That otherwise well-written and informative article on WWII Forest Park B-17 pilot/POW Dugald Leitch [Forest Parker’s WWII story surfaces, News, May 11], still carries a couple of flak holes, even after 72 years.
Like who wrote this unsigned piece? An italicized clue at the end was truncated and left hanging, and so was I, and (possibly) you and your readers.
The story was local enough, linking a 1944 air hero from the 1500 block of Elgin Ave., and modern enough by way of drones that do kill innocents. Nice, neat and up-to-date. Ah, the results of today’s touched button.
Oh, the local powers of the pen and press. Oh my, when those powers are unused or underused. Or misused.
Do I run on? Very well, I run on. Expression is a need and we all need to be heard, to understand, and be understood. Now and much more than in 1944. Now more than ever, we all need to think at a renewed level.
Start anywhere. At mid-page flip, I was stopped by Walt Whitman. When’s the last time you read the bewhiskered universalist?
Never mind.
He once wrote, “Do I repeat myself?” And replied, “Very well, I repeat myself.” He once gave birth to his own new word — “Yawp.”
Saying both may be better than saying nothing at all; neither said may be ill-put.
Bob Sullivan
Forest Park
Editor’s note: We did indeed do the writer of that fine piece, John Rice, an injustice. And we left off the last portion of the story, adding injury to insult. Here is what it should have said:
“This story came about thanks to an inquiry by Robert Johnson’s son-in-law, Allen Odstdiek. He asked this reporter to find the 10 members of his father-in-law’s B-17 crew. We found every one. Nine were gone, but one remains very much alive.”
Thanks to Bob Sullivan for enabling us to give credit where it is due. The Forest Park Review regrets the omissions.
