Among the best-known and most prolific modern writers on military conflict as both news and history, Britain's Sir Max Hastings has experienced war firsthand. As a television reporter and print journalist, he covered 11 conflicts, ranging from Northern Ireland and Vietnam to Biafra and the Falklands. He has held senior editorial positions at London's Evening Standard and The Daily Telegraph and is the author of nearly two dozen books of military history. Highly regarded for both his prose style and the depth of his research, Hastings has also drawn criticism for his willingness to look beyond patriotic or political clichés to find the hard truths that underlie mankind's fascination with war.

Why did you choose journalism rather than soldiering?
On an attachment to a Parachute Regiment battalion on exercise in Cyprus when I was 17, I realized how unsuited I was to the military life—I was chronically ill-disciplined, physically clumsy (in 1963 I was described as the worst pupil ever to get through the British army's jump school) and pretty selfish. I retained my admiration for and fascination with warriors but realized that I would have to write about them rather than become one.

'Only by experience can one learn to write convincingly about the normal plight of the soldier in combat, which means being exhausted, wet, filthy and hungry before the enemy even gets into the story'

How did you become a war correspondent?
After returning from a 1967–68 fellowship in America, I had a series of great assignments—Northern Ireland, the end of the Biafran War, the Middle East war, Vietnam, the 1971 Indo-Pakistani War, the 1973 Yom Kippur War and many more. I found that, as with most ambitious young journalists, war reporting was for me a hugely stimulating and rewarding experience, and I wasn't too bad at it.

Did those experiences help in writing military history?
It has been a huge help that I saw quite a lot of the "sharp end" when I was young. Only by experience can one learn to write convincingly about the normal plight of the soldier in combat, which means being exhausted, wet, filthy and hungry before the enemy even gets into the story.

What are a war correspondent's most important skills?
A lot of luck and some literary skill, skepticism but not cynicism, and a real sympathy for soldiers. One needs ruthless determination and persistence, and a willingness sometimes to break rules, to get to the front and see what is happening.

What about fear?
It is much less scary being accredited to an army, as I was in Vietnam and the Falklands, than roaming the countryside covering a guerilla conflict, which gets a lot of journalists killed. I have always been most frightened when I've been at the mercy of an African teenager with a Kalashnikov.

What was it like covering the Falklands War?
It was physically very harsh. Yet it was by far the most rewarding for me personally, because there were fewer than a dozen print journalists on the island and no live TV feed, so my copy got huge play in every British newspaper. It was the greatest adventure of my life, chiefly because we won and I came back in one piece.

How do war reporters differ from other journalists?
In some ways war reporting is easier than routine journalism, because one is simply called upon to describe dramatic events. The hard part is that many of today's battlefield journalists are good writers and very brave but know pathetically little about armies, war and tactics.

How important is that knowledge?
Unless you know how to interpret what you are seeing, a battle just looks like a lot of men in camouflaged suits running about and shooting.

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