Ray E. Boomhower

“It is difficult
to get the news from poems
yet men die miserably every day
for lack
of what is found there.”
William Carlos Williams

“No political party can long pursue advantage at the expense of public honor or by rude and indecent methods without protest and fatal disaffection in its own body.”
Benjamin Harrison, inaugurated as the 23rd president on this day in 1889

“I'll write whatever I damn please, whenever I damn please and as I damn please and it'll be good if the authentic spirit of change is on it.”
William Carlos Williams, who died on this day in 1963

Heading off next week to do some research about this man and his book.

YouTube video by PBS NewsHour Extra Classroom Video Collection Wallace Terry on covering the Vietnam War

"You're taking a descent into hell when you enter war. . . . There's no clean way to fight a war."
Wallace Terry, Vietnam War correspondent
www.youtube.com/watch?v=un5q...

Reporting from Shangri-La: Richard Tregaskis and the Doolittle Raiders International News Service correspondent Richard Tregaskis had been eager to test his courage in combat when he was sent by the wire servic...

Did you know? For his first assignment as a war correspondent, Richard Tregaskis accompanied the task force that launched the Doolittle Raid against Japan. One problem. It took a year for him to be allowed to write about the mission.
rayboomhower.blogspot.com/2022/04/repo...

“You hardly ever need to state your feelings. The point is to feel and keep the eyes open. Then what you feel is expressed, is mimed back at you by the scene. A room, a landscape.”
James Merrill, born on this day in 1926

John Bartlow Martin: A Writing Life During the 1940s and 1950s one name, John Bartlow Martin , dominated the pages of the “big slicks,” mass-circulation magazines, especially t...

"I never end a day written out, with nothing more to say; instead I stop at quitting time by the clock and type out a quarter or half page of notes about what exactly is coming next; thus in the morning I can readily take up where I left off."
rayboomhower.blogspot.com/2024/05/john...

"The basic tool for the manipulation of reality is the manipulation of words. If you can control the meaning of words, you can control the people who must use the words."
Philip K. Dick, who died on this day in 1982

"Humor has a tremendous place in this sordid world. It's more than just a matter of laughing. If you can see things out of whack, then you can see how things can be in whack."
Theodor Seuss Geisel (Dr. Seuss), born on this day in 1904

"I Bomb": Malcolm Browne and the Air War in Vietnam The creation of the North American Aviation company, the F-100 Super Sabre jet fighter earned a distinction as the first U.S. Air Force plan...

"The pilots are glad to be spared the sounds they create. I have sometimes wondered whether it might not be better for some Air Force officers to be better acquainted with the ugly cacophony of warfare.”
rayboomhower.blogspot.com/2022/08/i-bo...

On this day in 1962, President John F. Kennedy met with his new ambassador to the Dominican Republic, John Bartlow Martin. How did Martin get the position? It was good to have Robert Kennedy on your side.
rayboomhower.blogspot.com/2021/01/beco...

“This is a writer’s lesson: To learn that the sounds that we imagine can be the clearest, loudest sounds of all.”
John Irving, born on this day in 1942

Wallace Terry, Zalin Grant, and a Mission to Cholon Viet Cong rockets and mortars shattered Saigon’s peace early in the morning of May 5, 1968. The renewed fighting led Wallace Terry , a Time ...

“We became more than friends. We became as brothers.”
rayboomhower.blogspot.com/2026/02/wall...

"Sometimes nothing is so solid to me as writing--I suppose that's what a vocation means--at times a torment, a bad conscience, but all in all, purpose and direction."
Robert Lowell, born on this day in 1917

Let's kick off Women's History Month right for the Hoosier State with a salute to one of the country's most widely read women writers, Juliet Strauss, "The Country Contributor," who helped save Turkey Run from destruction. A statue at the park honors her efforts.
indianahistory.org/wp-content/u...

"It is perhaps as difficult to write a good life as to live one."
Lytton Strachey

“They hate because they fear, and they fear because they feel that the deepest feelings of their lives are being assaulted and outraged. And they do not know why; they are powerless pawns in a blind play of social forces.”
Richard Wright, "Native Son," published on this day in 1940

“In any language it is a struggle to make a sentence say exactly what you mean.”
Arthur Koestler, who died on this day in 1983

"It is not [the biographer's] business to be complimentary; it is his business to lay bare the facts of the case, as he understands them . . . dispassionately, impartially, and without ulterior motives."
Lytton Strachey, born on this day in 1880

"I write to discover what I think. After all, the bars aren't open that early."
Daniel J. Boorstin, who died on this day in 2004

"But what is history without readers?"
Arthur Schlesinger Jr.

"Socially, a journalist ranks somewhere between the madam of a whorehouse and a bartender, but spiritually he ranks with Galileo, for he knows the world is round."
Ben Hecht, born on this day in 1894

On this day in 2024, I signed a contract with the @unmpress.bsky.social to write a biography about groundbreaking journalist Wallace Terry, who covered civil rights and the Vietnam War. The finished product is set for release October 6. Preorders are available.
www.unmpress.com/978082637015...

“When I am attacked by gloomy thoughts, nothing helps me so much as running to my books. They quickly absorb me and banish the clouds from my mind.”
Michel de Montaigne, born on this day in 1533

"I like gentle people, because there are so many in the world who are not gentle.”
Ernie Pyle

Be more like Ernie.

A historian's duty? "To tell the truth about the past as best he (she) can--and let the chips fall where they may."
Arthur Schlesinger Jr.

"Poets, novelists, playwrights, drawing art out of their unconscious, can write anywhere. Historians require their notes, their files, their books, their familiar surroundings."
Arthur Schlesinger Jr. , who died on this day in 2007

John Bartlow Martin: A Writing Life During the 1940s and 1950s one name, John Bartlow Martin , dominated the pages of the “big slicks,” mass-circulation magazines, especially t...

“Most journalist make a living by interviewing the great. I made mine by interviewing the humble—what the Spaniards call los de abajo, those from below.”
rayboomhower.blogspot.com/2024/05/john...

Richard Tregaskis and the Road to Tokyo The evening before the USS Ticonderoga ’s July 24, 1945, strike mission against the ships of the Imperial Japanese Navy at the Kure Naval Ar...

"We wouldn’t know the full story of the success or losses of our group until later when results were compiled, but at least we were certain of this: we, Steve, Gene and I, were home."
rayboomhower.blogspot.com/2025/12/rich...