Laurence Jolidon, 64; War Correspondent, NATO Spokesman
Laurence Jolidon, 64, a veteran war correspondent who covered the Persian Gulf War and U.S. forces in Somalia, died Tuesday in Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina, where he was serving as media spokesman for the NATO peacekeeping force.
He suffered a heart attack after his morning jog, according to Don North, a journalist friend in Washington, D.C.
Jolidon had served as spokesman for the NATO Peace Stabilization Force, known as SFOR, for most of the last year.
A graduate of Baldwin-Wallace College in Berea, Ohio, Jolidon saw duty with the U.S. Army advisory group in Vietnam and later was a member of the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve.
In a long journalism career, he worked for the Dallas Times-Herald, Texas Observer, Detroit Free Press and St. Petersburg Times. From 1983 to 1883, he was an editor and reporter at USA Today, where he covered the Gulf War and Somalia.
Jolidon served a year as press advisor to the NATO Implementation Force in Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1996. He also trained journalists in Indonesia, the Russian Federation and the former Yugoslav republic of Macedonia.
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