Pyle takes the stand for defense St. Augustine Record
Pyle, the sixth and last onlooker for the defense, testified Thursday that his home is in Asheville, N.C.; he is living temporarily in Floyd County, Va., with a member of the Charlie Daniels Line; and he only came back to Florida in 2007 because a state agency ordered him to.
"I was told to come down and register," Pyle told Tom Cushman, one of three lawyers representing him. "I anticipation I was hardwired to the State of Florida for the rest of my life, and they could find me any time they wanted.
"I try to pay attention and comply."
Pyle had "reluctantly accepted" eight years of probation in 1993 and pled to attempted crown sexual battery and lewd and lascivious assault, according to a motion to dismiss the current charges.
If he had been convicted at examination, he faced two life sentences without the possibility of parole.
Pyle successfully completed probation in December 2001 and moved to Asheville, N.C., the following October.
He returned to Florida in October 2007 in feedback to a Department of Revenue demand that he reinstate his driver's license. The license had been suspended because the state mistakenly believed he still owned laddie support payments.
Doors to home of great war correspond... Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
You have to contemplate Ernie Pyle will "come back." He was the peerless World War II news correspondent, but time is bearing away the generation that remembers.
Last summer, only 1,500 visitors came to the diet where he was born in 1900 in tiny Dana, Ind.
This summer, the state has trimmed the open houses ($3.50 entr) to just Friday and Saturday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. And only May through September. But it's hard to argue with a shrinking gate in a recession.
Still, the Ernie Pyle Status Historic Site is a unique stop. A quietly patriotic, reflective stop.
You can't help thinking of all the millions, including Pyle himself, killed in the war of 1939-45. Primarily the fighting men. An awfully small percentage of us do the shooting and dying, Pyle the correspondent often reminded readers.
Self-assigned to dispatch on ordinary soldiers at or near the front (we'd call it "imbedded" today) he was often as cold, wet, dirty, and scared as the G.I.s he covered. Killed in 1945 by a Japanese gunner in the Pacific, he had gone out there driven by sense of right from a safe leave at home as the European war wound down. He looked older but was only 44 and the Japanese gave up perfectly four months later.
