Burst of Joy
Burst of Joy is a
The event at Travis Air Force Base
The first group of American
USAF Lieutenant Colonel Robert L. Stirm made a speech[4] "on behalf of himself and other POWs who had arrived from Vietnam as part of Operation Homecoming."[5]
Smithsonian Magazine says that "Veder, who'd been standing in a crowded bullpen with dozens of other journalists, noticed the sprinting family and started taking pictures. 'You could feel the energy and the raw emotion in the air'."[5][4]
Developing the latent images
Veder then rushed to the makeshift
The depicted persons
The photograph depicts
Despite outward appearances, the reunion was an unhappy one for Stirm. Three days before he arrived in the United States, the same day he was released from captivity, Stirm received a Dear John letter from his wife Loretta informing him that their marriage was over. Stirm later learned that Loretta had been with other men throughout his captivity and had received marriage proposals from three of them. In 1974, the Stirms divorced and Loretta remarried, but he was still ordered to provide her with 43% of his military retirement pay once he retired from the Air Force,[8] although the divorce judge stated that much evidence was presented to the court of Loretta's unfaithfulness while Stirm was prisoner. Stirm was later promoted to full Colonel and retired from the Air Force in 1977.[9] Loretta died on August 13, 2010, from cancer.[10]
After Burst of Joy was announced as the winner of the Pulitzer Prize, all of the family members depicted in the picture received copies. The depicted children display it prominently in their homes, but not Colonel Stirm, who in 2005 said he cannot bring himself to display the picture.[5]
Lorrie Stirm appeared on Antiques Roadshow Season 27 Episode 1 on January 2, 2023, seeking an appraisal for an archive of items relating to the event: Lorrie's personal print of the famous photograph (signed by the photographer in 1990), Lt. Col. Stirm's prison uniform, Red Cross luggage with North Vietnamese tag, a spoon engraved Lt. Col. Stirm with a thunderbolt during his imprisonment and a pair of sandals the North Vietnamese claimed were made from the wheels of Stirm's crashed plane. Auctioneer Joel Bohy valued the items as worth $2500-$3000 at auction, but said the "historical value on this is absolutely priceless."[7]
Reactions
About the picture and its legacy, Lorrie Stirm Kitching once noted, "We have this very nice picture of a very happy moment, but every time I look at it, I remember the families that weren't reunited, and the ones that aren't being reunited today—many, many families—and I think, I'm one of the lucky ones."[5]
Donald Goldstein, a retired Air Force colonel and a co-author of a prominent Vietnam War photojournalism book, The Vietnam War: The Stories and The Photographs, says of Burst of Joy, "After years of fighting a war we couldn't win, a war that tore us apart, it was finally over, and the country could start healing."[5]
See also
- 1974 Pulitzer Prize
- U.S. prisoners of war during the Vietnam War
Bibliography
- Notes
- ^ Fischer & Fischer 2000, p. 97
- ^ pulitzer.org 2012
- ^ U.S. Prisoners of War Return To Travis Air Force Base (Television production). March 17, 1974. Retrieved October 14, 2018.
- ^ a b c Lucas 2010
- ^ a b c d e f g Butler 2005
- ^ "Vietnam POW Lieutenant Colonel Robert L. Stirm Archive | ANTIQUES ROADSHOW | PBS". YouTube.
- ^ a b Boyle III, John. Antiques Roadshow Season 27 Episode 1: “Filoli, Hour 1” (Television Show Episode). Antiques Roadshow. Boston: PBS.
- ^ Faber, Nancy (April 1, 1974), "A POW's Marriage Ends Bitterly", People, retrieved October 14, 2018
- ^ Esper, George (July 4, 1993), "POW's Homecoming a Picture of Joy, but a Tapestry of Sadness", Los Angeles Times, retrieved July 10, 2021
- ^ "Loretta Adams Obituary (2010) San Francisco Chronicle". Legacy.com.
- References
- Butler, Carolyn Kleiner (2005). "Coming Home: To a war-weary nation, a U.S. POW's return from captivity in Vietnam in 1973 looked like the happiest of reunions". Smithsonian magazine. Retrieved March 17, 2012.
- Fischer, Heinz Dietrich; Fischer, Erika J. (2000). Press photography awards, 1942–1998: from Joe Rosenthal and Horst Faas to Moneta Sleet and Stan Grossfeld (2000 ed.). ISBN 9783598301704. - Total pages: 289
- Lucas, Dean (July 26, 2010). "Burst of Joy". Famous Pictures. Retrieved March 17, 2012.
- pulitzer.org (2012). "1974 Winners". pulitzer.org. Retrieved March 17, 2012.
- Boyle, John, director. Filoli, Hour 1. Performance by Coral Peña, PBS: Antique Roadshow, Public Broadcasting Service, 2 Jan. 2023, https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/roadshow/watch/episode/2701K1-filoli-hour-1/. Accessed 18 Jan. 2023.