Martin Fletcher is a well-known television reporter. This book tells of his life and his journeys as a journalist. Fletcher tells us about his life, beginning when he was a young man. When Fletcher was 25, he had a desk job at the BBC in Britain. He left the company to take an entry level position with a video news company where he worked as a cameraman. He went on one assignment, and it went really well, so for his next assignment, Fletcher went to Israel in the late 1960's.
He went to Israel to report about the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Arab Palestinians who lived there before Israel (Israel had only been a nation for a couple of decades at the time, and the Israelites were not tactful in their treatment of Palestinian Arabs—in fact they were brutal, and that caused this war). But while he was there, the Egyptian and Syrian armies invaded to help defeat Israel. When the bullets started to fly, Fletcher was in for life. Most people would have been horrified, but Fletcher loved the thrill of the front lines.
Fletcher decided to become an adventurous reporter. He specifically searched out stories no one was brave enough to cover, and he'd go there and report the news from those locations. These locations eventually included: Somalia to cover the pirate gangs, Afghanistan (multiple times to cover wars there), South Africa, Kosovo, Rhodesia—he even covered the Rwandan genocide.
Fletcher explains that part of his fascination with the chaos and horror or war was that his family was Jewish and suffered during the Holocaust. His deep connection to that horror lets him connect easily and sincerely with the wounded and dying. He tells of a story when he filmed a Somali refugee taking her last breaths, and he explains why he feels ethically correct for helping everyone know the tragic truth of human suffering and warfare.
