A Closer Look At Gary Faulkner, The One-Man Osama Hunter

As promised, a closer look at the latest GQ profile, which tells the story of a man who traveled to Pakistan as part of a quest to kill Osama Bin Laden—all by himself, with little more than a sword at his disposal. Now, without further ado or the aid of context, the seven most insane quotes from Mr. Faulkner, followed by seven random thoughts from me.

1. “I’m a little of everything. I’ve done crack, I’ve done crank, I’ve done coke, I’ve done pot, I’ve done everything in the world.… You know, I’ve been to prison, I’ve been shipwrecked, blown up, shot, stabbed. My story does not just start here; it started when I was 5 years old, the first time I tried to hot-wire a car.…”

2. “We were not meant to go to the grave in a pristine, well-kept body but to come power-sliding in, totally spent, and say, ‘Whoooooo! What a ride!’ Well, I’m still on that ride.”

3. “I boosted everything, it didn’t matter—dump truck, forklift, cars, boats, whatever.” One time he nearly stole a helicopter. He thought better of it when he saw all the gears, but he was tempted. “They should never have left the keys in there.”

4. That was also when Faulkner says he wandered for four days among Al Qaeda workers up near a cave mouth, in disguise and unidentified. “There were a lot of people running around with axes and all kinds of stuff,” he says, “working on cutting down trees and making the new cave.” ... He would sleep up there in the mountains on a bed of pine needles covered in a rug for days at a time. Watching that cave. Waiting for Binny Boy.

5. “If you don’t want to hear the answer, don’t ask. I’ll try to be as nice and gentle as I can, but there’s a point where, you know what?… Parole’s denied!”

6. He also decided that the perfect and proper place to try out such a hang glider would be Israel: “I’ve got to test it somewhere, so in my mind: Well, if I go to Israel—the Dead Sea! Hit the water, you float!”

7. “What do I give a shit what anyone thinks? Hey, kiss my ass, I’m the one that was there.”

Some quick thoughts...

1. Reading the profile, my first reaction was to feel sympathy for Faulkner, as he sincerely believes he’s on a mission from God and this is perhaps the only thing in life that’s ever felt like a true vocation. A restless soul meandering through a purposeless life would be sad enough, but to find a purpose this perverse seems even more tragic. Seems.

2. Then again, who are we to judge? Which is more tragic? The man for whom the world makes no sense, or the man whose vision of the world makes sense only to him? I mean, at least Faulkner’s days are filled with meaning, however misguided it may be. We’re all insane on some level—happiness is making sense of that insanity. And yeah, it’s easy to judge people, but if you’re happy and driven in life, don’t the ends justify the means?

3. Obviously, what he’s doing is illegal and may very well jeopardize the lives of others, so maybe not.

4. Another question: How different is Gary Faulkner from the droves of soldiers who sign up for the military each year because they believe that’s what God wants for them?

5. For all his bizarre bombast, Faulkner’s commitment is impressive. Highly irrational, but impressive. Because regardless of how we gauge his sanity, it’s hard to ignore the idea that he’s more committed to this one “mission” than most us will ever be to anything. He doesn’t care what anyone thinks, he doesn’t care about breaking the law, and he doesn’t even care that he’s risking his life; this is about fulfilling a destiny that Faulkner has ordained from his higher power. That takes some serious gumption.

6. Is Gary Faulkner a microcosm of the problems in the Middle East? Probably a stretch, but for the sake of argument... He’s proof that anyone, not just extremist Muslims, can use religion as justification for a completely irrational cause. His unchecked fervor to liberate the world from terror led him into a land where he “didn’t know how hot it was ... didn’t know anything about the people, the language ... didn’t know diddly-squat.” If you can’t see the parallels there, then just give up. And he led a life of petty crime and poverty until his emotions were galvanized by this one awakening that “proved” to him that the only answer was to sacrifice his meaningless life to wage war against evil that he could only understand through the lens of a higher power that stood in stark contrast to said evil. Gary Faulkner embodies certain aspects of both sides in the conflict, then, and he’s crazy enough to think that Pizza Hut gave him gout. That should tell you a lot about the Middle East conflict.

7. Finally, every time he says, “I’m on a mission from God,” I can’t help but think of Blues Brothers. That, and I think if we learn nothing else from this profile, it’s that Osama Bin Laden should heretofore be referred to as “Binny Boy” in all future correspondence.