LETTER: It is time to recognize fallen journalists with D.C. memorial

To Ozaukee Press:

World War II correspondent Ernie Pyle died during the invasion of Okinawa in 1945. In his pocket was a draft of his last column, “On Victory in Europe.” He wrote, “...the companionship of two and a half years of death and misery is a spouse that tolerates no divorce. Such companionship finally becomes a part of one’s soul, and it cannot be obliterated.”

He had returned to his home after brushes with death while covering the war in Europe. But he was haunted by the untold stories on the Japanese warfront, and so back he went.

He hated the fact that he had to go back to the war, but duty propelled him to tell America about the men and women at war. He died from machine gun fire in an area that had been considered safe.

That devotion to duty has been understood by American journalists throughout our nation’s history. Like first responders, journalists run toward danger. Some lose their lives.

The greatest recent loss of journalists on American soil was not during the heat of battle. It happened on June 28, 2018, when five newspaper employees were gunned down in their offices at the Capital-Gazette, in Annapolis, Md. Law enforcement officers said the shooter held a grudge against the paper for its coverage.

That announcement was chilling. It strikes at every reporter, editor and publisher who has presented unpopular information to readers and viewers. Whether it is a story of public corruption, a drunken driving arrest or even something as simple as a house foreclosure, someone often wants to keep that information out of the paper. 

That we have reached a point in our nation’s history where journalists at work are receiving training on surviving a shooter would surprise and dismay a hardened wartime correspondent like Pyle. He probably would say that is not the nation he went to war to protect and inform.

We agree. That is why it is time for the Fallen Journalists Memorial in Washington, D.C., to be built. The memorial would be built entirely without taxpayer dollars, but it requires congressional authorization to be placed on federal land in Washington.  

Legislation sponsored in the House by Reps. Tom Cole, R-Okla., and Grace Napolitano, D-Calif.; and in the Senate by Benjamin Cardin, D-Md., and Rob Portman, R-Ohio, will give the Fallen  Journalists  Memorial Foundation a green light to begin planning for the memorial. It would 

be a blessing if, by the time the memorial is built, there are no new names to add to it.

It is time to recognize the sacrifice of journalists killed in the line of duty. 

Andrew Johnson

Mayville, Wis.