NBC News national security and Pentagon correspondent Courtney Kube has plenty of stories covering politics in Washington D.C. However, she also spent time in Afghanistan, reporting dozens of times since 2006.
In an interview with Bethesda Magazine, she spoke about her experience reporting from the middle east, where Kube made plenty of friends from her time there covering various issues for the past years.
“I’ve made friends there over the years, people who I got to see every single time,” Kube said. “It was hard to leave that last time. I definitely feel connected to Afghanistan. I feel very blessed, as strange as that sounds, that I was able to see those places.”
The magazine asked Kube to recall her first time heading over to Afghanistan, where she felt nervous. However, she stated that every time she went over to the country, the NBC News report felt more comfortable.
“My first trip was with a pool. You travel with the secretary of defense, so it’s very safe, it’s very choreographed. I didn’t know what to expect. I was nervous—I admit it. I was single at the time, so that, I think, made it a little bit easier. Every time, I got more and more comfortable going,” Kube said.
“We were doing several different stories about troops at Christmas. I remember for the first time thinking, if I get killed, my husband’s going to be a widower. I always hated how upset my parents would get when I would travel. Then the first time I went back after I had the twins—it’s a very different responsibility because you think you’re leaving people behind.”
Reporting from Afghanistan does come with risk, and Kube shared some times when she did feel a little bit fearful while doing her job from the middle eastern country.
“There have been several. There was one time when we were riding in a helicopter at night over Kabul; I think it was 2012. All of a sudden, half of the lights went out in the cockpit. When we landed, the pilot said to me, ‘We lost all comms. We lost everything for a little bit.’” Kube said.
“Once, we were driving from Kabul to Bagram. It’s all dirt roads. I can see ahead there were a couple of guys on the side of the road with guns. It was clearly a checkpoint, but we didn’t know if it was a legit checkpoint. Given the area, we figured it probably wasn’t the Taliban, but you never really know. There are times like that when you get a little nervous, but there’s never been a time when I thought, oh, this is the end.”
Finally, Kube details one of the more memorable stories she reported during the years of going to and from Afghanistan. The NBC News reporter told of a time when she was in Nawzad.
“One of my favorites was in Nawzad. The Marines had secured this town, and we went to this marketplace. There were little kids running around us while we were getting video. All the shacks had pockmarks and bullet holes in them,” Kube said.
“It was one of my most vivid memories of Afghanistan because I felt the humanity of the moment. I couldn’t communicate with them, but I had some candy in my bag, and I was giving them things, and they were poking through my bag.”
