Editing Ernie Pyle (section)

==Legacy==
[[File:Ernie Pyle gravesite.jpg|thumbnail|right|Pyle's headstone at Memorial Cemetery in Honolulu]]
Pyle is described as "the pre-eminent war correspondent of his era,"<ref name=McMurray/> who achieved worldwide fame and readership for his World War II battlefield reports that were published from 1942 to 1945.<ref name=BoomhowerTraces30-31/> Present-day war correspondents, World War II veterans, and historians still recognize Pyle's World War II dispatches as "the standard to which every other war correspondent should strive to emulate."<ref>Brockman, page 44.</ref> As ''[[Life (magazine)|Life]]'' magazine once described Pyle and his work: "He now occupies a place in American journalistic letters which no other correspondent of this war has achieved. His smooth, friendly prose succeeded in bridging a gap between soldier and civilian where written words usually fail."<ref name=JohnsonHays47/>

Pyle is best remembered for his World War II newspaper reports of the firsthand experiences of ordinary Americans, especially the G.I.s serving in the U.S. Armed Forces in Europe in particular.<ref>{{cite book | author=James H. Madison | title = Hoosiers: A New History of Indiana| publisher =Indiana University Press and the Indiana Historical Society Press | year =2014 | location =Bloomington and Indianapolis | page =266 | isbn =978-0-253-01308-8}}</ref> His legacy also lies in the stories of soldiers who would otherwise be unknown. "The Death of Captain Waskow," published in January 1944, is considered Pyle's most famous column.<ref name=McMurray/> In describing the soldiers he had met, Pyle remarked:<blockquote>Their life consisted wholly and solely of war, for they were and always had been front-line infantrymen. They survived because the fates were kind to them, certainly – but also because they had become hard and immensely wise in animal-like ways of self-preservation.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/anzioitalybattle00clar|url-access=registration|title=Anzio : Italy and the battle for Rome, 1944|last=Clark|first=Lloyd|date=2006|publisher=Atlantic Monthly Press|page=[https://archive.org/details/anzioitalybattle00clar/page/39 39]|others=Internet Archive|isbn=9780871139467}}</ref></blockquote>

In addition to his writing, Pyle's legacy includes the Ernie Pyle bill, whose content he proposed in one of his columns in early 1944. Congress passed formal legislation in May 1944 to provide American soldiers with a 50 percent increase in pay for their combat service.<ref name=BoomhowerTraces30-31/> The U.S. Army also adopted Pyle's suggestion of providing [[Overseas Service Bar|overseas service bars]] on uniforms to designate six months of overseas service.<ref name=JohnsonHays52>Johnson and Hays, page 52.</ref>

Pyle's papers and other archival materials related to his life and work are held at the [[Lilly Library]], [[Indiana University Bloomington]]; the Ernie Pyle World War II Museum, Dana, Indiana;<ref>Boomhower, ''The Soldier's Friend'', page 121.</ref> the Indiana State Museum; and the Wisconsin State Historical Society.{{citation needed|date=January 2019}} The [[Indiana Historical Society]] acquired Ernie and Jerry Pyle's personal library from IU Bloomington's School of Journalism in 2005 and moved the collection to its headquarters in Indianapolis.<ref>{{cite journal| title =News from Other Places: Ernie Pyle's Library Moved to Indy | journal =Monroe County Historian | volume =2005 | issue =2 | publisher =Monroe County Historical Society, Inc. | location =Bloomington, Indiana | date =April 2005| url = https://monroehistory.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/vol2005issue2.pdf| access-date =January 16, 2019}}</ref>