The American Spectator

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And in his description of awful weariness that overcame fighting men and correspondents alike, Pyle eerily prefigured his own death:

"We were grimy, mentally as well as physically. We'd drained our emotions until they cringed from being called out from hiding. We looked at bravery and death and battlefield waste and new countries almost as blind men, seeing only faintly and not really wanting to see at all."

ONE MORE INSTITUTION, now forgotten. Apparently April 18, the day Pyle died (sometimes reported as April 17, 1945, because of confusion over the International Date Line), is now Columnist's Day. Jed, Shawn, Bill, Wlady, who knew? A day for us.

I was lucky. There in my grandmother's living room when I was nine, reading Ernie Pyle, I found out what I wanted to be.

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Africa