Robert Stirm, Air Force lieutenant colonel in iconic Vietnam War photo “Burst of Joy,” dies at 92

Air Force Lt. Col. Robert Stirm, the man captured in the iconic “Burst of Joy” photo at Travis Air Force Base in Northern California, has died at the age of 92, his family said.   

Stirm passed away on the morning of Veterans Day.

He was a prisoner of war in Vietnam for five years. When he was freed and arrived home at Travis Air Force Base in 1973, an iconic photo captured his daughter running toward her father. 

Five decades later, in April, Stirm’s daughter, Lorrie Kitching, spoke with CBS Sacramento to reflect on that moment. Kitching, with her arms outstretched in the photo as she runs toward her father, was 15 years old at the time.  

“It is just a glorious moment of time of my dad coming home to his family,” Kitching said. 

Kitching saved letters her father wrote from the prison camp. 

“I’m so proud of my teenage girl,” one of the letters said.

One of Stirm’s prison mates was the late Sen. John McCain, who was shot down a day before he was. 

The “Burst of Joy” was taken by Associated Press photographer Slava Veder and won the 1974 Pulitzer Prize for Feature Photography.