Terrorists are just murderous thugs
HOW hard is it hearing — almost every week now — of some terrorist outrage where people are being shot, blown up, mowed down by cars or attacked by maniacs with knives?
Nowhere seems safe. Once we thought a terrorist bomb was rare, something that happened in the war-torn Middle East and only occasionally in the West.
But now nowhere seems untouched from these lunatics — not Manchester, London, Paris, Nice, Brussels, Berlin, Orlando, St Petersburg, Istanbul or even Melbourne. And I feel like I’m caught in some horrible time tunnel.
I’ll tell you right now, if you’ve never found yourself among the fear, the dead bodies, the screams and the terrifying racket of gunfire and mortars and bombs going off around you, consider yourself lucky.
It’s no place to be. There’s nothing nice about panic, desperation, or facing down an impending death at the hands of some raving or alcohol-fuelled lunatic with a gun.
There’s nothing romantic about freedom fighters, either, as far as I’m concerned. And that’s what these terrorists seem to think they are. They’re just another brand of murderous serial killer, except with some army or mad cause behind them.
I saw plenty of them in Bosnia and Romania.
Nothing’s pretty about war, whether it’s war against a recognisable foe in the field or some terrorist creeping around in the shadows or a religion-inspired kamikaze blowing up himself and everyone else on his way to some fictitious paradise.
It’s just blood and dirt and pain — awful, horrible, shrieking pain — and massive confusion.
I was in Srebrenica the day after the massacre by the Serbs of 8000 Bosnians. The wailing of the women and children still echoes in my head, and the stench of murder was everywhere — in your nose, your clothes, everywhere.
One grim afternoon we discovered three bodies: a woman and her two children. All three had been shot in the head. They were still holding hands as they lay in the mud.
I knew that unimaginable horrors had been visited on these people. That’s the reality of war.
I reported from Tuzla the day after a massacre in the town square. The square was crammed with kids when four mortars hit. About 70 people died. Women, desperate to find food for their surviving kids, were hiding in doorways to avoid snipers when I got there.
Journalists weren’t exactly flavour of the month. I had a 10,000-Deutschmark price on my head. I was pistol-whipped at a Croatian checkpoint for not using my indicator.
Another time I was punched in the head by a soldier who then took a bullet from his belt, spun the chamber of his .44 with a great flourish, inserted the round and put the gun to my head. I had a bitter, coppery taste in the back of my throat.
I was frozen by fear but a peculiar feeling of total calm washed over me. I was unaware of anything around me. I was floating through a silent movie version of my life; the laughter, tears, good times and bad times slipped past me in a haze.
Immersed in this dreamlike state, I replayed my life and waited for the end. I imagine it is a defence mechanism and gives you something to think about.
I had a one in six chance of survival and I won the lottery that day. I heard a dry click that echoed in my brain as the pin fell on an empty chamber. I went numb. My assailant was laughing. Falling to my knees, I dry-retched over the road.
One morning, I woke up to find a dead man lying in a pool of congealed blood just along from my room. I wasn’t sure which side he was on, why he was there or who killed him.
But if he’d been after us, he’d got damn close. Eight steps from death. I counted them.
Another time, I was held up by an eight-year-old with a .303.
Oddly enough, I wore No Fear T-shirts as I deliberately put myself in harm’s way because I wanted to be Press Photographer of the Year.
I look back at it today and I really should have been sectioned. Barking mad stuff. But I can’t forget that, like the terrorist attacks we’re witnessing now, life in those conflicts had no value. People would shoot you because there was a bounty on your head, or because they wanted your camera or because of whatever might be in your van.
Or, and this was the most terrifying thing of it — and I’m sure it speaks volumes for the worst of human nature — they would kill you for no reason at all.
I heard a dry click that echoed in my brain as the pin fell on an empty chamber. I went numb.