie by Michael Landon, called Love is Forever[8]). Graham photographed the anti-communist resistance of the Hmong people fighting the Pathet Lao and the fighting between Khmer Rouge and the Vietnamese in what was then called Kampuchea, an adventure that almost led to his being killed.

News at the time was Col. Bo Gritz's forays into Laos after American POWs left from the Vietnam War. Graham's first assignment was an attempt to enter Laos with Hmong fighters to search for supposed MIAs and lost reporters Sean Flynn and Dana Stone, who had been seen travelling under NVA guard through the area years before. The Hmong were ambushed on the Lao side by Pathet Lao. Rumor is they were Hmong drug-runners of an opposing faction and not Pathet Lao. Graham lost his first set of camera equipment in the event. He swam the full width of the river near Vientienne, with a lifeguard hold on a wounded Hmong teenager. The 14-year-old died from his wounds at Ban Vinai refugee camp in Thailand.[9]

“I credit my natural ability to having looked at all my father’s Time (magazine) and National Geographic since my earliest memories,” he says.[10]

Fresh from California, Graham earned international notoriety as the teenaged photojournalist invited on a treasure hunting expedition to a forbidden island in Vietnamese waters in the Thai Gulf, called interestingly enough, Iles Des Pirates (Pirates Islands in French), twelve miles (19 km) west of Ha Tien.

Release from Vietnam Prison

SF Chronicle, May 19, 1984

Graham and the leader of the expedition, Richard Knight[11], a British comedy actor-turned treasure hunter, were captured by island militia. Knight was following a theory he developed after disagreeing with the thesis put across in a book about the Oak Island Money Pit Mystery by Rupert Fourneaux, called The Money Pit Mystery.[12] They were imprisoned at the Kien Giang Province political prison on false charges of spying for the Central Intelligence Agency. Knight had the incredible, though heavily researched, theory that Captain Kidd had always been a pirate, long before his more famous trial, and buried treasure there while marauding Dutch ships from Indonesia[13].

Negotiations for Graham’s freedom were especially aggravated by the fact that in 1983 the US and the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV) didn’t have normalized relations and so no American Embassy in Saigon, where the two were eventually moved. All negotiations for Graham’s freedom were handled through the British Embassy in Hanoi—the SRV didn’t admit for the first three months of their imprisonment and heavy-handed interrogations of the two men.

Investigators from the Defense Intelligence Agency’s POW/MIA Division[14], now called the Joint Task Force-Full Accounting (JTF-FA), confirmed the two’s capture by interviewing Thai fisherman who had been held at the same prison in Rach Gia, Kien Giang Province. This led to an uproar in the press community, who reminded the Vietnamese government that Graham was a journalist and should have been released immediately.

Once the SRV had to admit to holding Graham and Knight, they were put through a mock trial and given a ransom of $10,000 for Graham and 6,000 Pounds for Knight[15]. Since it was classified as a ransom by the US government, the Reagan administration shied away from permitting any loans to the Graham family. A “Free Freddie Fund” was created and 11 months after his capture Graham was released. During his first interviews about what he would do when he returned to California, he answered, "Surf!"[16]

One of the frontpage headlines that week: "Make Way Indiana Jones, Here Comes Freddie Graham Jr."[17]

Good Morning America had a very pregnant Joan Lunden interview Graham the week he was released in May, 1984.

[edit] Central America

Soon after his return Graham continued in combat journalism as a stringer for the Associated Press in Central America. His arrival was two weeks after the infamous Zona Rosa attacks of 1985. During his coverage of the war in El Salvador, he became the second American to complete the naval special forces course created by the CIA and US Navy SEALs in La Union, El Salvador. He covered the Salvadoran Civil War from 1985 until 1989. The school was initial commanded by Lt. Cmdr. Albert Schaufelberger after command moved from the CIA to the US Navy and MILGROUP--Lt. Cmdr. Albert Schaufelberger was assassinated by the FMLN in 1983..

During the June 19, 1986, FMLN overrun of the Salvadoran Army's 3rd Brigade base at San Miguel, El Salvador, Graham was wounded by bullet fragments and RPG shrapnel.[18]

During hiatus from covering Central America in 1985 and 1987, Graham took fashion and glamour assignments from Vogue (French[19]/German[20] Editions).

The worst years of the war in Central America were 1979 to 1982, 1986-88, and 1990.

[edit] Post-war

Returning to school in 1994, he graduated from California State University San Francisco (SFSU) with a BA in English and journalism, while also writing for the largest family-owned newspaper in the United States, The Times of San Mateo County. Every week he entertained and informed readers through his outdoors column, gaining him the Garry Nivers Award for Sportswriting. He continues to freelance for outdoor adventure magazines, along with producing hunting and fishing video productions.[21]

Graham has also written for Playboy, the New York Times, the WSJ, Field and Stream, Sports Afield, Outdoor Life, and the San Francisco Chronicle.

