Posted on 11/20/2025 1:47:58 PM PST by E. Pluribus Unum
It’s the ultimate homecoming photo — a smiling family rushing to reunite with a U.S. Air Force officer in 1973 who spent years as a POW in North Vietnam, his oldest daughter sprinting ahead with her arms outstretched, both feet off the ground.
“Burst of Joy,” the iconic black-and-white image capturing the Stirm family at Travis Air Force Base in California, was published in newspapers throughout the nation. Taken by Associated Press photographer Sal Veder, it won a Pulitzer Prize and has continued to resonate through the years, a symbol of the end of U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War.
On Veterans Day, retired Col. Robert Stirm, seen in the photo in uniform with his back to the camera, died at an assisted living facility in Fairfield, California, his daughter, Lorrie Stirm Kitching, confirmed Thursday. He was 92.
“It’s right in my front foyer,” Kitching, 68, of Mountain View, said of the photo. She was 15 when that moment of her running to hug her father was forever preserved.
“Just the feelings of that and the intensity of the feeling will never leave me,” Kitching told the AP in an interview. “It is so deep in my heart, and the joy and the relief that we had our dad back again. It was just truly a very moving reunion for our family, and that feeling has never left me. It’s the same feeling every time I see that picture.
“And every day, how grateful I am that my father was one of the lucky ones and returned home,” she added. “That was really a gift.”
Stirm was shot down over North Vietnam
Stirm, a decorated pilot, was serving with the 333rd Tactical Fighter Squadron at Takhli Royal Thai Air Force in Thailand in 1967. During a bombing...
(Excerpt) Read more at apnews.com ...
Thank you for your service and your sacrifice, Col. Stirm. Godspeed.
great picture. keyboard getting fuzzy.
Vietnam was my Dad’s last war.
😥😥😥
Rest In Peace and thank you for your service, Robert.
In the fall of 1967, I recall reading a news article about a US bomber being shot down over North Vietnam. it was quite likely this one.
Great picture. Thanks for posting.
He had a tough homecoming.
“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.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burst_of_Joy
“Loretta died on August 13, 2010, from cancer”
She deserved nothing from him.
I understand his wife divorced him soon after that picture was taken.
Thank you, President Nixon, for bringing them home.
I believe that two oldest children chose to go with their father. But the judge gave custody of the two youngest to her.
There might be something out there more low down than doing what she did… but I sure cannot imagine what it would be.
Great photo! RIP from a grateful nation.
By the way, he came home in March, and his wife filed for divorce in May.
2 things:
1) The government milked the emotional drama by making the returning prisoners wait and be announced before these photo-op reunions could proceed. These were not diplomas being handed out.
2) I count 4 very happy kids. Nothing but joy here. Do not judge the mother. We know not what she went through.
It astounds me that a Vietnam War veteran was 92 years old!
I can remember when World War II veterans were in their 50’s and 60’s.
Rest in peace, Col. Stirm.
Great photo.
War is Hell
So why did she get over 42% of his pension? Explains why she is in the back of the photo and his 2 daughters are in front.
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