KAJ LARSEN

The journalist goes on the record about growing up in Santa Cruz, becoming a Navy SEAL, and reporting from war zones for VICE News

VICE News war correspondent and Santa Cruz native Kaj Larsen has been arrested on more than a few occasions in airports in far-flung corners of the world, where various conflict zones have beckoned his team’s documentary coverage.

Getting past customs officials is usually the first hurdle when he and a camera crew touch down in places such as cartel-controlled regions of Mexico or civil war-entrenched parts of Somalia, and sometimes it ends with handcuffs.

“When you show up, they have a variety of suspicions, concerns that you’re going to embarrass the government, or they’re trying to extort you,” Larsen says.

But Larsen, who is also a former Navy SEAL and current reserves member, came up with a convenient tactic that he says makes entering countries with video equipment much easier. That trick? Pack surfboards.

“I bring surfboards on almost every shoot where there’s a body of water, because as a documentary filmmaker, it’s the best technique for getting through customs with cameras,” he explains. “The second you go through with surfboards, and they ask you what your equipment is for, and you tell them you’re making a surf film, no one gives you a hard time. You could smuggle a rocket launcher in as long as you have surfboards. And then you get to surf, too.”

The 38 year old, who grew up in Seabright and graduated from Harbor High, took a path that eventually led him to one of the toughest, most radical forms of journalism—war zone reportage. And along the way, that path shaped him into becoming anything but your average journalist.

Today, Larsen lives in Venice, Los Angeles, not far from Vice’s West Coast headquarters, and deploys to some of the most dangerous, unstable and remote parts of the world, equipped with only a small, unarmed crew and his wits. But it’s his military training that he says allows him to access certain sources, understand the scope of often highly muddled conflicts, and, most importantly, stay alive.

Larsen’s love of sports during high school made him passionate about competition and pushing physical limits, and his success as a water polo player landed him a scholarship to play for the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md. While attending the Academy, many of the older water polo players would discuss Naval Special Warfare, the SEAL teams, and the types of missions they were assigned.

“It sounded intriguing and like a place where I wanted to do my service, so that’s where I ended up,” he recounts.

Back in Santa Cruz, Larsen was dedicated to his work as a lifeguard for Santa Cruz City beaches and as a Junior Lifeguards instructor, where he took on mentors like Buell Wetsuits founder Ryan Buell and big-wave surfer Mike Brummet. He also took inspiration from friends such as professional surfing brothers Jake and Zach Wormhoudt and the late Jay Moriarity.

“These were guys who really believed in a Santa Cruz waterman philosophy, and they imparted a lot of that to me,” Larsen says.

Larsen went through SEAL training in San Diego in 2001, which he says was a great job for a surfer kid from Santa Cruz. His days included jumping out of airplanes, intensive training, and surfing. In fact, his team was contemptuously known among other Frogmen as “Surf Team 5.” But, of course, their daily routines entailed grueling training designed to break down any one with less than built-proof determination. 

“When I got to SEAL training, which was lots of running around on beaches, moving heavy logs, and surf passages in boats, I was way more comfortable in the water than a lot of other people, and I think that’s because I spent my time in big waves in Santa Cruz doing rescues, surfing and lifeguarding,” Larsen says. “In some ways, SEAL training is kind of like Junior Lifeguards, only with guns.”

Larsen was having fun learning to be a member of one of the military’s most elite units, but then things took a very serious turn on Sept. 11 of that year.

“On that day, the SEAL Teams, and the country, changed significantly,” he says.

His company went from regular surf sessions to constant warfare that would last a decade. Not long after, Larsen reported to SEAL Team 1 for his first assignment. Larsen was Active Duty for five years and has been a Reserve SEAL officer for seven, where he continues to hold the rank of Lieutenant Commander. Larsen’s last deployment was to Mali, Africa in 2013.

“Being a SEAL is kind of like being a surfer—it’s deeply engrained in you, and you keep doing it for a long time, because it takes a long time to develop the skills,” he says.

Larsen’s first foray into journalism was in 2005 for Current TV (co-created by Al Gore and sold in 2013 to the Al Jazeera Media Network), when he spent six weeks producing an award-winning documentary series in Afghanistan. Afterward, Larsen returned stateside and earned a master’s degree in public policy at Harvard Kennedy School. He went on to become a joint fellow at Tufts University Jebsen Center for Counter-Terrorism, and then worked as an investigative reporter for CNN from 2010 to 2012, before moving on to VICE News.

Larsen says war zones tend to be 90 percent total boredom and 10 percent abject terror. The problem is you never know when those two are about to switch. But, with such a comprehensive training background and combat zone experience, he says he’s developed a sixth sense for when things are becoming dangerous.

“On some level, I can sleep through mortar attacks, because that’s kind of indiscriminate fire, but there are these acute moments when you realize things are getting very serious,” Larsen says. “I use all of my experience in war zones and SEAL training to keep me safe in the work that I do now. That being said, there’s always this dimension of luck. And there’s something we call the golden BB out there for everyone—a bullet out there somewhere, and if it’s your time, it’s your time, you just do your best to get yourself left of bang when you feel something coming.”

Larsen recalls a close call in Somalia in 2006, when he and his film crew were negotiating to buy a weapon at an open-air market.

“Something changed in the crowd,” he says. “It was subtle; it was palpable in the mood and I told the guys we needed to get out ASAP.”

They hustled to the car without knowing why, following Larsen’s gut instinct.

“As soon as we got back to the car, we saw there were three men with guns lurking through the crowd, scanning for us,” he says. “Someone had tipped them off. It’s nothing you can put your finger on, but it’s a better-safe-than-sorry kind of thing. Not worth getting killed for.”

Larsen says that he works as a journalist in order to help people attain better understandings of some of the most complicated and disturbing issues around the world, and to find some meaning behind the various atrocities he encounters. His military experience gives him a rare set of skills to tell important stories that might otherwise be skimmed over or remain buried altogether. Through the medium of documentaries, he says he can let viewers walk a mile in his boots—while not having to risk having their own boots blown off of their bodies.

“I use my journalism as a vessel to bring people along and give them an immersive experience so they can start to understand these large forces that are shaping our world, specifically around conflict,” Larsen says, citing Northern Nigeria’s humanitarian crisis—“two million displaced from their homes, tens of thousands of women falling victim to sexual violence and rape”—as an example.

“I think we have a collective, moral responsibility to make the world as just and humane a place as possible,” he goes on. “So when Americans hear these stories about people around the world who are suffering injustice, they care. It’s my goal is to let them know what’s happening, and sometimes to provide a road map in case they want to go further in creating positive change for these issues.”