WAR! Ernie Pyle & GI Joe

Many journalists were 'embedded' with the troops in WWII.  The legendary Ernie Pyle from western Indiana wrote columns on their grinding ordeal and uncomplicated courage.  Armed only with a typewriter, Pyle personalized war reporting, creating a bridge between the everyday soldier, whom he dubbed GI Joe, and the American populace.

As a roving correspondent for the Scripps-Howard newspaper chain, he earned wide acclaim for his accounts of ordinary people in rural America, and later, of ordinary American soldiers during World War II. His syndicated column ran in more than 300 newspapers nationwide.

At the time of his death he was among the best-known American war correspondents. He won the Pulitzer Prize in 1944 for his spare, poignant accounts of "dogface" infantry soldiers from a first-person perspective. "No man in this war has so well told the story of the American fighting man as American fighting men wanted it told", wrote Harry Truman. "He deserves the gratitude of all his countrymen."

Who are the reporters who have followed in Ernie Pyle's footsteps?  What have they risked?

Is it worth it?

Listen to Jon Voigt read Ernie Pyle

How did John Hersey differ from Ernie Pyle?

Why is the book Hiroshima still so important today?

Why was it so controversial then?

Read the book for yourself...