WAR IS SHOCKING and terrible. When war breaks out, generally accepted standards of civilised behaviour erode rapidly and life alarmingly reverts to the primitive law of the jungle: survival of the fittest and at any cost.
War, as they say, is hell - armies fighting each other, luckless civilians wondering where and why it all went wrong, aid agencies caring for refugees and doctors rushing the injured to hospitals.
But for some, war is also a magnet. There is money to be made because just about everything is in short supply. On the fringe of every conflict, carpetbaggers converge like vultures.
Also present on the fringes of conflict are the war correspondents.
No matter how civilised the world might pretend to be, or perhaps as a result of it, people are fascinated by human conflict - whether it is a brawl in a school playground or the blitz of a city. It is the job of war correspondents to feed this insatiable public fascination by explaining the mayhem as best as they can.
The big difference between war correspondents and other reporters is that the former are rarely forced to cover war. Most correspondents volunteer, attracted by the excitement and the perceived glamour of living life on the edge, similar to bungee jumpers or sky divers. Either that or they are new to the game and naive, with no idea of what to expect.
Susanna Cheung belonged to the latter category when she first went to report from a war zone.