What
do J.D. Salinger and Tom Lea have in common? For starters, they both went to
war.
Tonight's
(21 January) PBS American Masters program featuring Shane
Salerno's documentary on J.D. Salinger used Tom's "The Two Thousand
Stare" and "The Price" to illustrate what landing on Utah Beach
on D-Day with the 4th Infantry Division and the subsequent Normandy Campaign
cost Salinger. And then they used "The Two Thousand Yard Stare" again
as the campaign moved through the three-month meat-grinder of a battle in
the Hurtgen Forest . . . and then they used it a third time as
the Division came upon the terrible extermination camps surrounding Dachau.
When
Dan Longwell at LIFE first saw Tom's completed Peleliu
paintings early in 1945 in New York, all he said was: "Print every damn
one of them in color, and I never want to see them again." His
reaction is understandable, but it is no accident that two major media
outlets--one television, one print (see below)--reached back (within a week of
each other) to Tom's iconic paintings for their stories.
Semper
Fidelis, Mac
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