Ernie Pyle's Miami connection

I came across a sad and amazing story the other day. A new photo of one of my heroes, Ernie Pyle, was found. It's his death photo. The picture shows Ernie, with a trail of blood leaking out his mouth, arms folded on his chest, lying in a ditch on Ie Shima.

I've been to Pyle's home in Dana, Ind. I've read his books, and biographies. I have pictures and advertisements with his picture. His G.I. Joe watches me when I write. It was like seeing a friend's picture.

But I noticed the article quoted James Tobin, the author of "Ernie Pyle's War," a biography that came out a few years ago. I own the book, and have always loved it. Turns out Tobin, who used to write for the Detroit News, is now a professor at my alma mater, Miami University. Man! I wish I'd been able to study under him. But I'm an old-timer now. (He also used to work at The News with one of my current professors, Christy Bradford, who used to be managing editor).

It was a circle of coincidences. I still get shivers when I see that photo.

A slight tinge of regret

While I'm still feeling out the classes at KU and trying to figure out how knowing about media theory will help me make a deadline, I've been pretty satisfied overall with my experience here. But I just read something that made me wonder if I would have been happier at Indiana University, one of the (many) graduate programs I applied to.

IU is sending a group of students to Europe to follow the steps of one of my heroes, Ernie Pyle.

How much do I like Ernie Pyle? I've got a million books about him. Oh yeah, and a G.I. Joe figurine of him on my desk. I have taken mounds of shit for that, so you don't need to pile (pyle?) on. I also visited his birthplace in Dana, Ind. It was a bit out of the way of where I was going. I was driving from Chicago to Oxford, Ohio, but decided to go to Dana, then on to visit a girl I had a major crush on in Bloomington. Good trip, long drive.

IU's j-school is located in Ernie Pyle Hall, so it'll be great to visit the places he reported. They'll go to London, to see where he reported on the Blitz with Ed Murrow; they'll also go to Normandy, where Ernie joined invading troops. There he cut his chops as a war correspondent. He wrote about normal, sometimes mundane things, and his dispatches brought a sense of closeness for parents worrying about their sons. He wrote a story about Army cobblers and another about the troops who gathered discarded M-1 Garand rifle pieces and repaired broken weapons. He also survived strafing by U.S. fighter planes, which mistook a column of Americans for Germans.

OK, this isn't a deal-breaker, for me. It's just really cool. I don't know how excited I'd be to go on a field trip to Emporia, Kan. to see where William Allen White grew up.

UPDATE: I'm an idiot. I was just reading this over, and it sounds like Ernie's first war dispatches were from Normandy. Of course, that's untrue. After covering the Blitz, he joined Bradley's troops in North Africa. Then he covered the invasion of Sicily, where he wrote perhaps his most famous column, "The Death of Captain Waskow."