OldArmyCT said:
Sad story, sadly it happened all too often to Vietnam vets, not just POW's. On a happier note she died young of BC and he greatly outived her.
Sapper Redux said:OldArmyCT said:
Sad story, sadly it happened all too often to Vietnam vets, not just POW's. On a happier note she died young of BC and he greatly outived her.
Is that a happier note? Damn, man.
Quote:
Despite outward appearances, the reunion was an unhappy one for Stirm. Three days before he arrived in the United States, the same day he was released from captivity, Stirm received a Dear John letter from his wife Loretta informing him that their marriage was over. Stirm later learned that Loretta had been seeing other men throughout his captivity and had received marriage proposals from three of them. In 1974, the Stirms divorced and Loretta remarried, and he was ordered to provide her with 42.9% of his military pension once he retired from the Air Force, although the divorce judge stated that much evidence was presented to the court of Loretta's infidelity while Stirm was a prisoner. Stirm was later promoted to colonel, retired from the Air Force in 1977, and passed away on Veterans Day, 2025. Loretta died on August 13, 2010, from cancer.
After Burst of Joy was announced as the winner of the Pulitzer Prize, all of the family members depicted in the picture received copies. The depicted children display it prominently in their homes, but not Colonel Stirm, who in 2005 said he could not bring himself to display the picture.
