“It is only those who have neither fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded who cry aloud for blood, more vengeance, more desolation. War is hell.” William Tecumseh Sherman, born on this day in 1820

How do you produce a best-selling book? Simple. Spend three brutal days under fire on a small atoll in the Pacific. It worked for Robert Sherrod. rayboomhower.blogspot.com/2017/10/writ...

"...we journalists frequently don't get things right. Sometimes we are conned into errors; other times we surmise wrong. But correcting journalism is what history is all about." Robert Sherrod

"Covering a war was fairly simple, provided, of course, you lived through it." Robert Sherrod (He did.)

"War correspondents' life expectancy may not be long, but what there is of it is rarely dull." Robert Sherrod In honor of Sherrod's 117th birthday, a copy of my biography to the first person to name where he first traveled to as a correspondent during World War II after the Pearl Harbor attack.

"War is a cruel, desperate necessity which calls for courage and suffering. It is too bad, but it is true.” Robert L. Sherrod, born on this day in 1909 www.zocalopublicsquare.org/reporter-hel...

“Most journalists are restless voyeurs who see the warts on the world, the imperfections in people and places. gloom is their game, the spectacle their passion, normality their nemesis.” Gay Talese, born on this day in 1932

Weird coincidence how much my two most recent bio subjects had when it came to the covers for their memoirs (Wallace Terry’s was never published).

“It is impossible to discourage the real writers--they don't give a damn what you say, they're going to write.” Sinclair Lewis

"Keep typing until it turns into writing." David Carr

"You must give your own story to the world." Carter G. Woodson, who founded Black History Week on this day in 1926

"Writers kid themselves--about themselves and other people. Take the talk about writing methods. Writing is just work--there's no secret. If you dictate or use a pen or type with your toes--it is just work." Sinclair Lewis, born on this day in 1885

Reviewed proposed cover for my Wallace Terry biography to be published by the @unmpress.bsky.social this October. Another great job by the Press's designer. Will share when I can.

"I painted reporters and newspaper men generally as receiving fabulous salaries, being sent on the most urgent and interesting missions." Theodore Dreiser rayboomhower.blogspot.com/2019/08/theo...

“War takes on a very personal flavor when other men are shooting at you, and you feel little sympathy at seeing them killed." rayboomhower.blogspot.com/2022/06/rich...

"Baseball was, is and always will be to me the best game in the world." Babe Ruth, born on this day in 1895

"Remember that the subject is everything, the writer nothing. Avoid the I. The subject, not you, matters." rayboomhower.blogspot.com/2024/05/free...

"It is not by great acts but by small failures that freedom dies. The sense of justice dies slowly in a people. They grow used to the unthinkable, and sometimes they may look back and even wonder when things changed. They will not find a day or a time or a place." Charles Morgan, who died OTD 1958

"We [journalists] are the eyes and ears, and our observations, however flawed and filtered, are the stuff of history: the archival mother lode that scholars mine when they cannot witness the show themselves--which, by the way, is usually the case." rayboomhower.blogspot.com/2024/01/a-da...

"When the exceptional historian comes along, you have a poet." Melvin B. Tolson, born on this day in 1898

"True heroism is remarkably sober, very undramatic. It is not the urge to surpass all others at whatever cost, but the urge to serve others at whatever cost." Arthur Ashe, who died on this day in 1993

Got some good news today as my paper about Vietnam War correspondent Wallace Terry and his book "Bloods" has been accepted for the @midwesternhistory.bsky.social's annual conference, to be held April 30-May 1 at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio.

“I learned to cope with the ugliest events of our times. I can walk across a battlefield where men are dead and wounded and not fall apart. I can do this by concentrating on the mechanics of news covering. I have the nightmares afterwards.” Malcolm Browne www.zocalopublicsquare.org/journalist-v...

Sir Ian McKellen performing a monologue from Shakespeare’s Sir Thomas More on the Stephen Colbert show. Never have I heard this monologue performed with such a keen sense of prescience. Nor have I ever been in this exact historical moment.TY Sir Ian, for reaching us once again. #Pinks #ProudBlue

The subject of my next book, journalist Wallace Terry, covered the civil rights movement for the "Washington Post," including Medgar Evers fight for equality in Mississippi as an NAACP official.

