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About Chip JonesPULITZER-NOMINATED JOURNALIST & AUTHOR
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I’ve spent much of my life as a newspaper reporter or magazine editor, including work at the Richmond Times-Dispatch, the Roanoke Times, Virginia Business magazine, and others. Along the way, I published three books of military history, starting with Boys of ’67: From Vietnam to Iraq, the Extraordinary Story of a Few Good Men, which was five years in the making.
As a reporter for The Roanoke Times, I was part of a great team of journalists covering the contentious strike of the United Mine Workers of America in 1989 against Pittston Coal. The miners went on strike after the company cut off pensions and benefits owed to retirees and surviving spouses. I was honored to be part of a great team named as a 1990 Pulitzer Prize finalist in General News.
For five years in the 1990s, I covered America’s tobacco industry from the belly of the beast – Richmond, Virginia – home of America’s largest cigarette manufacturing plant. My coverage was recognized by the Associated Press, CBS News, NPR, The New York Times, The Washington Post and Newsday. Working with Peter Hardin, my Times-Dispatch colleague in Washington, our in-depth reporting on Philip Morris USA’s top-secret nicotine research program led to a number of national and state journalism awards.
In 1999, I began work on what would become the first of three books about the branch of the military in which my father had served, and where I grew up: The United States Marine Corps. Boys of ’67 tells the stories of courage and loss of a group of young Marine officers in Vietnam. It profiles three men starting with my esteemed first cousin, Gen. James L. Jones, 32nd Commandant of the Marine Corps. Shortly after my father, Lt. General William K. Jones died in 1998, Jim and I discussed our family’s nearly half century of service to the Corps. This included my brother, Bill, a lieutenant colonel who served in Vietnam and received the Bronze Star medal; Jim’s father, James Jones, a colonel in the Marine reserves who – like my father – was a hero of World War Two; my other first cousin, John, a Marine officer; and my brother-in-law, Dr. Donald W. Hatton, who served as a Navy doctor.
I started with Jim’s graduation from the Marine Corps’ Basic School for new officers in 1967 (hence the title). But I soon broadened the cast of core characters to include two of his outstanding classmates, Ray Smith and Marty Steele. Boys of ’67: From Vietnam to Iraq, the Extraordinary Story of a Few Good Men won the 2006 Gold Medal for Biography from the Military Writers Society of America. It also was cited – along with two subsequent books – in the body of work that led to my 2011 Distinguished Service Award from the U.S. Marine Corps Combat Correspondents Association. Those other two books were Red, White or Yellow? The Media & The Military at War in Iraq and War Shots: Norm Hatch and the U.S. Marine Corps Combat Cameramen of World War II. War Shots was named the best biography of 2012 by the Marine Heritage Foundation.
After writing this military trilogy, I waited for the idea for my next book. It happened several years ago while I was working as communications director of the Richmond Academy of Medicine, Virginia’s largest and oldest medical society. While there, I heard about a pair of famous surgeons who made headlines in 1968 by performing the first heart transplant in Virginia. Dr. Richard Lower and Dr. David Hume already were legendary figures at the Medical College of Virginia. Their signature operation occurred about six months after one of their former guest scholars – Dr. Christiaan Barnard – made even larger news when he performed the world’s first successful human heart transplant in South Africa.
As I learned more about the Richmond operation, I was amazed to learn that one of Virginia’s most legendary figures – former Governor L. Douglas Wilder – played a key role in the unfolding drama. The family of the so-called “donor” in the case – a factory worker named Bruce Tucker – had retained Wilder to represent them in a civil suit brought against the doctors and the hospital.
It would take four years for their wrongful death lawsuit to come to trial – a case that would lead to one of the nation’s first laws that allowed doctors to diagnose “brain death” in patients. When I interviewed Governor Wilder in early 2017, he said it was the first time he’d discussed the case in public for more than 45 years. His insights helped me understand some of the pain and grief felt by the family of Bruce Tucker. As I dug into the story, I traveled back in time to the roots of MCV in the 1830s. The more I learned about the past, the better I understood the historical context of the hospital of the 1960s. This included the plundering of the graves of deceased enslaved African Americans to supply bodies for anatomy classes, a gruesome practice that continued in Richmond until the dawn of the 20th century.
By 1968, MCV had only recently integrated its hospital wards. Given the local tensions between the black community and the white-dominated government and police, this was not a good time for a black man like Bruce Tucker to be rushed into an emergency room with a severe head injury. As I continued my research, I tried to see things from the point of view of Mr. Tucker and his family. To this day, they have never received an official apology for the taking of his heart without his approval or that of his family.
It’s good that today’s medical school students are hearing about the Tucker case, alongside other examples of “historical trauma” caused by America’s health care system. While each reader can draw their own conclusions from The Organ Thieves, it is my sincere hope that the case of Bruce Tucker will encourage new conversations about the vital importance of ethical practices that respect the dignity of patients and families alike. As America confronts similar life-and-death decisions during the Covid-19 crisis, this seems as relevant today as it was back in the 1960s.
As a 1974 graduate of the University of Kansas with a degree in English, and a 1989 graduate of the creative writing program at Hollins University near Roanoke, Va., I try to merge good storytelling with in-depth journalism. I live near Richmond with my wife of 45 years, Deborah White Jones, a talented singer-songwriter and a former English as Second Language and Special Education teacher. I have three grown children – Lauren, Mary and Chief – who are working around the world to make it a better place. My own world became much better recently with the birth of our first grandchild.
