In An Instant
Lee and Bob Woodruff
Reviewed by Terry Studer
In an Instant: A Family's Journey of Love and Healing by Lee and Bob
Woodruff is so emotionally charged you can't help but feel every single
heart wrenching moment that this family must endure to save the one man
they all very deeply love. I cried on that terrible day that Bob was
hurt and I cry now as I revisit that fateful day through the eyes of
the person who loves him the most.
Bob Woodruff is a man who is not only extremely handsome but
intelligent, loving, kind, energetic, respectful and driven. He's a man
who loves his family tremendously and loves his job as a journalist
emphatically. Journalism is his dream and luckily for him his family
supports each and every step towards fulfilling this important quest.
Lee Woodruff is a Mom first and foremost. She's pretty, intelligent,
loving, devoted, caring, kind and one of the strongest women I have had
the pleasure to read about. Lee is a Commander General in crisis mode
and a typical human being after the fact. Organization is a fantastic
quality to have when faced with the unknown and to be able to take life
by the horns and hold on for everything it's worth makes this family
extremely fortunate.
This memoir is not only about Bob's traumatic injuries sustained in
Iraq but also about what has lead this family to this particular time
period. Bob's being in the wrong place at the wrong time is one of
those things that happens to even the best of us no matter how much we
prepare. A quote from Bob, "You can take precautions in this life, but
they are like seat belts; they won't necessarily keep you safe".
This book switches back and forth with chapters going from Bob's
accident in Iraq to the past so that we may learn Bob and Lee's
beginnings, then leading us ultimately to a junction of how and why Bob
was in Iraq at that most fateful moment.
We learn of the couple's brief meeting while in college, Bob's success
at becoming a lawyer and Lee's success at her own significant career,
their marriage, the early times of their marriage while Bob is teaching
in China just before and at the beginning of the Tiananmen Square
conflict. This is when the journalist bug comes up and bites Bob
sending him into the adventure of a lifetime. Being there at that
precise moment when action is happening and adrenaline is pumping is
what causes fight or flight in so many people.
We travel on through several job promotions as Bob slowly crawls up the
journalistic ladder and the number of moves the family must contend
with during all this. As Bob follows his dream of being a top
journalist, Lee and the kids follow Bob to wherever that happens to
lead them.
I found this story informative in so many different respects. Not only
do you have the information about the tragedy but of the different
diseases that could so easily take your life in an instant. The
information about the different places that are visited here and the
news presented about the different conflicts and how each and every
person involved is affected. Not only that but about how we all should
be concerned with what is going on in other parts of the world as they
will most likely at some point affect our lives as a whole.
Bob quotes a war photographer, "In the words of legendary war
photographer Larry Burrows, journalists who cover wars and conflicts
are there "to show the interested people and to shock the
uninterested". How true this is!
Upon finishing this book I must say the authors have succeeded in
educating us in a comfortable style. May they have a long, happy and
healthy life together. They most certainly deserve it.