“Writing is a dreadful labor, yet not so dreadful as Idleness.” Thomas Carlyle

"I've always been a fact writer and I've always written about people. Those two elements come together better in a biography than in any other form." rayboomhower.blogspot.com/2022/12/the-...

"The great difficulty is to keep oneself in the right balance, not despondent, not exasperated; defiant, free and clear." Thomas Carlyle

Wallace Terry was one of the few Black reporters at the "Washington Post" in the early 1960s, where he covered the civil rights struggle and such events as the March on Washington & the Selma marches. He would be appalled at what has happened to a once-great national newspaper. A damn shame.

When John Bartlow Martin finished his rough draft of his biography of birthday boy Adlai E. Stevenson in 1970, it ran more than 16,000 pages and some 2.5 million words.

What was it like to work as a speechwriter for Adlai Stevenson’s 1952 presidential campaign? John Bartlow Martin found out by becoming part of the Elks Club Group. rayboomhower.blogspot.com/2020/10/writ...

“I told them I had come to help people suffering because of the war and that I wished all the soldiers, on all the sides, could go home.” OTD in 1968, a Quaker doctor from Kokomo was taken captive by Communist forces during the Tet Offensive rayboomhower.blogspot.com/2025/10/doct...

"In playing ball, and in life, a person occasionally gets the opportunity to do something great. When that time comes, only two things matter: being prepared to seize the moment and having the courage to take your best swing." Hank Aaron, born on this day in 1934

"Fanaticism? No. Writing is exciting and baseball is like writing. You can never tell with either how it will go or what you will do; generating excitement— a fever in the victim— pitcher, catcher, fielder, batter." Marianne Moore, who died on this day in 1972

"Biography is the most universally pleasant and profitable of all reading." Thomas Carlyle, who died on this day in 1881

"In America, anybody can be president. That's one of the risks you take." Adlai E. Stevenson, born on this day in 1900

“You’re taking a descent into hell when you enter war.” Wallace Terry #BlackHistoryMonth rayboomhower.blogspot.com/2024/05/wall...

“Bob and Gene were good boys. It’s a damn shame.” rayboomhower.blogspot.com/2025/12/rich...

"I have learned over the years that when one's mind is made up, this diminishes fear; knowing what must be done does away with fear." Rosa Parks, born on this day in 1913

"You have to put words on paper, a lot of them." MacKinlay Kantor, born on this day in 1904

Is the vice presidency worth it? Dan Quayle, born on this day in 1947, and the bad luck of Hoosier VPs. rayboomhower.blogspot.com/2019/02/dan-... …

"Where else can even a paperboy option the film rights to a book?" youtu.be/Izj2xo97D9k?...

"War is man's most terrible preoccupation. As a journalist, it was my greatest challenge to capture what needed to be remembered of how war tears at human flesh and human spirit." Wallace Terry #BlackHistoryMonth www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxSi...

“We dropped 100,000 propaganda leaflets on Kiska, but those dogs couldn’t read." War in the Ice and Fog: The Invasion of Kiska rayboomhower.blogspot.com/2019/08/war-...

“I know so many people who want to be writers. But let me tell you, they really don't want to be writers. They want to have been writers. They wish they had a book in print. They don't want to go through the work of getting the damn book out. There is a huge difference.” James A. Michener

For #BlackHistoryMonth, here's to Hoosier Charles “Buster” Hall of Brazil, Indiana, who became the first African American pilot, and Tuskegee Airman, to shoot down an enemy aircraft in World War II, blasting a German Focke-Wulf 190 out of the sky while escorting B-25 bombers in his P-40 fighter.

“We booed the colonel loud and long." rayboomhower.blogspot.com/2020/04/nobo...

Even before my Wallace Terry biography has been published, I've scheduled my first book talk. Launching the "tour" on Veterans Day, Nov. 11, from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. at the Eugene and Marilyn Glick Indiana History Center, 450 W. Ohio St., Indianapolis. More info to come.

An innocent bystander Somehow I got stuck between a rock and a hard place And I'm down on my luck www.youtube.com/watch?v=K4q_...

"We're all waitin' in the dugout Thinkin' we should pitch How you gonna throw a shutout If all you do is bitch?" Todd Snider still rules. youtu.be/9crqtiGHEUs?...