For Hastings, there was no romance to America's misbegotten wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. He had felt the horror of war first-hand: While covering the Iraq war for Newsweek in early 2007, his then-fianceé, an aide worker, was killed in a Baghdad car bombing. Hastings memorialized that relationship in his first book, I Lost My Love in Baghdad: A Modern War Story.

At just 33, Michael Hastings' life bucket overflowed with more joy and pain and accomplishment than most octogenarians. It's more important to live every day than to live a lot of days.