I was in a helicopter shooting a documentary in the Black Hills of South Dakota last Monday afternoon when I got the news. There came a strange confluence of realities at that moment. A great American icon, Mount Rushmore, was in the distance, and my pilot and navigator – both named Peter – told me over the headsets the news they'd heard that another Peter, another American icon, was gone. Neither knew that Peter Jennings and I were colleagues and friends, and the effect that simple piece of information might have on me. I am still trying to sort that out here on assignment in the Black Hills.

As a freelance cameraman and sometimes producer for ABC News, I'd had some unique and even strange opportunities to experience some interesting sides to Peter Jennings that few others knew about. Some of these have remained confidential for reasons I'll explain – and they are good things. We often tend to say good things about people once they're dead, but I said these about Peter while he was alive. They're worth repeating now.

Diane Sawyer interviewed me last year on "Good Morning America" about a TV show I produced called, "Changed Lives: Miracles of The Passion," about miracles that happened to people after seeing "The Passion of The Christ." After that, around ABC News, it is no secret that I am a conservative Christian, and a Republican as well, which makes me an oddball, to say the least. As far as I know, Peter was none of those things (though the Christian part I'll know only when I get to Heaven.) We were not exactly kindred spirits. So there's our context.

The first time Peter and I met, I was shooting an interview with him in Los Angeles. After it was done, I mentioned that he had met my pastor before – Jack Hayford. A big smile came across his face. "Pastor Jack! I like him!" I told him that we prayed for him at our church, and he smiled and thanked me for that. I thought that was a good thing.

Now, The Church on the Way is a charismatic, Pentecostal church where the presence of God is really felt. I'd heard that Jennings had visited there once in the course of shooting a special about religion in America and met Pastor Jack then. So the fact that he obviously enjoyed that experience of our fairly in-your-face, "Jesus is here!" church service was encouraging to me. Maybe Peter was seeking something.

Peter had been responsible for bringing aboard reporter Peggy Wehmeyer as a religion correspondent. This was a first for ABC News (maybe for any major network) and we Christians in the biz thought it was a smart idea, what with most of America being Christian and all. She only stayed on seven years before higher-ups decided her services were no longer needed, but it did raise a few eyebrows: Was Peter Jennings a closet Christian? I sure wanted to know.

More eyebrows were raised some time later when ABC aired, "The Search for the Real Jesus." I personally had high hopes for the program. It was a special that Peter produced and hosted, and to put it bluntly, was abysmal journalism. Their "experts" were on the laughable fringe of academia, and made preposterous suppositions with no basis in any historical fact (such as there supposedly being no evidence that Jesus really died, that Mary was impregnated by a Roman soldier, Jesus never really claimed to be God, and other various and sundry blasphemies.)

I was appalled and decided to write Peter about it. This was actually harmful and reckless and could not go unanswered.

For a freelance cameraman to openly criticize the managing editor and anchor of ABC News is typically employmental suicide. ABC is my biggest client. But I decided to take a chance based on what I believed about Peter – that he was a seeker and was in fact interested in the truth. So I sent him a polite but no-holds-barred e-mail (about 3-4 pages) detailing where facts had been distorted and not checked, how this was just plain bad journalism, and how they might proceed in the future as to not embarrass themselves and alienate the 85 percent of American viewers who are Christians and know that special was anti-Jesus propaganda spouted by those self-proclaimed "experts."

I also asked Peter to please keep this between himself and me, as it could seriously jeopardize me ever being hired again.

A few days later, somewhat to my surprise, I received a kind e-mail from Peter. He thanked me for my analysis, said he would take my comments into consideration, and assured me that of course this would be between me and him.

In case you don't know, e-mail correspondence between a cameraman and the lead anchor for a network is exceedingly rare. Particularly when the lower man on the totem pole is being critical.

Peter went up a notch on the totem pole that day.

It was the beginning of a minor e-mail correspondence over the next few years. I didn't send many, only when ABC News had really missed the boat (usually on spiritual matters) and sometimes to encourage him that he had really hit the nail on the head. He always replied back, promptly and politely, and in a way that I knew he had gotten my message.

Up another notch.

And ABC was still calling me for work.

I ran into Peter at the Republican Convention, and reminded him who I was – the "e-mail guy." He remembered working with me earlier and greeted me warmly with a broad smile. Thankfully he didn't treat me like a troublemaker!

And ABC still continued to call me for work.

I received a request from ABC News to go to the Persian Gulf to cover the war in 2003. I accepted, and found myself there for a month. My first assignment: I was to spend a week with Peter Jennings, shooting all of his stories there.

It was quite a week. We spent a lot of time with Marines, flying in helicopters over miles of desert populated only with camels, and one day with Peter and I going on a desert patrol in a Bradley fighting vehicle. Good camaraderie building.

