thedrifter
05-09-08, 07:50 AM
Telling a story that hurts too much
Friday, May 09, 2008
JEFF BAKER
The Oregonian
Jim Sheeler knows the gravediggers at Fort Logan National Cemetery in Denver by their first names.
He started writing about the funerals of military personnel killed in Iraq and Afghanistan five years ago and hasn't really stopped. He spent so much time with the families of those who didn't come back that he feels like a member of their families and they feel like part of his. If that's getting too close to the story, it's sometimes the best way to get the story, and this story needs to be told.
Sheeler started telling it in the Rocky Mountain News, writing about what happens at a military funeral, how Marines that look so tough on recruiting posters tear up when they hand a folded flag to a loved one and how they guard a house when the family is at a funeral, since everyone knows that family won't be home that day. He picked up details like that by hanging around, watching and asking questions in a respectful way. People want to talk, he said, parents want to tell everyone about the son or daughter who isn't there anymore. Sometimes Sheeler would show up for a brief interview and end up staying for hours, just listening.
After a while e started noticing the same Marines at the same funerals, and they started noticing him. They didn't want to talk at first -- suspicion of the media runs deep in the military -- but eventually one Marine, Lt. Col. Steve Beck, put his career on the line by agreeing to talk to Sheeler without permission from his superiors. Beck told Sheeler to be prepared for a long journey, and he was right.
Sheeler's story about Beck and military funerals won the 2006 Pulitzer Prize for feature writing. It's the highest honor in journalism, and Sheeler was ambivalent about it.
"I had very mixed feelings about the Pulitzer, knowing what these families had gone through," he said. "It should have their names and their sons' names on it, not mine. I didn't feel it was right."
He didn't want to turn the story into a book, either. It was too raw, too emotional. He tried to read a section from his article at a journalism conference and got choked up. He cried when he went through his notebooks and when he was writing. Again, nothing compared to what the families and the Marines involved with them go through, but it was not easy.
Those families wanted him to do a book, Sheeler said, and he thought there was more to the story than he'd put in the News. His new book "Final Salute: A Story of Unfinished Lives" (The Penguin Press, $25.95, 288 pages) tells Beck's story and many others.
Sheeler left the News and is teaching at the University of Colorado. He got his start writing obituaries and finds inspiration teaching students how to write about people and how they live.
"That's the only thing that can save journalism," he said. "We need more real stories, ones that can't be told in a two-inch Web brief."
7 p.m. tonight, Barnes & Noble Lloyd Center, 1317 Lloyd Center.
Jeff Baker: 503-221-8165; jbaker@news.oregonian.com
Ellie
Friday, May 09, 2008
JEFF BAKER
The Oregonian
Jim Sheeler knows the gravediggers at Fort Logan National Cemetery in Denver by their first names.
He started writing about the funerals of military personnel killed in Iraq and Afghanistan five years ago and hasn't really stopped. He spent so much time with the families of those who didn't come back that he feels like a member of their families and they feel like part of his. If that's getting too close to the story, it's sometimes the best way to get the story, and this story needs to be told.
Sheeler started telling it in the Rocky Mountain News, writing about what happens at a military funeral, how Marines that look so tough on recruiting posters tear up when they hand a folded flag to a loved one and how they guard a house when the family is at a funeral, since everyone knows that family won't be home that day. He picked up details like that by hanging around, watching and asking questions in a respectful way. People want to talk, he said, parents want to tell everyone about the son or daughter who isn't there anymore. Sometimes Sheeler would show up for a brief interview and end up staying for hours, just listening.
After a while e started noticing the same Marines at the same funerals, and they started noticing him. They didn't want to talk at first -- suspicion of the media runs deep in the military -- but eventually one Marine, Lt. Col. Steve Beck, put his career on the line by agreeing to talk to Sheeler without permission from his superiors. Beck told Sheeler to be prepared for a long journey, and he was right.
Sheeler's story about Beck and military funerals won the 2006 Pulitzer Prize for feature writing. It's the highest honor in journalism, and Sheeler was ambivalent about it.
"I had very mixed feelings about the Pulitzer, knowing what these families had gone through," he said. "It should have their names and their sons' names on it, not mine. I didn't feel it was right."
He didn't want to turn the story into a book, either. It was too raw, too emotional. He tried to read a section from his article at a journalism conference and got choked up. He cried when he went through his notebooks and when he was writing. Again, nothing compared to what the families and the Marines involved with them go through, but it was not easy.
Those families wanted him to do a book, Sheeler said, and he thought there was more to the story than he'd put in the News. His new book "Final Salute: A Story of Unfinished Lives" (The Penguin Press, $25.95, 288 pages) tells Beck's story and many others.
Sheeler left the News and is teaching at the University of Colorado. He got his start writing obituaries and finds inspiration teaching students how to write about people and how they live.
"That's the only thing that can save journalism," he said. "We need more real stories, ones that can't be told in a two-inch Web brief."
7 p.m. tonight, Barnes & Noble Lloyd Center, 1317 Lloyd Center.
Jeff Baker: 503-221-8165; jbaker@news.oregonian.com
Ellie