If my editors emailed a sign-up sheet soliciting volunteers to go overseas to cover the war in Israel, I wouldn’t even click the link. I have zero interest in being a war correspondent. But when they’ve asked me to jump on a plane and head for the front lines, I’ve always said yes. Why? Because in this business, that’s the right answer. It was that twisted logic that put me on the ground in three different battlefields — Angola, Somalia and Iraq. And while I never had much love for the military, I gained enormous respect for the soldiers, even...