Legacy
Pyle wrote the column about Waskow a few days after his death, in Caserta, where he had become depressed and was drinking heavily. He asked AP correspondent Don Whitehead to read the columns, exclaiming, "I’ve lost the touch. This stuff stinks. I just can’t seem to get going again." Whitehead recognized its tremendous value and urged its publication. It was first published a month later, after notification of the next of kin, in Scripps-Howard's home newspaper, the Washington Daily News, which gave it front page billing, and sold out its entire edition. The entire column was read on the radio by Raymond Gram Swing and Arthur Godfrey. It was reprinted in Time magazine, and was used for a war bond drive.
In his last will and testament, Waskow wrote:
| “ | God alone knows how I worked and slaved to make myself a worthy leader of these magnificent men, and I feel assured that my work has paid dividends—in personal satisfaction, if nothing else.... I felt so unworthy, at times, of the great trust my country had put in me, that I simply had to keep plugging to satisfy my own self that I was worthy of that trust. I have not, at the time of writing this, done that, and I suppose I never will. | ” |
Pyle's story informed John Huston's documentary The Battle of San Pietro (released in 1945) and heightened interest in it. The character of Captain Bill Walker (played by Robert Mitchum) in William Wellman's motion picture The Story of G.I. Joe is partly based on Pyle's column about Waskow's death. The US Army insisted on changing the surname of Waskow to Walker in the film's screenplay
Henry T. Waskow High School in Belton and VFW Hall 4008 are named after Waskow.
Read more about this topic: Henry T. Waskow
Famous quotes containing the word legacy:
“What is popularly called fame is nothing but an empty name and a legacy from paganism.”
—Desiderius Erasmus (c. 1466–1536)