This is a Boring Photo

This is a boring photo. Until you hear the story. Everyone has a story. And sometimes those stories are too much to understand.

In northern Iraq, we came upon this abandoned dump truck in a farmer’s field. It is so much more than an abandoned vehicle. When ISIS invaded, 40 people piled into this truck and fled. But they could not outrun the jihadists, and ISIS shot the driver and tires. The truck careened off the road and plowed to a stop 50 yards away. All the civilians inside were slaughtered. That happened in 2014, and the site of the massacre remains untouched to this day. It is deemed a holy site by local Shia Muslims and we were forbidden to go closer.

Stories. Everyone has them. And sometimes the most boring and seemingly uninteresting in appearance are the most tragic and unexpected.

Always take the time to hear the stories around you.

I’ve made a number of videos from my trips in Iraq, if you want to see more of what I’ve learned from my experiences there.