Ray E. Boomhower

a man singing into a microphone with the words " no matter where you go there you are " above him ALT: a man singing into a microphone with the words " no matter where you go there you are " above him

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And kudos to editor Harold Ross for giving the entire magazine to Hersey’s remarkable story.

Jane Mayer on John Hersey’s “Hiroshima” His monumental report changed history, journalism, and me.

"Hiroshima," published in 1946, changed journalism, Jane Mayer writes.

It "was a model of what might be called the ethical exposé. It was built on rigorous reporting and meticulously observed details, and, through its quiet, almost affectless voice, the reader became another eyewitness."

The GI and the General: Charles H. Kuhl and George S. Patton When Private Charles H. Kuhl of the Twenty-Sixth Infantry Regiment, First Infantry Division, checked himself into an aid station in Sicily, ...

"He seemed about halfway nuts at the time.”
On this day in 1943, an American general struck a private from Mishawaka, Indiana. It became the slap heard around the world.
rayboomhower.blogspot.com/2023/03/the-...

“A poem is not an expression, nor
it is an object. Yet it somewhat
partakes of both. What a poem is
Is never to be known, for which I
have learned to be grateful.”
Hayden Carruth, born on this day in 1921

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

Richard Tregaskis and Operation Watchtower Preparing to get some rest one evening after a day spent talking to American pilots engaged in dueling with their Japanese opponents in the ...

On this day in 1942 International News Service correspondent Richard Tregaskis was on the transport ship USS American Legion with U.S. Marines on their way to invade Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands.
rayboomhower.blogspot.com/2022/06/rich...

Ernie Pyle and Captain Waskow In December 1943 war correspondent Ernie Pyle , columnist for the Scripps-Howard newspaper syndicate, returned to the safety of the rear lin...

“I’ve lost the touch. This stuff stinks. I feel stale and just can’t seem to get going again.”
rayboomhower.blogspot.com/2019/07/erni...

“Learn to write by doing it. Read widely and wisely. Increase your word power. Find your own individual voice though practicing constantly. Go through the world with your eyes and ears open and learn to express that experience in words.”
P.D. James, born on this day in 1920

Ernie and Me: An Appreciation Each August thousands of high school graduates from the Hoosier State and around the country descend upon Bloomington to begin their colleg...

"Write a story as tho[ugh] it were a privilege for you to write it. Put some sauciness and sparkle into it. You don't have to be smart-alecky or pseudo-funny. Be human. Try to write like people talk."
Ernie Pyle, born on this day in 1900
rayboomhower.blogspot.com/2017/04/erni...

More complimentary words received today about my manuscript about groundbreaking journalist Wallace Terry. Let’s go!

Great staff and a copy machine nearby—a winning combination.

“I love America more than any other country in the world and, exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually.”
James Baldwin

On this day in 2019, I was getting ready for a trip to Laramie, Wyoming, to visit to the American Heritage Center at the University of Wyoming to examine the papers of World War II correspondent Richard Tregaskis. It was one of the most interesting places I’ve gone to do archival research.

A Different Kind of War: Richard Tregaskis and David Halberstam in Vietnam At the age of twenty-eight, journalist David Halberstam received a challenging assignment from his employer, the New York Times . In Septem...

“Why can I get this stuff from Halberstam when I can’t get it from my own people?”
rayboomhower.blogspot.com/2022/05/a-di...

Done! ☑️

The Hoosier Vagabond: On the Road with Ernie Pyle Clem “Pop” Shaffer, the owner of the only hotel in Mountainair , New Mexico , was sitting in front of a fireplace in the lobby of his bric...

On this day in 1935, Ernie Pyle set out with his wife Jerry to tour the country and report on what he found as the “Hoosier Vagabond” columnist.
rayboomhower.blogspot.com/2019/08/the-...

“You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, or who had ever been alive.”
James Baldwin

"Write what should not be forgotten."
Isabel Allende, born on this day in 1942

"That's all we have, finally, the words, and they had better be the right ones."
Raymond Carver, who died on this day in 1988

"You want to write a sentence as clean as a bone. That is the goal."
James A. Baldwin

Words to live by:
"I want to be an honest man and a good writer."
James A. Baldwin, born on this day in 1924

Kurt Vonnegut Jr., Indianapolis, and Slaughterhouse-Five - Indiana Historical Society On May 29, 1945, twenty-one days after German forces had surrendered to the victorious Allied armies, a father in Indianapolis received a letter from his son who had been listed as “missing in action”...

“I thought it would be easy for me to write about the destruction of Dresden, since all I would have to do would be to report what I had seen.”
indianahistory.org/blog/kurt-vo...

Received some very complimentary comments about my Wallace Terry manuscript today. I am encouraged to go on.

Catching Hell: Jack Watson and a B-17 Mission to Germany They came from everywhere out of the sky. Flocks of German single-engine Messerschmitt Bf-109 and Focke-Wulf 190 fighters, twin-engine Junke...

"I was scared to death. I didn’t want to go into the channel. I decided I would rather blow up with the Fortress than drown in the channel. I took a heading in the direction of England and said to myself: ‘Here goes.’”
rayboomhower.blogspot.com/2021/10/catc...

“We cannot live only for ourselves. A thousand fibers connect us with our fellow men; and among those fibers, as sympathetic threads, our actions run as causes, and they come back to us as effects.”
Herman Melville, born on this day in 1819

“When I awoke this morning I felt as though I had emerged from a long, dark tunnel,” Manchester wrote Robert Kennedy about finishing the book. “For the past six months I’ve virtually been a hermit.”