Ernie Pyle Home Needs Saving

Ernie Pyle was a famous World War II  correspondent who became especially important to the families of men fighting the war. That is because while the other correspondents reported the "Big Picture" of the war, Ernie Pyle wrote about the individual soldier, the airman, the sailor and later, the Marine.
He wrote from ground level. He saw the bodies and smelled the smoke of war. I visited his hometown, Dana, Indiana, just a few weeks ago to personally look at the town and home where he was born and then to look for a replica of a special monument erected on the spot where he was killed by a sniper on the island of Ie Shima.
Funny, I set my GPS to Dana, Indiana, and it gave all these streets in the town, asking for an address, I think. Of course, I had no idea of the street where his home was located. So, I just punched one, and I found myself out in the middle of a cornfield probably two or three miles from Dana. I could see the outlines of the town, so I was able to find it.
When I got there, the museum that includes his home and two buildings that house whatever the collection about him contains was closed. It is only open in the summer, and I learned it is on hard times because visitors to it have dwindled as the World War II veterans and their families have died. He no longer has meaning to current generations. The day I was there, I saw a postman or maybe it a UPS or FEDEX guy who'd stopped to look at the house and museum. He said he had often passed, but had never stopped. Again, though, all we could do was look on the outside.
I looked and looked for that replica of the monument erected to him at his home, and didn't see it. I felt disappointed because of it. Then, as luck would have it, I spotted a place called Ernie Pyle Rest Park on the way out of Dana, and there it was, the replica of the monument.
If you know nothing of Ernie Pyle, you can still read his books, composed from the daily columns he wrote. They are "Here Is Your War," "Brave Men," and "The Last Chapter." I think the last title is correct or at least close.  If you read the books, you will not only learn about the men  who fought that war, but you will get a different sense of it because of the level at which it is written. One haunting bit Ernie wrote that I sometimes think of is how he stood in a medical tent where a lot of wounded were being treated. This one particular GI was dying, and a chaplain stopped briefly to say a prayer over him, but there were so many others he rushed away to try to comfort as many of the rest of them as he could. That left this man to die alone. Ernie said he wished he'd gone over and held the man's hand as he died. On reading it, I wish he had, too.
Oh, by the way, I also got a chance to go to Hawaii, and while there visited his grave. It is in the Cemetery of the Pacific in a beautiful spot known as the Punch Bowl just above Honolulu. I remember when I went up there to find his grave, I thought I must be in the wrong place because look as I might, I couldn't see the traditional white crosses that mark military graves anywhere. All I saw was this vast expanse of green grass. As I walked around, however, I realized that all the grave stones were flat. So, that's why I couldn't see them.
I did ask an attendant where to find Ernie's grave, and he pointed to a spot not far from a sort of house where information on the cemetery is held. I walked up to it, and would you believe, there was a garland of pink flowers around it? How nice. How beautiful. I know Ernie appreciated it, and I did, too.
On returning to my home in Columbus, Ohio, I did make calls pledged to do what I could to save the Ernie Pyle Museum. I called and talked to Bently Hamm, dean of the journalism school at Indiana University, that is located in Ernie Pyle Hall. He referred me a fellow with the Hoosier State Press Association. All of them are working with Scripps-Howard, the newspaper company Ernie worked for, to save his museum. I learned that the town of Dana is working toward the same goal. I have volunteered any help I could personally give to any of those groups or organizations. But, with all that is going on, I know the Ernie Pyle Museum stands to be saved, and maybe in a way that will become relevant to citizens of today, especially students. It must become relevant to stay open.
You can help, too, by visiting the museum this summer. It is not far off I-70 that cuts right across the center of Indiana.

Photos are of his home, the replica of the monument to him and then the last few sentences from his book, "This Is Your War." It is good. Blow it up so you can read it.