To get his full story, read the article in the April 2006 edition. I first "discovered" Rushing by watching the documentary Control Room produced by two student filmmakers from the American University in Cairo. Unveiled at the Sundance Film Festival in 2004, it captured an earnest, compassionate man who was assigned to Al Jazeera as part of his job to manage the press at CentCom in Doha, Qatar. Once he returned to the U.S., Rushing was surprised to discover he had become a celebrity. He told an interviewer from The Village Voice, "I was really struggling because what I was seeing on the news was not what I saw over there."

At the film's premiere in New York he was ordered to refrain from speaking to the media. Quoted in Fast Company, he says, "When I couldn't speak, it took the story from the E1 section [entertainment news] to A1 [front page]." Ultimately, Rushing resigned his commission six months before his 20th anniversary, giving up his job, his pension, and his health insurance. He is becoming a host for Al Jazeera International, connected to Al Jazeera, the Arabic-language channel based in Qatar.

For this act of integrity, ethics and courage, he has been vilified by no less than Sean Hannity of Fox News (who pasted the caption "traitor" above his photo). (By the way, if you want to learn more about Al Jazeera, go to www.aljazeera.net NOT dot com.)

Standing up for what you believe, acting in alignment with a higher truth, striving to build a bridge between cultures—these are all character qualities I admire. I'll let Rushing have the final word as quoted at the end of the article:

"If this network and I personally could be some kind of conduit between America and the world—and the world and America—that would be 'mission accomplished.'"