We’re commemorating Veterans Day on November 11. It’s a day to honor all veterans who have served in the military, living and deceased, and recognizes their service and sacrifice for the country. The official date recalls the time when a ceasefire occurred in World War I on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month in 1918. The AARP furnishes some interesting facts of those who served in the military. Nearly five million wore the uniform in World War I. Sixteen million served in World War II with only 167,000 still living in 2022. For the Korean War 1.8 million served, in Vietnam 2.7 million, and in the Gulf War 650,000. To honor all these men and women Congress saw fit in 1938 to establish the day as a federal holiday, then known as Armistice Day. The name changed to Veterans Day in 1954.
Twelve years ago we traveled to Hawaii, a trip that provided a rich experience with beautiful weather, lush greenery, and deeply embedded history. The name Pearl Harbor is well recognized in our history and provides visitors a historical destination. To get to the memorial site you must ride a boat skippered by navy personnel for about a mile. Upon arriving passengers step onto a modern bridge-like visitors center which straddles the sunken USS Arizona, a battleship sunk on December 7, 1941. We were immediately reminded this was hallowed ground since the ship below where we stood contains the bodies of 1102 servicemen killed that day and entombed forever in the rusting hulk. After coming away, we couldn’t help but feel humbled. The horrific attack that day destroyed more than the USS Arizona. It sunk a total of 20 ships, damaged 300 aircraft, and killed 2,400 Americans.
We visited another site of note near Honolulu named the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific. A large statue called Lady Columbia stands as a centerpiece. The inscription contains words written in a letter by Abraham Lincoln to a lady who had lost five sons in Civil War battles: “The solemn pride that must be yours to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of freedom.”
Upon leaving the cemetery our driver called attention to a flat grave marker situated just outside the window where I sat. He didn’t stop but drove slowly enough so that I could read the name inscribed on it - Ernest Taylor Pyle. The passage of time has dimmed the memory of that man, but during World War II he was a dedicated battlefield correspondent serving as a conduit between servicemen on European battlefields and the folks back home.
How did he become popular? He followed a simple formula: digging foxholes with the soldiers at the front, eating with them, diving for cover with them when bombs started falling. Reporters were free to come and go from the action, so some lived behind the lines in nice hotels. One biographer wrote of how it rubbed Ernie’s “nerves raw when he saw reporters covering the war between cocktail hours.” Furthermore, he noted that many reporters hung around the top generals waiting for tidbits of information to come their way. Instead, Ernie lived among the soldiers and wrote from firsthand experience.
People, meaning parents, friends, citizens on the street, wanted news and stories like he was furnishing. His writing became widespread, so much so that his columns appeared in 400 daily and 300 weekly newspapers. Furthermore, he was the only civilian correspondent regularly published in the U.S. armed forces newspaper, “Stars and Stripes.”
While most reporters wanted to write about the great battles, Ernie concentrated on the little details of the infantryman’s life. He would go to the front lines and talk with the individual troops, listen to their stories, and retell them in his column. Instead of telling the great deeds of generals and large units charging into action, his stories were personal and often about individual service members or small groups of men.
Most of his columns can still be found, like this one he called “A Pure Miracle.” On the day after the invasion on D-Day, he set foot on the beach. Speaking of all the death and destruction he encountered on the way in, he wrote, “Now that it is over it seems to me a pure miracle that we ever took the beach at all. For some of our units it was easy, but in this special sector where I am now our troops faced such odds that our getting ashore was like my whipping Loe Louis down to a pulp.” As he walked around he found that “men were sleeping on the sand, some of them sleeping forever.”
Ernie died with people he wrote about. On a little island near Okinawa while riding in a jeep, a Japanese machine gunner opened fire on them. Ernie and his companions dived into a ditch. After a time when thinking it was clear, Ernie raised up to take a look and a bullet hit him in his forehead. His death saddened many people. For three years his writings which were almost like personal letters from the front had entered some 14,000,000 homes. President Truman issued a statement of condolence: "No man in this war has so well told the story of the American fighting man as American fighting men wanted it told. He deserves the gratitude of all his countrymen.”
Pyle wasn’t the only reporter who made a difference for men and women in uniform. Walter Cronkite can be remembered for his call to end the war in Vietnam. Shortly after that President Johnson spoke to the country on March 31, 1968 that he would not run for another term as president. But not until January of 1973 did Nixon end the war. One North Dakotan worked closely with Edward R. Murrow to report wartime news and opinions. A lady correspondent named Lee Miller has recently surfaced as a historically relevant reporter and now a movie about her life will play in theaters.
Hundreds more reporters will go unnamed here for obvious reasons of space, but their stories of life on the front gives Americans an idea of what the men and women in the service go through. I’ve never worn a uniform, but I’ve gained a sense of history from war correspondents. Some gave their lives in pursuit of facts to inform their readers waiting back home. So for this Veterans Day I remember them, too.