One day, we traveled by convoy to a remote Marine base near the Iraq border. We shot all day with the Marines as they made final preparations for the invasion. It was a long, hot day in the desert, and we were spending the night in a tent near Col. Joe Dowdy. As Peter and I walked toward our tent discussing the day's shoot, we both heard singing coming from a large tent barely visible in the darkening sky. On it was a little cardboard sign with the word scribbled in a black marker, "Chapel." Peter looked at me, grinned and said, "Let's shoot this."

Inside was a Catholic service, packed wall-to-wall with heavily armed Marines. The homily was underway. Next door was another tent with some lively singing emanating from it, and after shooting a few scenes in the first tent, we wandered in there.

It was the protestant service and the men were singing praise songs, arms raised high in the air. Peter loved it. We had no more than stepped into the tent when one of those wonderful chaplains walked up to Peter and immediately began asking about his faith. I tried desperately to hear their conversation, but work required me to move around the room. What I did hear was that he had been raised in an Anglican or Episcopal tradition, and that he was enjoying this service.

He enjoyed it so much that he featured it prominently in that story, showing the men praising God, tears running down their cheeks and being prayed for. And the next week, ABC News did an entire story on chaplains and their impact on the soldiers and Marines in battle.

Excellent.

After the chapel service, it was really time to hit the sack. The crews, producers and Peter were all in sleeping bags on the ground in one large tent. Not too fancy digs for America's preeminent news anchorman.

I make it a habit to bring earplugs wherever I travel as sleep is a precious commodity often in short supply. Sometime around 3 a.m., I was awakened not by a sound, but by light flickering in the tent. I opened my eyes and saw Peter laying on his side in his sleeping bag about 5 feet away from me, flashing a small flashlight off and on at the producer sleeping on the ground near my feet. What the heck was he doing? After a minute or so, he got up, wearing a t-shirt and boxer shorts, and tiptoed over to the producer. This was getting weirder, so I removed my earplugs.

He leaned over and shook his senior producer, who awakened, startled and dazed. He looked up at Peter and mumbled, "What is it?" – to which Peter replied, "You're snoring like an old drill sergeant!" I guess Peter had been awake for a long time and couldn't take it any more. It was a pretty surreal sight.

The snoring ceased, Peter laid back down and began looking at a map of Iraq with his small light. Amused, I sat up, called to him and when he looked at me, I threw him a packet of earplugs. He looked at them, smiled, said a sincere, "Thank you," put them in and finally went to sleep.

Peter made it a point every night after we were done and the piece was edited to thank me and tell me what a good job I had done. He did this every single day. I was very impressed by that. Here's a guy that's at the top of the food chain, working with a freelance guy who he does not see eye to eye with on many core issues – and has even criticized his work – yet he treated me with great kindness and respect. That is very rare in my business. Very rare.

I sent him a DVD of my program, "Changed Lives: Miracles of The Passion," and a copy of my book by the same name. It was around the time of the diagnosis of his cancer, and I was on the road doing a lot of press tours and speaking. I ran into the son of Canadian evangelist David Mainse, who saw in my bio that I had worked with fellow Canadian Peter Jennings. He wondered if Peter was a believer in Christ because of hiring Peggy Wehmeyer and the several religious programs he'd done (however misguided) but also because of an incident decades earlier. His dad had been preaching at a tent revival in the pouring rain, and on the very back row by the edge of the tent sat a youngish Peter Jennings. All the sudden, the bench he was sitting on sunk into the mud, tipped over backward, dumping Peter into the water and mud behind him! But Peter had been there and had heard the Gospel.

And years later, he heard it from Pastor Jack Hayford. And he heard it again in that tent with the Marine chaplains. I'm sure he heard it from Peggy Wehmeyer, and he heard it from me in our e-mails. And in my book, which I hope he got to read before he died a few days ago.

I sent him what would be a final e-mail several weeks ago. I told him I was praying for him – expectantly – and so was Pastor Jack. I also told him about that David Mainse story and asked if he remembered that happening.

It was the only e-mail he never responded to.

That is what I know. Hopefully there is much more that I do not, and I will see my friend again someday when I get to Heaven.

Until then, I confess that it just kills me that I wasn't more direct with him. Walking that fine line between strategically sharing the most important thing in the world, and being careful not to lose your job is perhaps too much a challenge for most Christians. I am not sure if I walked that line like God wanted me to. As I grieve the loss of this friend, I am saddened by the possibility that because I was careful and maybe others were silent, no one took the opportunity to actually lead him to Jesus.

This happens with celebrities all the time, and I do not want it to happen on my watch again. With anyone.

Of everything I knew about Peter Jennings, I did know that he was a man who sought the truth. Even though we disagreed a lot, perhaps we were kindred spirits deep down were it really matters most.

Maybe that's why my heart hurts, not just because I didn't get to say goodbye.

I wasn't finished with him yet.

Jody Eldred is an Emmy-winning Los Angeles-based director-writer-cameraman. He has worked for ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN and the BBC. His most recent project was the TV documentary and book, "Changed Lives: Miracles of the Passion."