April 17, 2015
Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Ernie Pyle spent his last years embedded with troops in Africa, Sicily, Italy, France, and Japanese-held islands of the Pacific, writing columns detailing the lives of the common World War II soldier six times a week for newspapers across the country.
Pyle was a household name for reporting on the lowest ranking grunts fighting under atrocious conditions, as well as the underappreciated support troops performing vital and technical tasks in the rear. He gained tremendous respect among his subjects by joining them in battle and partaking in their misery. To Pyle, every anonymous G.I. had a hilarious or horrifying anecdote worth sharing with the civilians on the homefront. He even published the full addresses of each interviewee as a shout-out to their small hometowns and proud families and neighbors.
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