141. Peter Arnett, the war reporter, is no more 

Last year, I read the memoir “Live From the Battlefield: From Vietnam to Baghdad, 35 Years in the World’s War Zones”. 

A friend had gifted me the book almost a decade earlier, describing it as a reporter’s life story at the front lines, second only to Ernest Hemingway's. 

I didn't like the comparison, so I set the book aside to read later.

Written by Peter Arnett, born in 1934 in New Zealand, who won the 1966 Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting for his Vietnam War coverage for the Associated Press, it’s a fascinating book, especially for journalists and those who love reading history in the making.

Today, the same friend messaged me to say that Peter has died at 91 in California.

I felt as miserable as any news of death could make me, even though I have never met him and know nothing more than what he had revealed in the book.

The intensity of my anguish was the same as I felt when actress Kamini Kaushal died recently.

I always feel a renewed sense of hope each morning when I wake up, knowing there are still people around the world I admire, hale and hearty, enjoying life.

I'm pleased that Woody Allen, Claire Forlani, Roman Polanski, Francis Ford Coppola, Clint Eastwood, Jeffrey Archer, Alice Walker, Erica Jong, Annie Ernaux, Kim Hyung-suk, Nayantara Sahgal, Ruskin Bond, Jhumpa Lahiri, Leeladhar Jagudi, Lal Krishna Advani, and many other of my favourite, loved, and inspirational people from my personal list wake up early in the morning like me to continue their lifelong work or spend a restful day at home. 

Just knowing they are alive on this earth reassures me that it is still a liveable and lovable place.

Peter Arnett spent decades evading bullets and bombs to deliver the world firsthand reports of war, from Vietnam to the deserts of Iraq.

Arnett covered Vietnam from 1962 until 1975 and became widely known in 1991 when he provided live updates for CNN during the first Gulf War.

Although almost all Western reporters had left Baghdad before the US-led attack, Arnett stayed behind and gave a live report from his hotel room via cellophane as missiles hit the city.

The scariest part of the book, I found, was when he described how he joined a battalion of US soldiers seeking to rout North Vietnamese snipers and was standing next to the battalion commander when he paused to read a map.

Arnett writes: “As the colonel peered at it, I heard four loud shots as bullets tore through the map and into his chest, a few inches from my face. He sank to the ground at my feet.”

He not only reported on the frontline fighting but won exclusive interviews with the then-president, Saddam Hussein, and future September 11 mastermind Osama bin Laden.

A gem from the earth’s necklace is out on a journey to eternity.

RIP Peter Arnett!!!