Whether it's sitting in a shack with a bloody butcher talking about Constitutional rights or simply entering a stranger's house, there are plenty of opportunities to feel uneasy as a journalist.
Uneasy might not be the right word for my experience with covering the Hutaree militia in Hillsdale County.
I was working for the Hillsdale Daily News at the time, and my editor Amy Bell and I set out to find the home where militia member Joshua Stone had fled following the initial arrests in Lenawee County.
Down dusty dirt roads we searched for the house, only knowing that the property was run down and the lawn was full of junk. It wasn't much to go on, considering the area.
We teamed up with the Channel 4 news from Detroit in approaching the house. When veteran reporter Roger Weber advised that I put my camera away initially, I realized the the very real potential danger in the situation.
As best we knew, we were approaching a known Militia hideout and had no idea who was there or how aggressive they were.
Thankfully, it was just an older man named Bob Dudley sitting at his house, who told us how Joshua arrived at his home and how we couldn't turn away his friend's son. He allowed the young man to stay overnight in a trailer on his property before the police arrived the next day.
Still, I will never get what Dudley said to me when we asked him why he believed in the idea of the militia: "I fully believe we are headed toward a civil war."
Members of the militia were acquitted from charges of sedition and conspiracy yesterday. The group's founder David Stone and his son, Joshua Stone, will remain on trial for lesser weapons charges.
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