Terry Gross

NBC News chief foreign correspondent Richard Engel details what it's like to report from some of the more dangerous war zones on the planet. He also discusses his recent dispatches from Egypt and Libya, where he was subject to tear gas attacks and artillery fire.

Washington Post national security reporter Dana Priest's book Top Secret America looks at the top-secret intelligence and counterterrorism network created after Sept. 11. "No one knows how much money it costs, how many people it employs, [or] how many programs exist within it," she says.

Firefighter Ken Haskell was off duty on Sept. 11, 2001, when his two brothers, also firefighters, died in the World Trade Center. Haskell's story of searching the rubble for his brothers' bodies is included in A Decade of Hope: Stories of Grief and Endurance from 9/11 Families and Friends.