Robert Poos; Magazine Editor, Daring Vietnam War Reporter

Robert Poos, 78, who covered the Vietnam War as a reporter for the Associated Press and later was managing editor of Soldier of Fortune magazine, died Dec. 15 of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease at Mount Vernon Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Alexandria.

Mr. Poos was a Marine during the Korean War and joined the AP in 1957. Assigned to the AP's Saigon, South Vietnam, bureau in 1965, he quickly became noted for aggressive and daring combat reporting.

During the January 1966 battle of An Thi, where U.S. cavalry troops were surrounded by communist forces, Mr. Poos and AP photographer Henri Huet helped recover and stand guard over wounded GIs. "We figured we could be overrun and wiped out in the next 24 hours," Mr. Poos recalled years later.

Two months later, Mr. Poos was wounded in the chest when gunmen attacked a Buddhist pagoda in Danang where he and other journalists were covering a standoff by anti-government monks.

Joseph Galloway, who competed with Poos as a UPI reporter in Vietnam, called him "a great friend in a foxhole or a watering hole, and a damned fine shoeleather reporter of the old school."

In late 1966, Mr. Poos was named chief of the AP's bureau in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and later was a news editor in Tokyo before returning to the United States, where he spent two years in the AP's Washington bureau. After leaving the AP in 1970, he was a spokesman for the American Railroads Association.

He worked briefly for the Washington Times in the early 1980s, then moved to Boulder, Colo., to become managing editor of Soldier of Fortune, where he wrote about military topics and became involved in a controversy over carrying a sidearm while covering a story in Central America. On assignment in Afghanistan, Mr. Poos smuggled out Soviet AK-74 ammunition, the first of that type that the Pentagon had ever seen, according to Soldier of Fortune editor and publisher Robert K. Brown.

He was hired at the Commerce Department in the mid-1990s and retired in 2000.

Robert Poos was born in Hillsboro, Ill., and joined the Marines during the Korean War. He was among the "Frozen Chosin," who staged a fighting winter retreat in 1951 from the Chosin Reservoir under attack by Chinese communist forces who had entered the war on the side of North Korea.

After studying journalism at Southern Illinois University and working for the Southern Illinoisan newspaper in Carbondale, Ill., Poos joined the AP in St. Louis in 1957.

His marriage to Carol Poos ended in divorce. His second wife, Wendy Blake Poos, died in 1993.

Survivors include his wife of six years, Bobbie Poos of Alexandria; two daughters from his first marriage, Lisa Green of Virginia Beach and Laura Poos of Hampton, Va.; and three grandchildren.

-- From News Services and Staff Reports