Tuesday, November 30, 2010

The Final Salute to Blog postings

The articles from the Rocky Mountain News (sadly there was no coffin for this fallen soldier) are a difficult read. This isn't because of some lachrymose nature on my part, but because anybody with a heart beating in their chest will find it torn asunder by these detailed accounts of fallen soldiers and the people they left behind.

The one I found most interesting and thought to be well written was the Part 2 in which we are introduced to Lt. Beck and are simultaneously given a quick history of the Marines way of notification and a harrowing portrait of a man who never signed up for this but has a sense of duty that compels him to do the job to his best abilities.

"Beck looks like the job: hard and soft. His white cotton gloves cover calloused hands. They lead to thick, regular-guy arms shaped by work instead of weightlifting, and a round, pale face with big cheeks that turn red when he hasn't had enough sleep, which is most of the time."

There's a quality to Jim Sheeler's writing that makes it read more like prose than journalism. I'm always fascinated by this style of writing. I find it to be very interesting but difficult to actually replicate. Trying to draw the line between the truth and my own interpretation in descriptions is tough for me. I've had a lot of training in writing the bare facts and inversely in creative writing classes I've trained in writing like fiction is true fact but when I try and combine the two style I find it messy and not quite right, like putting bacon in your ice cream.

Something should also be said of Sheeler's tactful leads. Almost everyone except for a few are one short, taciturn sentence. Sometimes they're slightly poetic and sometimes they're frank and to the point like the lead for Part 7: "Casualty notification isn't always conducted with the same care." That was another that was hard to read not just for the sadness that hung over every part of the story but because you knew that these people had to go through an extra inch of indignation after losing their loved ones due to some carelessness or red tape snafu on the Army's part.

This writing is beautiful, heavy, poetic and sparse. The story is also informative, fair and doesn't push a political stance on the subject. It's everything good writing should be and it's everything great journalism should be. I'd list it as the best of all the blog readings so far.

Now for a field recording of a man walking around Arlington cemetery with bagpipes in the background.

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