European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - September 19, 1990, Darmstadt, Hesse Covering commit continued from Page 13 computers and Fly away satellites stashed in suitcases. Given the . Conflicts that last less than a week and the military pools they re Lucky if they get there before the shooting stops. The Ernie Pyles Hal Boyles and Peter Barnetts went into War with steel helmets and typewriters to write about the soldiers they lived with those unshaven grunts who were dug in for months at a time. Their riveting accounts from the front lines of gis in Battle their fears frustrations courage and loneliness Are classic. All three won journalism s highest award the pulitzer prize for their moving dispatches. Ernie Pyle a memorable column on the death of the beloved capt. Waskow at the front lines in Italy 1944 Quot was at the foot of the mule Trail the night they brought capt. Waskow a body Down. Dead men had been coming Down the Mountain All evening lashed onto the backs of mules. One Soldier came and looked Down and he said out loud a goddamn it that s All he said and then he walked away. Another one came. He said goddamn it to hell anyway he looked Down for a last few moments and then turned and Hal Boyle with the army in Africa january 1943 Quot Miles away across those darkened Plains american boys who want to go Home to the Only land they love were trying to end the War the quickest Way they can by carrying the fight to the enemy. Tonight they will know neither food nor sleep Only the terrible loneliness of clashing in Battle m Midnight blackness with the foe. Tomorrow some will be dead none will be scores of correspondents have died on the battlefields including Pyle in world War ii. He covered the War for the so Apps Howard newspaper Alliance. Boyle who covered world War ii Korea and Vietnam for the associated press died in 1974. Arnett who covered Vietnam for More than a decade for associated press now is a correspondent with can based in Jerusalem. Quot the old War correspondent has become extinct because old wars have become extinct Quot says Arnett. Quot just As you won t have grunts unshaven on the front line worrying about Home and dug in for six months you done to need reporters there because you re not going to have them six months. What has made the War correspondent of old sort of redundant is that the modern Western wars Are of very Short duration like the Panama invasion was basically reported by journalists permanently stationed in the area. Arnett was on the Panama invasion within 24 hours. The military Pool was restricted. Quot by the time most of the correspondents got there basically the shooting was Over even though we did go out with the troops there was nothing to cover. Grenada was the same those thoughts stir different sorts of memories and i see my Friend and colleague Arnett dug in at the big Vietnam Battles on patrol alongside american troops marching along a foreboding dirt Road in the rain and mud in harm s Way steel helmet protecting his head a poncho wrapped around his body. Or another sidekick Dickey Chapelle dressed in her Jungle fatigues a Bush hat hiding her Horn rimmed glasses a Field pack strapped to her Back crammed with cameras film and a tape recorder. One november Day 25 years ago she challenged Henri an photographer. To a bet. She wagered a dime that the Marine unit she was with would be fired on before his. She lost by half an hour when Henri a unit was pinned Down by sniper fire. Quot Okay Quot she laughed. Quot tomorrow ill have my to Hal night Henri helped her dig her foxhole despite her protests. Night was coming on fast and a mortar attack was expected although it did not materialize. The next morning she and Henri shared a breakfast of �5n As she did almost every Dav she moved out with the marines to begin the Day s patrolling. At the foot of the first Hill they went Down a Booby trapped Viet Gong grenade wired to a mortar Tore through the patrol Henri who had lingered in the rear to take other photos heard the cries Quot corpsman corpsman Quot with his heart racing he ran 100 Yards to where four bodies Lay on the ground. One face was Down and soaked with blood. Henri could t Tell who it was. He moved closer. It was Dickey Chapelle. Dickey Chapelle 47, was an accomplished Pilot and 77�e associated press a Peter Arnett received a a pulitzer prize for his coverage of the Vietnam War. Parachutist Veteran War correspondent and author. She had covered world War ii and virtually every trouble spot since. She was jailed by the communists during the hungarian revolution. She bled to death on the floor of a helicopter As it carried her to a Field Hospital. Henri Huet died six years later along with the fabled life photographer Larry Burrows and up photo editor Kent Potter while covering a South vietnamese operation. Their helicopter was hit by North vietnamese fire and burst into a fireball. The South vietnamese Pilot either because of inexperience or