Sarah Lynch, reporter, Cairo; covered Egypt and Libya in 2011-present:

Boarding a small, rickety wood-decked fishing boat packed with rebel fighters on a sunny day last April, I was off to the Libyan city of Misrata, then under siege by Gaddafi's troops. The rebels were going to defend their families, trapped in one of the country's coastal battle zones. I was going to cover it.

Aside from the jeans, boots, and shirts we had on our backs, the fighters had munitions and antiaircraft guns. I had a borrowed flak jacket, a camera, and a receipt reminding me that I just bought a $600 a month reporters' insurance policy that I was paying for on my own. That night I slept next to a black plastic bag full of AK-47s.

Thirty hours later, we pulled into port where dozens of shipping containers lay in flames, destroyed by Gadhafi's men. Countless wounded - fighters and sometimes innocent children hit by stray bullets - poured into the hospital where other journalists and I slept. Many of those wounded died.

There was an invigorating, often frightening, sense of uncertainty those days - uncertainty about the future of nations overthrowing dictators, about where the next Arab uprising would spring, and, personally, about where life would lead the following week, day, or even hour. But events like the trip to Misrata and the time I spent there, in a city where people desperately fought for their lives, inspires and reminds me of the extremes people risk and what unity can achieve when fighting for freedom.

My coverage of the Arab uprisings started when I heard about the turmoil unfolding in Egypt from my small apartment in Beirut. I was overcome with a sense that this was going to be the story of a lifetime.

And I wasn't going to miss it.

I jumped on a plane on Jan. 28 with a ticket I bought at the airport that morning - with $1,000 in cash, no real plan, and a few cameras that would soon be tackled off of me by Mubarak's plainclothes police. There are countless other freelancers with similar stories, similar hardships, but more importantly, memories and moments that have changed us forever, many for the better, some not.

I was drawn to cover the Arab Spring because I knew that covering history would be worth it.

It was, and remains so.