From 1992 to 1997, Cork Graham was a counselor for Friendship House Association of American Indians, Inc.[22] and the Native American Health Center, Inc.[23]. His specialty was assisting clients confront and deal with PTSD.

He is a member of the Alpha Tau Omega (ATO) fraternity. ATO was founded by three teenaged, anti-war veterans of the American Civil War at VMI, one who became the founder of Glendale, CA.

During the Technology Gold Rush of the 1990s he worked in the Silicon Valley ending as director of technical publications for the Quack.com division of America Online, Inc. (AOL). He also worked as a technical recruiter and sales copywriter.

In 2004, his memoir, The Bamboo Chest: An Adventure in Healing the Trauma of War about his childhood in Vietnam and healing PTSD while incarcerated in Vietnam in 1983 – 1984 became a Topseller on Amazon.com, holding at #2 for three weeks.

1990 -- Wrote the first draft of The Bamboo Chest, during a year living and working near Homer, AK. Smarting from a new case of PTSD received in Central America, he sought out the solitude and Native Healing Community in the area to replicate the healing experience he had in solitary in Vietnam. Employed as a longline fisherman (F/V Pioneer), flyfishing guide, and USFS photographer. Enjoyed rustic living as a subsistence hunter and fisherman.[24]

He was an instructor at the ROK Army MIL INTEL School in Seoul in 2007. While there, he gained a business and government level of fluency in Korean[25]. The ROK Army Department of Languages[26], modeled after the DLI, was designed to teach French, English, Spanish, Russian, Chinese, and Japanese to non-commissioned and commissioned officers from all branches of the Korean military and presidential security. There is also a Korean language course developed for foreign officers who are either preparing to take job-specific courses taught at Korean military academies, or who are being groomed for military attache positions at their nations' embassies in Korea.[27]

Owner of Flying Dragons Aviation, LLC, an aircraft brokerage, Cork Graham specializes in the sales of helicopters and corporate jets.

[edit] Film and television

In 2008, working on a script with Joe Galloway, co-author of We Were Soldiers Once… And Young and played by Barry Pepper in the Mel Gibson production We Were Soldiers.

Cork Graham was a regular actor on the MBC mystery show Surprise during the 2007 season.

On a break from covering the war, Graham wrote, produced and directed a film about a combat photographer in Central America, based on his personal experiences; Fotografo (Photographer) (1987).

[edit] Bibliography

[edit] Filmography

  • Fotografo (1987) - writer, director, co-producer, actor

[edit] Television/Radio

[edit] References

  1. ^ Frederick Kurt Graham 8th Generation from David Graham
  2. ^ David GRIMBS GRAHAM
  3. ^ Pennsylvania Farmer Passenger List -- David Grimbs (incorrect spelling)
  4. ^ The Battle of King's Mountain October 7, 1780 at King's Mountain, near Blacksburg, South Carolina
  5. ^ Charles Eggleston
  6. ^ [1]International Combat Camera Assoc.
  7. ^ The San Francisco Chronicle; May 19, 1984
  8. ^ Love Is Forever at IMDB [2]
  9. ^ The Bamboo Chest; Ch.5, Chasing Dragons
  10. ^ Graham, Frederick "Cork". The Bamboo Chest: An Adventure in Healing the Trauma of War; DPP, Inc. (2004)
  11. ^ Treasure! by Richard Knight
  12. ^ Graham, Frederick "Cork". The Bamboo Chest: An Adventure in Healing the Trauma of War; DPP, Inc. (2004)
  13. ^ The Bamboo Chest: An Adventure in Healing the Trauma of War
  14. ^ Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command
  15. ^ National Treasure Review
  16. ^ United Press International
  17. ^ San Jose Mercury News
  18. ^ Spencer, David E. From Vietnam to El Salvador: The Saga of the FMLN Sappers and Other Guerrilla Special Forces in Latin America; Praeger Publishers (1996)
  19. ^ Vogue French Edition
  20. ^ Vogue German Edition
  21. ^ San Francisco Chronicle Going hog wild: Feral pigs good initiation to big game
  22. ^ Friendship House Association of American Indians, Inc.
  23. ^ Native American Health Center, Inc.
  24. ^ The Bamboo Chest: Epilogue
  25. ^ Course on learning languages fast
  26. ^ [3]Eo Hak Jeo (Dept. of Languages) Entrance
  27. ^ [4] Cork Graham with foreign students: Kazakhstan, Venezuela, Vietnam, Mongolia, Indonesia

[edit] External links

Languages