Bruce Loudon on being a foreign correspondent

Bruce Loudon has worked as a foreign correspndent since 1968. He is currently The Australian’s South Asia correspondent. In today’s Australian he ponders the life he leads and the near misses he’s missed,

Nothing concentrates the mind quite like sitting atop 10 tonnes of lethal ammunition stacked into the belly of an ancient, clapped out, propeller-driven aircraft as the night sky outside is lit up by tracer fire from gun batteries trying to shoot it down. Or, having landed at a “secret jungle airstrip” where landing lights have been turned on for barely three minutes, scrambling out into nearby rebel trenches while a government bomber circles overhead, positioning itself to unload its cargo… Danger is part and parcel of a foreign correspondent’s life. “Danger arouses interest,” wrote Honore de Balzac. So true. link