On March 17, 1973, Associated Press photographer Slava
“Sal” Veder captured a heartwarming scene on the tarmac
of California’sTravis Air Force Base as a recently freed
American prisoner of war runs toward his family.
The jubilation of the moment is encapsulated in the central
image of his teenaged daughter, whose wide smile and
outstretched arms express her unbridled exuberance over
her father’s return from Vietnam.
The photo depicting Lt. Col. Robert L. Stirm and his family,
called “Burst of Joy,” goes on to win a Pulitzer Prize in 1974.
Stirm was among 20 POWs from prison camps in North
Vietnam aboard the plane that landed at Travis AFB,
where a large crowd of family members turned up to
welcome their loved ones home.
Stirm, an Air Force fighter pilot shot down over Hanoi in
1967, had spent more than five years as a prisoner of the
Vietnam War.
“Burst of Joy” has appeared in numerous books and
exhibits and symbolizes for many the end of the divisive
Vietnam War—which claimed some 58,000 American lives
and the dawn of new life after a dark period.
Lt. Col. Robert L. Stirm
Stirm retired from the United States Air
Force as a Colonel and lives in California.
Slava "Sal" Veder
