William Manchester Won The Pulitzer Prize For His ...

William Manchester won the Pulitzer Prize for his biography of JFK. He was a sergeant in the Marine Corps in World War II. He suffered a light wound on Okinawa and was evacuated to a field hospital. He learned that his unit was scheduled to make an amphibious assault behind Japanese lines. He went AWOL from the hospital to rejoin his unit and was terribly wounded in the ensuing battle.

Manchester later wrote that he couldn’t explain why he left the honorable safety of the field hospital to place himself again in battle, except that it was LOVE. He couldn’t bear the thought of his buddies in mortal danger without him there to help.