Glad to hear it

Author Sebastian Junger ("The Perfect Storm") and photojournalist Tim Hetherington won an Oscar nomination for their documentary "Restrepo," a searing look at a U.S. Army platoon in Afghanistan. Two months after walking the red carpet together, Hetherington was "killed in a mortar attack in Misurata, Libya, where he was covering the rebel uprising against Moammar Kadafi's regime." For Junger, his friend's death was the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back. "I'm not going to do any more front-line reporting, because I don't want to put my wife through what I went through with Tim," Junger told the Los Angeles Times. "It was a very obvious thought to come to in the wake of all this. Tim's death made war reporting feel like a selfish endeavor." I'm glad to hear it. It is true that, as Hemingway once said, "Hesitation increases in relation to risk in equal proportion to age." But Junger, 49, has done more than his share of combat journalism. It's definitely time to stand down.