From adolescence onward, Paul Watson aches to go to war and experience the rush of surviving when others die. As a young reporter at the Toronto Star he uses his vacation time to travel to the world’s killing fields. He yearns to report on conflict and violence. “Somewhere in the twisted strand of my DNA,” he writes, “I must be wired to crave risk.”
On October 4, 1993, this time on assignment from the Star, he is in bloody, murderous Mogadishu where peace-keeping troops are battling Somali warlords and their militias. He has just been through [close up: bullets shattering the hallways of his hotel, whizzing past his head, shards of bodies everywhere] a 16-hour battle that has left 18 Americans and 600 Somalis dead.
He hears rumours that the body of an American soldier is being dragged by a mob through city streets. He sets out with his driver and armed bodyguards to locate the grisly procession and succeeds after an hour and a...
Michael Valpy is a journalist and author. Through a long career at The Globe and Mail, he served as foreign correspondent, national political columnist, member of the editorial board, and deputy managing editor before leaving to teach in 2010.
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