Vietnam POW captured in 'Burst of Joy' photo with family

It's the ultimate home coming photo — a smiling family rushing to reunite with a U.S. Air Force officer who spent years as a POW in North Vietnam, his oldest daughter sprinting ahead with her arms outstretched, both feet off the ground.

- BY KATHY MCCORMACK

"Burst of Joy," the iconic black-and-white image capturing the Stirm family at Travis Air Force Base in California in 1973, 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, Calif., 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.