Photojournalist Sal Veder, best known for his Pulitzer-Prize winning photo "Burst of Joy," depicting a U.S. Air Force lieutenant colonel reuniting with his family after spending five years in a prisoner of war camp in Vietnam, died at the age of 99 on Saturday.
According to the Associated Press, his family confirmed he died in his sleep at his home in El Dorado County, Calif., just over a week before he'd have turned 100.
In a 2015 interview with The Guardian, Veder said he was waiting with dozens of other photographers in a bullpen at Travis Air Force Base in Fairfield, California, competing for shots of other returning POWS and their loved ones, when he sensed movement off to one side. "This family came out of nowhere, got out of their car and dashed for the soldier, who'd been a POW for five years," he said in the interview.
"I saw them out of the corner of my eye, turned and started shooting. You could tell, even at a distance, what they were feeling. It was all over them, their faces, the way they all broke into a run. There was a surge of emotion from the crowd, too. But the PoW, Robert L. Stirm, appeared stoic. He's very formal, very uptight, walking in a downbeat manner." It was only later, Veder said, that he learned that the serviceman, Lt. Col. Robert L. Stirm, had received a note from his wife ending their marriage just a few days before his release.
Throughout Veder's three-decade career at the AP, where he worked from 1961 until he retired in 1993, he photographed several consequential political moments and figures, including Dianne Feinstein, when she was elected mayor of San Francisco after the assassination of Mayor George Moscone; political activist Angela Davis, when she was on trial for conspiracy for murder; newspaper heiress Patty Hearst, after she was arrested for bank robbery; and members of the Black Panther Party.
