Pelton, 42, has led an adventurous life. His interest in adventure began at age ten when he became the youngest student ever to attend a Canadian survival school in Selkirk, Manitoba. The school was later closed down after the deaths of a number of students. Pelton went on to become a lumberjack, boundary cutter, tunneler, driller and blaster's assistant in addition to his more lucrative occupations as a business strategist and marketing expert. On his time off, his quest for knowledge and understanding have taken him through the remote and exotic areas of more than 60 countries.
Some of Pelton's adventures include breaking American citizens out of jail in Colombia, living with the Dogon people in the Sahel, thundering down forbidden rivers in leaky native canoes, plowing through East African swamps with the U.S. Camel Trophy team, hitchhiking through war-torn Central America, setting up the world's first video interview of the never before photographed taliban leaders in Afghanistan and completing the first circumnavigation of the island of Borneo by land as well as numerous visits to and through war zones. It is not surprising that his friends include shepherds, warlords, pengalus, mercenaries, nomads, terrorists, field researchers, sultans, missionaries, headhunters, smugglers and other colorful people.
Stories about Pelton or his adventures have been featured in publications as diverse as Outside, Shift, Soldier of Fortune, Star, The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Class, El Pais, The Sunday London Times, Der Stern, Die Welt, Washington Post, Outpost, and hundreds of other newspapers around the world. He has also been featured and interviewed on a variety of networks including the BBC, NBC, CBS, ABC, ATV, Fox, RTL, CTV, CBC, and is a regular guest on CNN.
Not much slows Pelton down; he has survived car accidents, muggings, illness, attacks by the PKK, African killer bees and even a plane crash in the central highlands of Kalimantan. He attributes his numerous arrests and detainments to his hosts' need to get to know him better. Despite these minor setbacks, Pelton still faces each dangerous encounter with a sense of humor and an irreverent wit.
What makes Pelton's travels unusual is that they are his vacation. He wrote DP because he couldn't find an author who would.Unfortunately since he now devotes his time to writing and updating DP, he is fond of cursing and yelling "It's not an adventure, it's a job!" He doesn't quite know what he will do for his holidays now.
Pelton's approach to adventure can be quite humorous. Whether it's challenging former Iban headhunters to a chug-a-lug contest, calling the taliban a bunch of women to their face, loading expedition members' packs with rocks, indulging in a little target practice with Kurdish warlords in Turkey or filling up a hotel pool with stewardesses, waiters and furniture in Burundi during an all-night party, he brings a certain element of fun and excitement to dangerous places. As we go to press Pelton is off on a DP tour of duty in Algeria, Egypt, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, Myanmar and Papua New Guinea, winding up with a visit to the rebels on Bougainville. He freely admits that he will also visit England, Germany, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, The Solomons and Tahiti; "just so I don't lose my perspective, or my tan."
Pelton is a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society in London and author of Fielding's Borneo, and The Indiana Jones Adventure and Survival Guide for Fielding Worldwide. He lives in Los Angeles California.
Coskun Aral, 41, was thrust into the spotlight as a young photojournalist when he was caught aboard a Turkish 727 hijacked by terrorists in 1980. He risked his life to cover the hijacking from the inside. He survived the deadly shootout and his career was launched. Since then, Aral has made a living covering dangerous and forbidden places. His accomplishments range from being one of the few people who have photographed Mecca to being on first-name terms with a number of the major warlords. Aral has seen and done many things but has never lost his love for humanity.
His special relationships with some of the world's most dangerous people make him uniquely suited to contribute to this book. As a photojournalist, he has covered wars on the front lines in Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Bosnia, Cambodia, Chad, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Liberia, Libya, the Philippines, Nicaragua, Northern Ireland, Panama, Romania, Sri Lanka, Bosnia and many other areas. He is also the only ten-time participant of the Camel Trophy and has participated in a number of scientific and endurance expeditions.
Aral was the only reporter in the world to interview the hijacker of the TWA plane in Beirut airport in 1985, and he spent more than 10 years covering the war in Lebanon. He covered the Gulf War from downtown Baghdad and has two TIME covers to his credit, as well as numerous magazine features. His adventures for DP as well as other topics are currently featured in his hour-long show, Haberci ("The Reporters,") on ATV in Turkey. He lives in Istanbul, Turkey.
Dulles covers the Far East for DP and for other Fielding books. He has spent hard time in Cambodia, Thailand and Vietnam, traveling by motorcycle. Dulles covered the elections in Cambodia and the subsequent breakdown of order in that besieged country, being in-country at a time when few foreigners dared. After the first edition of DP was published in 1995, he was "invited" back to Cambodia by the government to attend a personal tongue-lashing for his contribution to DP. Wink's other notable talents are being mistaken for Mel Gibson and playing a mean guitar. He even arranged the extraction of ABC journalist Ted Koppel from Cambodia. Articles on Wink's adventures have been published in Newsday, National Geographic Traveler and Escape magazines. In February 1996, Dulles guided the first American motorcycle tour of Vietnam and is still trying to ambush Khun Sa in Yangon for a foursome on the golf course. Dulles is the author of Fielding's Vietnam, Fielding's Southern Vietnam on Two Wheels and Fielding's Thailand, Cambodia, Laos & Myanmar. He lives in Bangkok, Thailand.
