War Is Life Multiplied By Some Number

Often People Who Live Through The Trauma Are Nostalgic When It's Over. When I Went Back To Bosnia 20 Years After The Brutal Civil War, Even People Who Had Been Badly Wounded Told Me They Missed Those Times. They Were Missing Their More Courageous Selves.

I Don't Think People Would Climb Mountains Or Jump Off Bridges With Parachutes Or Kayak Class V Rapids If Those Things Didn't Offer The Brief And Horrible Illusion Of Imminent Death. They Would Just Be Complicated, Time-consuming Endeavors That We'd Steer Well Clear Of Because They Got In The Way Of Real Life.

Society Can Give Its Young Men Almost Any Job And They'll Figure How To Do It. They'll Suffer For It And Die For It And Watch Their Friends Die For It, But In The End, It Will Get Done. That Only Means That Society Should Be Careful About What It Asks For. ... Soldiers Themselves Are Reluctant To Evaluate The Costs Of War, But Someone Must. That Evaluation, Ongoing And Unadulterated By Politics, May Be The One Thing A Country Absolutely Owes The Soldiers Who Defend Its Borders.

No One Will Remember That President Obama Supported The Arab Spring If It Eventually Fails And The Region Collapses Back Into The Political Dark Ages. If We Actively Engage These Movements With Advice, With Money, And, When Necessary, With Military Force, Then We Get A Vote In How It All Turns Out.

My Reporting In Africa Wouldn't Be Political Per Se, But It's Certainly The Point Of My Reporting - And Of A Lot Of Other Reporters I Know: Human Suffering Is Bad, And If Reporting Stories About It Brings It To Light And Someone Does Something, That's Part Of The Point Of Journalism. And It's A Thin Line Between That And Activism, And You Have To Be Careful About That.