As a reporter for The Roanoke Times, I was part of a great team of journalists covering the contentious strike of the United Mine Workers of America in 1989 against Pittston Coal. The miners went on strike after the company cut off pensions and benefits owed to retirees and surviving spouses. I was honored to be part of a great team named as a 1990 Pulitzer Prize finalist in General News.
For five years in the 1990s, I covered America’s tobacco industry from the belly of the beast – Richmond, Virginia – home of America’s largest cigarette manufacturing plant. My coverage was recognized by the Associated Press, CBS News, NPR, The New York Times, The Washington Post and Newsday. Working with Peter Hardin, my Times-Dispatch colleague in Washington, our in-depth reporting on Philip Morris USA’s top-secret nicotine research program led to a number of national and state journalism awards.
In 1999, I began work on what would become the first of three books about the branch of the military in which my father had served, and where I grew up: The United States Marine Corps. Boys of ’67 tells the stories of courage and loss of a group of young Marine officers in Vietnam. It profiles three men starting with my esteemed first cousin, Gen. James L. Jones, 32nd Commandant of the Marine Corps. Shortly after my father, Lt. General William K. Jones died in 1998, Jim and I discussed our family’s nearly half century of service to the Corps. This included my brother, Bill, a lieutenant colonel who served in Vietnam and received the Bronze Star medal; Jim’s father, James Jones, a colonel in the Marine reserves who – like my father – was a hero of World War Two; my other first cousin, John, a Marine officer; and my brother-in-law, Dr. Donald W. Hatton, who served as a Navy doctor.
I started with Jim’s graduation from the Marine Corps’ Basic School for new officers in 1967 (hence the title). But I soon broadened the cast of core characters to include two of his outstanding classmates, Ray Smith and Marty Steele. Boys of ’67: From Vietnam to Iraq, the Extraordinary Story of a Few Good Men won the 2006 Gold Medal for Biography from the Military Writers Society of America. It also was cited – along with two subsequent books – in the body of work that led to my 2011 Distinguished Service Award from the U.S. Marine Corps Combat Correspondents Association. Those other two books were Red, White or Yellow? The Media & The Military at War in Iraq and War Shots: Norm Hatch and the U.S. Marine Corps Combat Cameramen of World War II. War Shots was named the best biography of 2012 by the Marine Heritage Foundation.
After writing this military trilogy, I waited for the idea for my next book. It happened several years ago while I was working as communications director of the Richmond Academy of Medicine, Virginia’s largest and oldest medical society. While there, I heard about a pair of famous surgeons who made headlines in 1968 by performing the first heart transplant in Virginia. Dr. Richard Lower and Dr. David Hume already were legendary figures at the Medical College of Virginia. Their signature operation occurred about six months after one of their former guest scholars – Dr. Christiaan Barnard – made even larger news when he performed the world’s first successful human heart transplant in South Africa.
As I learned more about the Richmond operation, I was amazed to learn that one of Virginia’s most legendary figures – former Governor L. Douglas Wilder – played a key role in the unfolding drama. The family of the so-called “donor” in the case – a factory worker named Bruce Tucker – had retained Wilder to represent them in a civil suit brought against the doctors and the hospital.
It would take four years for their wrongful death lawsuit to come to trial – a case that would lead to one of the nation’s first laws that allowed doctors to diagnose “brain death” in patients. When I interviewed Governor Wilder in early 2017, he said it was the first time he’d discussed the case in public for more than 45 years. His insights helped me understand some of the pain and grief felt by the family of Bruce Tucker. As I dug into the story, I traveled back in time to the roots of MCV in the 1830s. The more I learned about the past, the better I understood the historical context of the hospital of the 1960s. This included the plundering of the graves of deceased enslaved African Americans to supply bodies for anatomy classes, a gruesome practice that continued in Richmond until the dawn of the 20th century.
By 1968, MCV had only recently integrated its hospital wards. Given the local tensions between the black community and the white-dominated government and police, this was not a good time for a black man like Bruce Tucker to be rushed into an emergency room with a severe head injury. As I continued my research, I tried to see things from the point of view of Mr. Tucker and his family. To this day, they have never received an official apology for the taking of his heart without his approval or that of his family.
It’s good that today’s medical school students are hearing about the Tucker case, alongside other examples of “historical trauma” caused by America’s health care system. While each reader can draw their own conclusions from The Organ Thieves, it is my sincere hope that the case of Bruce Tucker will encourage new conversations about the vital importance of ethical practices that respect the dignity of patients and families alike. As America confronts similar life-and-death decisions during the Covid-19 crisis, this seems as relevant today as it was back in the 1960s.
As a 1974 graduate of the University of Kansas with a degree in English, and a 1989 graduate of the creative writing program at Hollins University near Roanoke, Va., I try to merge good storytelling with in-depth journalism. I live near Richmond with my wife of 45 years, Deborah White Jones, a talented singer-songwriter and a former English as Second Language and Special Education teacher. I have three grown children – Lauren, Mary and Chief – who are working around the world to make it a better place. My own world became much better recently with the birth of our first grandchild.
CHIP JONES - PULITZER-NOMINATED JOURNALIST & AUTHOR
Copyright 2020