Coming soon to a mailbox...

For purely self-abusive reasons, I've been reviewing my old posts here (among other odd reactions, that little twitch I get at seeing "0 comments" over and over; at least I've gotten used to having 4 followers -- thanks guys!)

It's when I noticed an old post on writing an article for News Photographer magazine, the journal of the NPPA, on the recent decision to allow coverage of the return of war dead to Dover AFB.  Well, that piece is coming out this month, and I wanted again to mention the articles I found on the return of the first Unknown Soldier in 1921.  They won the Pulitzer for AP reporter Kirke :. Simpson and it's some of the most beautiful journalistic writing you're likely to see this side of Ernie Pyle.

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...