You've gotta' check this out...

I've been working on a story for "News Photographer" magazine about the recent lifting of the photo coverage of US military dead returning to Dover Air Force Base.  There's a lot more history and background to the subject than you might think; like, for example, did you know that we only really started returning the bodies of US soldiers as a matter of course -- in other words, immediately shipping the dead back, rather than burying them where they fell and straightening it all out when the war was over -- during the Korean War?

At any rate, as an example of earlier procedures, I'm using the return of the first Unknown Soldier -- the one from World War I -- as an example of what was done after that war, and I've used the account of that from the AP articles by Kirke L. Simpson, which won the Pulitzer in 1922.

Lately, I keep sending people to look at those articles (most easily available at http://www.arlingtoncemetery.net/wwi-unk.htm).  Man, this is writing.  I mean, real writing, the kind of writing that makes you just want to quit trying to do it, or maybe try harder...