16 Facts About Austin Tice

Austin Bennett Tice was born on August 11,1981 and is an American freelance journalist and a veteran US Marine Corps officer who was kidnapped while reporting in Syria on August 13,2012.

Austin Tice is from Houston, Texas, the eldest of seven siblings.

Austin Tice is an Eagle Scout and grew up dreaming of becoming an international correspondent for NPR.

At the age of 16, Tice attended the University of Houston for one year, then transferred to and graduated from the Edmund A Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University in 2002.

Austin Tice completed two years of study at Georgetown University Law Center before going to Syria as a freelance journalist during the summer break before his third and final year of law studies.

Austin Tice was previously a US Marine Corps infantry officer, serving tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Austin Tice left active duty as a Captain but remained in the Marine Corps Reserve.

Austin Tice entered the country in May 2012 and traveled through central Syria, filing battlefield dispatches before arriving in Damascus in late July 2012.

Austin Tice was one of the first American correspondents to witness Syrian-rebel confrontations.

Austin Tice's coverage was cited, along with efforts of additional reporters, as contributing to McClatchy winning a George Polk Award for war reporting for its coverage of Syria's civil war.

Austin Tice was working as a freelance journalist for McClatchy, The Washington Post, CBS and other media when he was abducted from Darayya, Syria.

In October 2012, a US spokesperson said it was believed, based on the limited information it had, that Austin Tice was in the custody of the Syrian government.

Austin Tice's parents asked RSF to help them raise awareness about their son's situation.

In December 2018, Austin Tice's parents announced during a press conference that they had received new information that indicated their son was still alive without elaborating further.

Reports subsequently emerged that Austin Tice was able to escape from his cell in early 2013 after five months of captivity and was found wandering through the Mazzeh neighborhood of Damascus.

Austin Tice's mother had sent him a letter two days earlier, urging him to halt Israel's airstrikes in Syria to enable the search for him to continue.