ABC cameraman killed and reporter injured in Iraq.
I knew Eric Campbell. He’s the one who was injured not the one who died. It’s a fluke. Moran walked 50 metres in front of him to get a shot. Eric was 30 when I was 16. i had a crush on him. We flirted. At the 1986 International Theatre Sports Championships, we had a brief fling. He was one of my first ever lovers. He introduced me to the idea of open relationships. I watched him on the Investigators. I watched him report for the 7.30 Report from Russia. I was too embarrassed to get in touch with him again, scared maybe it hadn’t really been an open relationship and that I would cause problems for him and his partner, scared I was irrelevant in his life, some stupid 16 year old with a crush. He was one of the reasons I became a journalist. I have never lived up to him, to his bravery. And now he has almost died, in a war zone, reporting a war that shouldn’t be happening.
I have been drinking for the last 4 hours. I don’t know what to do now that it’s personal. I never loved you, Eric. But you’ve meant more to me than you’ll ever know. You were the first man to ever show me tenderness. You were the first man to show me what it meant to stand up for what you believed in. Your theatre sports team in 1986 was called “four sensitive guys”. I was proud of you then and I’m proud of you now. I read that you have a young newborn baby… I have no idea whether you’re even with the same partner. I have no idea how bad your wounds are… shrapnel wounds they say… and you’re well enough to speak to camera… but shaky. I hope you make it back safe. I hope you all make it back safe.