disorientation flew Over that same gun position not once but twice. The second time they got him. In world War ii Korea and Vietnam correspondents flew to the front in helicopters and Rode to the battlefields in jeeps cars and even samoans in the Mekong Delta of Vietnam. In Vietnam we hitchhiked Back by land air and sea from the Remote Jungles and Hills to our Saigon Headquarters to file our dispatches. Indeed television had to ship its film by air to Tokyo Hong Kong or some other destination for relay to the United states. There was of course no regular transportation i got Many a ride by running up and Down runways waving my Saigon Quot p be"in9 a can you live a lift to the first was the toughest for me. I found myself crouched in a bucket seat drained and exhausted boxed into a windowless c130 cargo plane As it took off in the darkness. In the freight compartment with me were perhaps 200 other americans. But i was the Only one alive. All the others were wrapped in Green plastic body bags slain that Day in swamps and Jungles half a world from Home As the plane droned through the night skies i tried to keep my sanity by working on my notes. But i soon was overwhelmed by the thought of the grief that would come when the families of these Young men answered the dreaded Knock on the door. But there is the other and brighter Side to the new situation of War coverage that we will not again mourn As frequently As we did in the past the deaths of journalistic comrades in arms or be the bearer of dreadful news to american families. 0 Over a torrent of Vietnam memories by Don Tate staff writer o Al j Page 14 a a a the stars and stripes c we were in a desperate tangle Down in Slit Trench we d plunged into off the exploding Airstrip. A you Don 7 gotta a Here you hit the Bottom of the world Man Yuol find somebody else do this stuff Man Quot a born to Bitch Quot was written across the Marine s i helmet which perhaps explained his Lack of positivism living the life of a War correspondent Viton wild 1968. It was the beginning of the 77-Day siege of Khe Sanh just before the tet offensive. We were inside the trenches and barbed wire with some 6,000 marines rocking around the clock from Nova North vietnamese shells blowing out of the big scarred Hills near the do outside the wire the Earth pitched and reeled from ponderous ripping Friendly b-52 blasts lighting to heaven and firing Over Earth. Pound Pound Pound thud thud thud Day and night a the most heavily bombed target in the history of bombing. This was to keep some 20,000 to 40 000 encircling Nova digging steadily closer in Zigzag trenches from overrunning Khe Sanh in human Waves like they had done to the French at Dien Bien Phu. War correspondent a journalism s most glamorous Quot Job. After five glamorous Days in Khe banh hunched there All wrung out red coated in explosive stinking dust you were like a spent Shell asking yourself in the dim recesses of your alleged brai what wild illusory concept of journalistic Elan what idiotic Donald dumb head Pursuit of journalistic purpose had driven you this far into this place for news after awhile in a place like that news gathering got replaced by experience gathering that inflamed the brain and changed the chemistry and smoked up the perceptions. Getting the Story got replaced by just getting out alive. And always the Little inside voice asking the big question Why Are you Here who Are you still Here part of the answer was of course because you just had to be. And then it comes again. That devils humming through the sky. Erraa Assha. So close the smoking Earth walks Over you and the adrenaline Rush is Ike a flame in your head and you lie there for seconds before you can Stop hearing the the action is. A superficial reason perhaps. But in Vietnam you were in he epicentre of the action. You could go out virtually every Day until your action cup hold any More. These Days a would be War correspondent can get so bogged Down in controlling bureaucracy he a Lucky to arrive before the War is Over. The tendency in recent years has been to Lump reporters into packs for Brief bus Tours to the the tendency has been to form a reporters Quot Pool Quot a let a few go out and report Back to the Many. Pretty sterile stuff. A a Nam a pop was something you swam in. Back in the bad old Good old Days of War correspondence getting to the action was rarely arranged. You could go out in a group or like the Lone Ranger. You got there anyway you could with a lot of improvisation a lot of and 90t same Way. The main criteria of p Blic affairs officers in those Days was Quot if you re crazy enough to go or. Reporter it s the end of sentence varied but we got the Drift. A number of newshounds weren to that crazy More be a it we after experiencing terrible firefights re they Felt feelings they had never Felt before and t0 feel again get was rat their line of work a �?oackt0 covering City Hall and the Pat. Others kept challenging the blast Furnace and a lot of them
