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Almost home

Kent Potter was just 23 when he and three other photojournalists were killed as their helicopter was shot down over Laos (pictured at top before takeoff, with Potter standing at right). Now, 37 years later, the human remains that were discovered at the crash site are coming to a final resting spot, some 150 miles to the south of here.

    by Will Bunch | Columnist
    Published 

Last year, I wrote a story for the Daily News about the life and death of a legendary Philadelphia photojournalist, Kent Potter of UPI:

"He wanted nothing to do with anything besides getting where the action was," recalled an old friend, Rusty Kennedy, a Philly-based photojournalist for the rival Associated Press. "He was an amazingly talented photographer, and he wanted to be in Vietnam, because that's where the action was."

That desire cost him his life -- Potter was just 23 when he and three other photojournalists were killed as their helicopter was shot down over Laos (pictured at top before takeoff, with Potter standing at right). Now, 37 years later, the human remains that were discovered at the crash site are coming to a final resting spot, some 150 miles to the south of here:

Only scant traces of human remains were found, but a sealed capsule containing those remains is finally about to be interred in a place of honor.
On Thursday, family members, diplomats from five countries and aging veterans of the wartime Saigon press corps will dedicate the capsule at the Newseum, a $439 million Washington, D.C., museum devoted to the history and practice of journalism.
The unusual burial comes a day before the formal dedication of the Newseum's Journalists Memorial gallery, a special showcase of sacrifice in the glass-walled edifice near the U.S. Capitol.

Nearly two generations after Potter died, it's become popular in some quarters to trash the heirs to Potter's legacy, people who risk everything to perform a job that's in service of democracy -- using the best tool for the truth that we've got, a camera. While I have mixed feelings overall about the $439 million Newseum (I'll save those for another day), I have nothing but praise for what it's doing to finally honor those who died exercising their right of free speech, including Philly's own Kent Potter.