Wednesday, August 24, 2005

Stars and Stripes



When I was in the Army, this was my main print link to the outside world and. no, I was not in the Civil War!

Stars and Stripes got its start in the Civil War as a one-page newspaper produced for Union troops by four soldiers who used a captured newspaper plant in Bloomfield, Missouri. The paper resumed publication in Paris in 1918, during World War I, as a weekly paper put out by an all military staff, but it ceased publication at the end of the war.

Stars and Stripes assumed its current identity when it was once again reborn during World War II, in London, England. The paper has been published continuously since 1942 in Europe and 1945 in the Pacific. Stripes reporters — at one time all military, but now both civilian and military — have been in the field with American soldiers, sailors and airmen in World War I, World War II, Korea, the Cold War, Vietnam, the Gulf War, Somalia, Bosnia and Kosovo, and are now in the Middle East. Altogether, Stars and Stripes has news bureaus in over 22 different locations serving over 48 countries around the world.

As the hometown newspaper for service members, government civilians and their families, Stars and Stripes strives to keep readers informed about issues in their host countries, local communities, and commands. Stars and Stripes’ European and Pacific editorial operations were consolidated in 1999; Washington, D.C. now hosts the paper’s central offices. There, five different editions are designed and produced daily and then electronically transmitted — via internet or satellite — to printing facilities in Germany, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Kuwait, Iraq, Qatar, Bahrain and Afghanistan.



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