So, he complains about leg pains and cramps. Not a big deal - we all seem to get them every once in a while. Hell, riding around in a specially modified M-88 tank recovery vehicle for as long as he has must make you uncomfortable. But, I'll bet you, there's no way in hell either he, his family, the folks at NBC, hell even the 3rd I.D. that he was with could have seen this coming when David Bloom died of an apparent pulmonary embolism. This news is just an absolute shock. You see a guy, younger than you (he's 39, I'm 46) and you see someone that seemed to really enjoy his work (something that I truthfully cannot say). He was always on top of his form, no matter what he covered - OJ Simpson, the Washington Sniper, the war in Iraq... riding a mechanical bull for the Weekend Today Show or getting dunked in a dunking tank on the plaza. I really enjoyed this work and was fascinated with his little gyro-stabilized camera and reports from the desert. It's sad, just damned sad to lose a guy like this. He had this wonderful way of making the story "fit", and making it understandable to us doofuses out here. You hear of other correspondents dying, you hear of coalition forces dieing, but hearing about his death has a different "feel" to it. Just one of sadness and loss, perhaps because he was good and perhaps it was because it wasn't as a casualty of war (though, in the grand scheme of things, it probably was). I know NBC will miss him, and I guess I will too.
2005- Still Traumatized