The contributors to DP are in every way as, or more important, than the authors or co-authors. Despite the high profile publications on their resumes, our small band of brothers (we're always open to sisters) choose to travel to the world's most dangerous places on their own volition and then justify their foolhardiness by writing down their stories or selling their photos. Unlike big time news grunts who fly in on chartered planes complete with sat-tel links and expense accounts, DP contributors are a unique breed; real people doing real things in very real places.
Aral (coauthor Coskun's younger brother) has been a "hot spot" photojournalist for more than 12 years. He has covered Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Bosnia, Chechnya, Georgia, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Malaysia, the Philippines and Syria, as well as news stories in his native Turkey. He has worked internationally for news agencies including Reuters and Sipa Press and works on assignment for TIME. Currently he is a special assignment reporter for the Sabah Media Group in Turkey. He can no longer enter Iran by official routes, having been deported twice for taking photographs. He has had his life threatened in Tunceli for photographing burnt Kurdish villages in the region closed to the press, and has been seriously beaten by police after photographing armed attacks on unarmed protesters. Aral lives in London, England.
Gilmour was born in Scotland and served in the Royal Ordnance Corps of the British Army. A member of the French Foreign Legion for six years, he divided his time as a parachutist, sniper instructor, combat diver, and infantry corporal among other duties. He was also team leader for an International Rescue Committee in Rwanda. Gilmour is now a resident of New Zealand
Hooper is a freelance journalist based in the U.K. Wounded twice in Africa (obviously before he had a chance to read DP) Hooper is known for showing up where few other people dare. He is the coauthor of Flashpoint! At the Frontline of Today's Wars (with Ken Guest) and Beneath the Visiting Moon, a documentary account of his six months with a counterinsurgency unit in Namibia. During the war in Angola, Hooper accompanied UNITA forces on guerrilla operations against Soviet and Cuban-backed government forces. He also spent considerable time with the contract soldiers of Executive Outcomes in Sierra Leone. He has covered conflicts in Bosnia, Chad, Sudan, South Africa and Uganda. His meticulously detailed articles and way-too-close-for-comfort photos have appeared in a wide range of publications including Jane's Intelligence Review, The Economist and The Sunday Telegraph of London. Hooper lives in Hampshire, England.
Kramer has been sent to the world's most dangerous places on assignment for TIME, Business Week and PBS. He began his career by covering the civil rights movement in the Deep South during the mid-60s. In the late '60s, he went from covering the battles at home to experiencing and reporting on some of the bloodiest fighting of the Vietnam War, from Cam Lo to Khe Sanh. Later, his beat was the turbulent Middle East, including the Six-Day War, Sudan and Eritrea. He worked as a television producer for PBS on "Behind the Lines" and was Business Week's Cairo bureau chief, covering Saudi Arabia, the Gulf States and Iran. He covered Iran before, during and after the revolution and then restarted the defunct Beirut Daily Star in 1984. Kramer has covered Kenya, Rhodesia (Zimbabwe), Tanzania, Laos, Thailand, Tunisia, Turkey, Syria, South Africa and the Somalia crisis. He has traveled with the Innuit in northern Canada and with the Polisario guerrillas in Morocco. He is author of Our French Connection in Africa, a major investigative report published in Foreign Policy, and Travels with the Celestial Dog, a historical analysis of the 1960s. He lives in Washington, D.C., with his wife and their two children.
Krott, 34 is a former officer and paratrooper who attended Harvard (anthropology). His military career has earned him various awards and decorations from ten foreign governments. Besides his anthropology pursuits (with Richard Leakey's Koobi Fora Project) he finds time to organize parachute jumps for ex-special forces and paratroopers around the world and cover conflicts as a correspondent. He is a rare blend of intellectual, soldier and adventurer. He has been on the ground in El Salvador, Guatemala, Sudan, Uganda, Somalia, Bosnia, Myanmar, Cambodia and Angola and continues to work in, or travel on assignment to, the world's most dangerous places. He has served with three foreign armies and lived with a number of rebel groups including the SPLA in Sudan, and the KNLA in Myanmar. He continues to spend a considerable amount of time in Asia, Africa, The Balkans and Latin America. He is a columnist for Behind the Lines: The Journal of Military Special Operations and is a senior foreign correspondent for Soldier of Fortune. He has been published in Harpers, Explorers Journal and New African. Krott has an affliction similar to Wink's. Rob is often mistaken for Chuck Norris in his travels. He is hoping some day to be confused with Robert Redford. He keeps DP honest with his multipage submissions of corrections, illuminations and anecdotes. He lives in Olean, New York.
Morland was born in York, England, and grew up in London and Rome. He began his journalism career in Geneva and now works as an AFP correspondent for Agence France Presse in Abidjan, Ivory Coast. He resides in England.
Scott, 26, graduated from Edinburgh University and began his career as a journalist for a magazine in the Middle East. Scott says he went to one of those pseudo-military schools in his youth and thinks author bios are all bullshit anyway. His work speaks for itself. He seeks out the least visited or most dangerous spots and then manages to choose the world's most dangerous people to be his travel companions. He has traveled through Sierra Leone with the RUF rebels, The Bekaar valley with Hezbollah, Northern Iraq with the PKK, and other journos in gun-crazed Albania. He continues to write articles for a variety of newspapers and magazines including military and consumer publications on current affairs. He conducts radio interviews for BBC World Service and Radio France International. Scott lives in Ankara, Turkey.
Peter J. Willems is a freelance journalist who spends much of his time in the Middle East and Central Asia.
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