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CHRIS Masters will never forget what he has seen in war zones around the world.
The respected journalist has seen “bodies piled high to the roof” in Rwanda, murdered children and people starving while reporting for several decades.
Masters, who shared his experiences during two talks at the Write Around the Murray festival at the weekend, said he didn’t hide from his experiences.
“Some of those images will never go out of my mind, particularly, as a father, the images of children,” he said.
“I was in Cambodia right in the heart of darkness in the early 1980s and I saw starving children which rather seriously impacted on me.
“I saw some things that really woke me up too.
“I saw how anarchic and nasty conflict can be and how brutal and vicious it can be.
“But I also saw, particularly in East Timor, Australians behaving professionally, responsibly and demonstrating a lot of courageous restraint and it made me think maybe they have a bit of aptitude for this role as peacekeepers.”
Masters is not sure if recent conflicts, such as Afghanistan, will have a greater impact on soldiers given the threat could lie anywhere and troops could be struck at any time.
He copes with the horrors of war by talking openly about his experiences.
“I don’t try to hide those experiences from myself even though a lot of the time the memories are haunting,” he said.
“It’s not tough for me to talk about but it is for a lot of people.
“Soldiers in particular don’t talk to outsiders about their experiences, they tend to talk to one another.
“They feel it’s only other soldiers who will understand what they do.
“It’s always been difficult for the journalist who reports conflict to try to communicate what is often seen to be an incommunicable experience.
“But I think it’s important to try.”
Masters said he hoped to bring greater understanding of the Afghanistan war and the experience of those in the military to the Australian public.
“I see a mission in trying to bring a remote experience home,” he said.
Masters also shared thoughts on his mother and fellow writer Olga Masters, who he said had given him a passion for journalism, and spoke about investigative journalism with Matthew Condon.