April 02, 2004
John Sack
John Sack's first article for Esquire Magazine ran for 33,000 words. It appeared behind an all-black cover bearing the inscription: "Oh My God - We Hit a Little Girl." The story, which followed an infantry company from training at Fort Dix, N.J., to its first battle in Vietnam, remains the longest article the magazine has ever published.
At the time, Sack's writing style was considered New Journalism for it adopted a narrative approach that told the story through the eyes and thoughts of its participants. The infantry company's story was retold by Sack in "M," a book that was nominated by the NYU Department of Journalism as one of the top journalistic works of the 20th century.
Sack was only 15 years old when he launched his journalism career as a stringer for the Mamaroneck Daily Times at the Boy Scouts of America's Camp Siwanoy in New York. He graduated with a bachelor's degree in English from Harvard University in 1951 and volunteered for Army service in Korea. During his enlisted years, he wrote dispatches for the Army newspaper, Pacific Stars and Stripes, and freelanced for both United Press and Harper's.
When he returned to America, Sack started writing humor for The New Yorker. Over the next eight years, he penned more satire for the magazine than anyone except S.J. Perelman and James Thurber. In the 1960s, he worked as a writer, producer and special correspondent for CBS News, served as the CBS bureau chief in Madrid and attended graduate school at Columbia University.
Sack contributed articles to Esquire for 45 years, and covered wars in Iraq, Yugoslavia and Afghanistan. His series of interviews with Lt. William H. Calley Jr., who was convicted of massacring Vietnamese civilians in My Lai, culminated in a legal battle over shield laws and journalistic privilege. Sack was arrested and indicted on federal felony charges for refusing to testify against Calley and for refusing to surrender his notes and tapes to prosecutors. The case was eventually dropped.
Sack was the only journalist to cover every American war for the past 50 years. He also wrote 10 books, including the controversial title, "An Eye for an Eye." The nonfiction book caused an uproar because Sack reported that at the end of World War II, thousands of Jewish Holocaust survivors ran more than 1,200 concentration camps, where they tortured and killed German civilians, including women and children.
Sack died on March 27 of complications from bone marrow cancer. He was 74.
Posted at April 2, 2004 04:37 AMJohn was a first cousin once-removed. I don't believe that it is well known that during his stay with CBS he, as a writer, accompanied an American tour group in Europe to note the details for a possible CBS special.
He told me afterwards, that during that bus ride, he overheard a couple in front of him speaking. Essentially: He: "Where are we?" She: "Well, it's Tuesday, so it must be Belgium."
That became the title of the piece that later aired and became a movie.
John got no credit since he was merely doing his job.
My parents are Germans from the East. In the US, the tragedy that happened to innocent individuals of German ethnicity is little known. John smote a powerful blow for truth. I bought many copies of "An Eye" and distributed them among friends.
May his soul rest in the peace well earned by the just.