R.I.P. Bob Simon

I am so saddened to learn of the untimely death of journalist Bob Simon.  He was killed in a car crash in New York City today, just 73 years old. I had the pleasure of meeting Bob at a writer's conference in NYC over 20 years ago, while he was promoting his book, 40 days. The book chronicles his harrowing experience during the Persian Gulf war, when he endured imprisonment in an Iraqi jail. To this day, it remains one of the most moving books I've ever read.  He was the keynote speaker at the conference I attended, and I remember him talking with such passion about what he endured. He said that he had never experienced true hunger before, and that it filled him with feelings of despair and emptiness that he had never known. It was something that stayed with him, and he said that he learned never to take basic needs like food and clean water for granted ever again.