Rick Atkinson

Rick Atkinson (born 1952, in Munich) is an American journalist and author whose contributions led to four Pulitzer Prizes.

Atkinson was born in Munich. His father was an United States Army officer and he grew up at military posts.

He earned his bachelor degree from East Carolina University in 1974 and a master of art degree from the University of Chicago in 1976. His first reporting job was at the "The Morning Sun" in Pittsburg, Kansas

He started working at the "Kansas City Times" in 1977. He won the 1982 Pulitzer Prize for national reporting for articles including a series on the West Point Class of 1966. He also contributed [Most articles do not include the Hyatt Pulitzer in Atkinson's list although it was awarded to the entire newsroom.] to the "Times" overall effort which won it another Pulitzer Prize the same year for the coverage of the Hyatt Regency walkway collapse.

In 1983 he worked for "The Washington Post" where he covered The Pentagon and the 1984 Presidential election and was national editor for two years. He went on book leave in 1988 to finish The "Long Gray Line", which he had begun reporting on in Kansas City.

He returned to the "Post" in 1989 and was the paper's lead reporter in the 1991 Gulf War. He went on leave again to finish a book about the war "Crusade: The Untold Story of the Persian Gulf War".

In 1993 he returned to the "Post" as its Berlin bureau covering conflicts in Bosnia and Somalia. The "Post" won the 1999 Pulitzer Prize for public service for a series conceived by Atkinson on shootings by the District of Columbia police department.

He personally won the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for history for his book "An Army at Dawn: The War in North Africa, 1942-1943".

Atkinson served as the Omar N. Bradley Chair of Strategic Leadership [http://www.carlisle.army.mil/usawc/dclm/bradleychair.htm] at the US Army War College and Dickinson College in 2004 and 2005.

Atkinson's book "In the Company of Soldiers: A Chronicle of Combat" is about the Iraq War where he was embedded with the 101st Airborne Division for two months and had extensive contact with David Petraeus.

Bibliography

*cite book | year = 1989 | title = The Long Gray Line | publisher = Houghton Mifflin | location = Boston | id = ISBN 0-395-48008-6
*cite book | year = 1993 | title = Crusade: The Untold Story of the Persian Gulf War | publisher = Houghton Mifflin | location = Boston | id = ISBN 0-395-60290-4
*cite book | year = 2002 | title = An Army at Dawn: The War in North Africa, 1942-1943 | publisher = Henry Holt | location = New York | id = ISBN 0-8050-6288-2
*cite book | year = 2004 | title = In the Company of Soldiers: A Chronicle of Combat | publisher = Henry Holt | location = New York | id = ISBN 0-8050-7561-5
*cite book | year = 2007 | title = The Day of Battle: The War in Sicily and Italy, 1943-1944 | publisher = Henry Holt | location = New York | id = ISBN 0-8050-6289-0

Notes and references

External links

* [http://www.anarmyatdawn.com/ Publisher's website for "An Army at Dawn"]
* [http://www.pulitzer.org/year/2003/history/bio/ Pulitzer Biography in 2003]
* [http://www.duskbeforethedawn.net/category/history-and-ancient-civilizations/rick-atkinson/ Reviews of An Army At Dawn and The Day of Battle (Advanced Readers Copy)]
* [http://www.pritzkermilitarylibrary.org/events/2004-03-17-rickAtkison.jsp Interview] on "In the Company of Soldiers" at the Pritzker Military Library
* [http://www.pritzkermilitarylibrary.org/events/2007-10-18-RickAtkinson.jsp Interview] on "The Day of Battle" at the Pritzker Military Library