和平环境里的人们在屏幕上看到或在报纸上读到烽火硝烟的战争场面，为其感慨喟叹、唏嘘不已时，往往想不起在那些录像、图片和文字的后面，还有一类特殊的人。他们无畏危险与艰难，主动走向战场，感受炮火，记录战争，这，就是战地记者。

My husband is on the front lines in Iraq. Not as a soldier, but as a reporter. When I told my friends about his latest assignment2, each had the same reaction, "Did you tell him no? If he was my husband, I wouldn't let him go."

　　They remind me, as if I'd somehow forgotten, that he has left behind our three young children for weeks, perhaps months. Maybe, they whisper, forever. He'll be risking his life, they say, only for some news.

　　Is it worth it?

　　I understand the implication behind the question, that my husband is more concerned with the trajectory of his career than the welfare of his family.3 I understand the pity they feel for me because of the burden suddenly heaped on my shoulders to be a somewhat single mother to three children -9, 7, and 5. I understand because I've sometimes wrestled with the same thoughts.4

　　During the past several weeks, there have been moments I've found myself lying awake in the bleak hours before dawn, trying to reconcile myself to5 the belief that his professional goals as a journalist are compatible with our goals for our family. In those dark moments, only the glow of the computer screen alerting me to an e-mail from him chased away the shadows of doubt.

　　As difficult as this uncertain time apart has been for us, the toll6 it's taken on my children has been immeasurable.

　　My 5-year-old daughter devised a schedule to determine which of the children would keep me company in my empty bed at night. Whether it was her turn or not, I can usually wake to find her huddled against me. My 7-year-old son has many questions about the war and weapons. Though I've never allowed my children to watch the evening news, National Public Radio7 has been my constant companion, and his ears prick up at any mention of the war8, and he queries me about "when will Dad go home..." Most troubling of all, my 9-year-old daughter has said nothing. She has asked no questions, shed no tears, and she merely glances at the photo of her father prominently displayed on the page next to his articles each morning. And all three are probably the only kids at their schools who can find Iraq on a map.

　　Now that war has interrupted the flow of our e-mail, my only contact with my husband is via his articles in the Boston Herald9, a newspaper he has served for a decade. In an odd way, those articles written for thousands provide a more intimate connection to my husband than the e-mails he wrote to me. I think it's because, from a distance, it's somehow easier for him to reveal himself to strangers than to the woman who aches for him.

　　In the end, when friends ask, "Is it worth it?" I can answer yes. He, like other reporters from other countries, is presenting us with the truth.

　　Each time we turn on our radios, click on our televisions, flip open our newspapers, we overlook the risks reporters take to bring us the news. We forget that a camera and tape recorder do not defend against bullets and land mines10. Perhaps it never occurred to us, as we watched how the battle was going on, that someone stayed behind to film it.

　　It has often been said that journalists write the first drafts of history. In one of our last correspondences, I told him about my friends' comments. He responded with his usual eloquence11, "I'm not here to fight the war, just to report on the fighting."

　　So when my friends ask, I tell them it wasn't a matter of letting him go or making him stay. My husband just does what his career asks him to do.

1． war correspondent： 战地记者； dispatch：（记者等发往报纸或广播电台的）新闻报道；home front：（战时的）后方。

2． assignment：委派，任务。

3． 我知道她们问这些问题其实是暗示说，比起家庭幸福，我的丈夫更关心自己事业的发展。implication：含意，暗示； trajectory：（事物的）发展轨迹，起落。

4． 我理解这一点，因为我自己有时也会与同样的想法作斗争。

5． reconcile oneself to：甘心于，安心于。

6． toll：（付出的）代价，（遭受的）损失；take a(或its) toll：造成损失（或危害等）。

7． National Public Radio：即NPR，全国公共广播网。

8． 他一听（广播中）提到战争，耳朵就竖起来。

9． Boston Herald：《波士顿先驱报》，美国具有一定影响的报纸之一。

10. land mine：地雷。

11. eloquence：雄辩，流利的口才。