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Remembering Sal Veder
27 August 2026
Pulitzer Prize winning photographer Slava 'Sal' Veder, who took the photo of a U.S. Air Force lieutenant colonel joyfully reuniting with his family after five years in a prisoner of war camp in Vietnam, died Aug. 22. He was 99.
He was born in Berkeley to Ivan and Anka Veder, who had left Russia and taken the names John and Ann when they settled in the U.S. He was their only child.
His career began as a sports writer and news editor at several publications. But in 1961, he was hired as a staff photographer by The Associated Press at its Sacramento bureau. Later, he transferred to the San Francisco office, which is where he was based when he took the prize-winning photograph.
He had been to Vietnam to cover the war twice. But that day he found himself in the women's restroom. He told the story to Ben Beaumont-Thomas in a Guardian interview in 2015:
That day, we were working out of a ladies' restroom, though I'd drawn the straw for taking shots in the afternoon. There was a reception area where planes taxied to. The PoWs got out and met their families. The photographers were kept in a grandstand, basically a big pen. We were not allowed to roam around. There was a lot of competition, maybe 40 photographers.
This family came out of nowhere, got out of their car and dashed for the soldier, who'd been a POW for five years. I saw them out of the corner of my eye, turned and started shooting. You could tell, even at a distance, what they were feeling. It was all over them, their faces, the way they all broke into a run. There was a surge of emotion from the crowd, too.
But the POW, Robert L Stirm, appeared stoic. He's very formal, very uptight, walking in a downbeat manner. We found out six months later that his wife had ended their marriage by letter just a few days before. I wasn't privy to the reason. His reaction was definitely different, though at the time there was no indication why.
I was jostling with a photographer from the San Francisco Examiner, who took a very similar shot. The difference between them may have been minimal, but it was enough for me to win the Pulitzer Prize. I ascribe it to pure fortune.
I was surprised when it won -- I didn't even know AP had submitted it on my behalf. I'm not the type of guy who enters contests. And I didn't dwell on it afterwards. It was back to normal, covering whatever I was told to do.
Among his assignments, Veder photographed Ronald Reagan when he was California governor, university campus protests against the war in Vietnam, the bank robbery trial of Patty Hearst and the assassinations of San Francisco Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk by former city supervisor Dan White in 1978.
Veder retired from AP in 1993.
Eric Risberg, a retired AP photographer who worked in San Francisco, said Veder was a great mentor and teacher.
"He really, really emphasized the marriage between pictures and words. He encouraged me to dive deeper, and get more into what's really the story?" Risberg said.