The whistle always rings the bell. The Israeli missile in Southern Lebanon that targeted friend and journalist Steve Sweeney reminded me of that Major from the Kargil war.

It was 4 in the morning on that 1999 day. There is 60 kilometers between the town of Kargil and the high altitude brigade headquarters at Drass. Thrice in that space we are told we are in the shelling zone.  Meaning, the Pakistani gunners can see us and we might be shelled. After 40 minutes we were let through. The shells went into a bluff over our heads and buried into brown scrabble without exploding.

So, Steve detected the whistle of the missile that Israel aimed at him. He has survived. It is a familiar story by now but it was new to me that year.

“You will first hear the blast. That is the noise of the shell being fired. Then you will hear the whistle, The whizz through the air as the shell cuts through it, and then you will hear that explosion as the warhead blows up, If you can’t hear the whizz, it doesn’t matter”.

Covering war for journalists is fraught with risk. Every journalist wants to be a war correspondent. For the romance of it, for the pleasure in finding that your byline is read in a flight from Tehran to Damascus where everything below is afire.

Twenty years ago today. I was at the Delhi Airport. Flight delayed, as Bush unleashed “shock and awe”, the blasting of Baghdad, Iraq’s capital, civilisation’s cradle. My Editors assigned me to cover the war.

They estimated it was a two-week assignment. I too agreed. The lucre of the byline from a warzone being my bribe.

In Kuwait too, the flight had a delayed landing. And the doors were not opening because Iraq’s Scuds (scud missiles) had taken a toll bypassing the PAC-2 (Patriot Air Defense missiles).

Back to Steve. He has survived for now the shelling from the wicked Israel. If you gotta be a journalist you have to be in the line of fire, never mind the takedowns.

(The writer is a journalist and one of the founding members of Cuckoo News)