Senior Airman Chris Gross, left, and Senior Airman David Carbajal, right, display examples of the Sourdough Sentinel, Elmendorf's newspaper, throughout the past 67 years. Gross is a staff writer and Carbajal has served as the paper's editor. Photo by Nina Peacock

Occasional words, photographs, and phrases used in the Sourdough Sentinel of the 1940s wouldn't be politically correct by today's standards.

For example, issues frequently published pin-ups of the latest Hollywood starlets. One caption under a nearly naked model on a 1945 sports page read, "We really don't know what she has to do with sports, but (heh, heh) do we need a reason?"

In a 1943 edition, a phrase in the Sentinel's flag, "An Army Paper, for Army Men," was a reminder of the attitude of the all-male institution at that time.

In another example, prior to Easter Sunday the paper printed a verse from the Bible, an editorial decision that might seem too religious today.

And during World War II, the paper referred to Japanese people as simply "japs," an ethnic slur.

This content surprised Senior Airman David Carbajal when he spent weeks researching early Sentinel issues for a special section titled "Seven days in seven weeks."

But his research also gave him perspective.

"There was so much that had gone here. It's just amazing to know that so much history has gone into these papers," he said.

Carbajal's feature showcased a timeline of Sentinel history, highlighting major events the newspaper covered throughout its decades: the arrival of the first troops to Elmendorf Field on Aug. 9, 1940, an evacuation of the Elmendorf Air Force Base hospital after the 1964 Earthquake, President Richard Nixon meeting Japanese Emperor Hirohito on base on Oct. 1, 1971, and the 3rd Wing's 90th anniversary on July 1, 2009.

The feature ran in September and October prior to its last issues. After 67 years, the Sourdough Sentinel printed its last issue Dec. 18. Its closing makes way for a new Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson newspaper, The Arctic Warrior.

SOURDOUGH MEMORIES

Retired Master Sgt. Howard Ellis, editor of the Sentinel in 1956 and 1957, insisted that the latest staff of the Sourdough Sentinel is "doing now exactly what we did then," he said.

Military newspapers have always had a duty to publish "command messages," the information the installment commander wants personnel and their families to know.

The Army first published the Sentinel on Jan. 4, 1943. It became Elmendorf's newspaper in 1949. Since then, it has consistently published command messages and other stories of Air Force life.

A tall cabinet in the 3rd Wing Public Affairs office holds large, thick books of papers of years past. They vary in shape and size, because the newspaper's design changed with each new editor and with each decade's trends.

In the 1940s, the design of the paper's flag changed every few months. Earlier issues had more pages dedicated to sports. The paper of the 1980s had a magazine-like style: a smaller size and catchy black-and-white photograph dominating the cover.

The newspapers in the 1990s often published doubletruck color features. Sometimes the newspaper's design and coverage was innovating and award winning.

FROM LONG SHOT TO MILITARY MODEL

Ellis described how the Sentinel won a top prize in the first Air Force newspaper contest in 1956. He was told it was a long shot.

"When they announced the competition, they said 'send in your six best issues for the past year,' and my boss, Capt. James Leo O'Leary, he says to me, 'Well you know, you've been here six weeks. Just pick your first six issues, 'cause we're not going to win anyhow,' " Ellis said.

However, "We did and we won," Ellis continued. "It was a big deal in those days... and for us it was one heck of a surprise."

The paper had previously received honorable mentions from the Armed Forces Press Services, but this award named it the best newspaper among the Air Force's largest bases, a prestigious honor.

For Ellis, it meant a trip to Washington, D.C., where, at the Pentagon in February 1957, Air Force vice chief of staff Gen. Thomas White presented him with a winner's trophy plaque. He turned it over to the base commander, "and where it went I'll never know," he said, laughing. Over at the 3rd Wing public affairs office at Elmendorf, plaques from the Sentinel's recent past sit on a vacant desk. One is from 1998, when the Sentinel won first place among the Pacific Air Forces' newspapers.

Another is from 2000, when the Sentinel won the Thomas Jefferson Award, the highest honor given to a newspaper published under the Department of Defense.

Master Sgt. Jim Fisher was an editor on the paper at the time. He credited the win to his studies under his editor, George Woodward, who put effort into hunting down stories that addressed the local military community beyond the commander's messages. Fisher remembers visiting airmen in a downtown Anchorage prison when Elmendorf lost their confinement facility. He interviewed a couple of airmen who had been convicted on drug offenses.

"That stood out as a pretty unique experience," he said.

He remembered the story was powerfully received.

"Sitting back and thinking, 'this would be a good thing to do,' I was really inspired to think like that by George," Fisher said. "He was always pushing the envelope and saying, 'Why not?" "He dealt with content on a human level," Fisher said.

With its award-winning history, the Sentinel has served as a model for military newspapers.

Staff Sgt. Jeremy Larlee remembered learning about it at a public affairs conference in San Antonio.

"I clearly remember one class where they had the Sourdough there on the screen, and they were showing us how they were doing it, and how they templated was just ahead of where everyone else was at the time. It was eye opening," he said. "So to me, the name's always translated to being an excellent paper."

STEPPING OUTOF A STIGMA

The Arctic Warrior will assume the staffs of the Sentinel and Fort Richardson Army Post's Alaska Post, to be supervised by U.S. Army Garrison public affairs officer Bob Hall and edited by David Depoy, a former copy editor at the Orange County (Calif.) Register. Since the joint base was announced, Hall has worked out the details newspaper's transition.

On Dec. 7, with two more issues of the Alaska Post to publish, he was negotiating the Arctic Warrior's contract with the publisher and working out the details of the new paper's style guide. The Alaska Post was the newspaper of both Fort Richardson and Fort Wainwright Army Post, but in Jan. 2010 it will become the newspaper of only Fort Wainwright.

By Oct. 2010 when the joint base stands up, the Arctic Warrior's main office will be at Elmendorf, with a satellite office at Fort Richardson. The Arctic Warrior will be the same size as The Frontiersman in Mat-Su. That will make it noticeably larger than the Post and Sentinel's current format. Hall thought of the new newspaper's name, and pitched it the 3rd Wing and Fort Richardson commanders.

"The Army considers themselves Arctic Warriors, but so does the Air Force," he said. "We wanted to step out of the whole stigma of being an Air Force newspaper or an Army newspaper.... It's the community paper for the joint installation, and that's what we want to get out."

The JBER public affairs office also will make considerations for a changing newspaper industry.

The 3rd Wing uses the Internet as one of its tools for communicating with the airmen and their families. Elmendorf's Web site is updated daily by the staff of the public affairs office. They also maintain a Twitter profile.

"With news so worldwide, we're able to get news much quicker, and we're able to use it a lot easier," Carbajal said.

Ellis considered himself lucky to work on the paper when he did. His 20-year career in military newspapers gave him a career in civilian life for another 25, at The Daily Sun-Telegram in California.

"I tell you the truth, it was fascinating," he said.

This article published in The Alaska Star on Thursday, December 24, 2009.