Image credit: Flickr user Danny Castaneda

I first met him twenty years ago, while covering the Middle East. At the end of that meeting, a friend of mine outside the news business asked me who I had been talking to.

“That’s Bob Simon,” I said. “That’s who I want to be when I grow up.”

Like millions of Americans, I watched 60 Minutes to see a wonderful and well-crafted news show, but I was always on the lookout for a Bob Simon piece—they were stories not just flawlessly produced, but perfectly told.

I remember one story in particular about where ships go to die, and the people who break them up on the beach. I must have seen it 20 times.

From the minute I saw that piece I told everyone I knew about it. I was floored by the reporting, and most of all, the writing. It was as close to perfect as I’ve ever seen.

My mother once told me something I’ve never forgotten. It’s more important to be interested than interesting. Bob Simon was always interested, and that made him the most interesting person in the room.

Now he is gone, in perhaps the most ironic way—the war correspondent who covered Vietnam, who was held by Saddam Hussein in Iraq, and who—without hesitation—traveled often in harm’s way.

Bob Simon was killed in a fatal car crash in New York. He will be missed.

Tomorrow, if someone asks me about Bob Simon, I’ll tell them the same thing I told my friend two decades ago. He is still the person I want to be when I grow up.

By Peter Greenberg for PeterGreenberg.com