Military Archive for Post Mortem - Obituaries from The Washington Post

A Vietnam War That Never Ends

Vietnam still resonates in the American body politic after nearly 40 years. The obit I wrote for today's paper, of Lt. Gen. Julian J. Ewell, is a case in point. Gen. Ewell was a top commander in Vietnam during the 1968-70 period and in the latter half of that period...

Navy Vet's Wartime Movies

In the next few days, we'll have a short obit for Robert C. Woodside, a Navy commander who became an expert in guided missile engineering and later worked as an Army Department personnel specialist. Woodside, 89, died of cancer July 27 at his home in Clarksville. If you have 10...

Last Survivor of Esquimalt

Post Mortem welcomes occasional submissions by other obit reporters and experts. Vancouver-based obit writer Tom Hawthorn writes: The deaths of two Canadian seamen in recent weeks leaves Joseph Wilson as the last living survivor of the sinking of the Esquimalt. The minesweeper was on patrol in the approaches to Halifax...

Internet Obituary Hoax

Last week former Washington Post Pentagon reporter Thomas Ricks forwarded an e-mail to us about a promising subject for an obituary. He had received a message about the death of a neglected hero, with this lament: "Michael Jackson dies and it's 24/7 news coverage. A real American hero dies and...

Robert S. McNamara -- His Words, Your Forum

It would be hard to think of a more controversial figure from the Vietnam War era than Defense Secretary Robert S. McNamara who died this morning. He was the longest-serving defense secretary in the U.S. He was one of the original Whiz Kids, a corporate chieftain and later World Bank...

Frowned on strip ping-pong

Scanning some of the British papers this morning, I noticed several interesting obituaries for World War II veterans, and I remembered writing a story a few years ago about how we're losing more than a thousand WWII vets a day. The numbers are mounting, of course. Their deaths are also...

Post Mortem Archive: Military