Former journalists Maurice Roper and Heather Allan spoke to a room full of student journalists on Tuesday to share their emotional experiences of working in war-ravaged countries.
Allan was first to speak, describing how she had gone from not knowing what to do with her life after college to running news operations in places like Iraq and Saudi Arabia.
“It was about safety, food, and getting people in and out of dangerous areas,” Allan said. “We would calm the locals—wives whose husbands were off fighting and wouldn’t make it back in time for holidays.”
Allan had witnessed and lived through many distressful scenarios of war, but she knew her work to inform the public was important.
“It can be very emotional and sad,” Allan said, “but it’s worthwhile when you get a story out that needs to be told… there’s nothing like being there and seeing it, it stays with you and adds layers to your life.”
After Allan concluded her speech, Maurice Roper stood from his chair, holding a script in his hands. Unlike Allan, who told her stories while facing the audience, Roper spoke in a softer tone and mostly looked down at the paper in front of him.
Roper began his story in war-torn cities in Bosnia and Herzegovina. He had stumbled upon a worn-down building, and through the open doors he saw a lady crouched over a single fire on a cracked wooden floor.
“I don’t know what possessed me to walk into the room, but I smiled at her, then I saw five girls ages ten to eighteen looking at me,” Roper said.
Roper and the women in the room did not speak the same language, but they had been able to communicate with one another without words.
He recalled how the young girls marveled at his white teeth. Theirs had been missing or blackened with decay. Later, he would find out that all of the men in their family had been killed.
“After my time there, I always wondered what happened to that family,” Roper remarked. “I would come back from these trips exhausted and confused. As my flight approached L.A., I looked down from the plane to see freeways and people moving around like nothing…it was a mind bender for me.”
For all Roper and Allan had been through, their passion and curiosity for journalism had never dimmed.
“My career has certainly affected me,” Roper said. “I can’t deal with violence now, but I will always treasure life and the environment because these are important things to me.”
As journalists Roper and Allan had the duty to inform the public on the wars they covered but in doing so their stories also conveyed the human elements of life.