The little blue pill goes to war.
posted by mek on Dec 26, 2008 - 74 comments

Voices of the Fallen: the war in the words of the dead-- In letters and journals and e-mails, the war dead live on, their words—urgent, honest, unself-conscious—testament to the realities of combat. What do they have to say to us? ... The result is a window on Iraq we have not had before: the bravery, the fear and the chaos of war, and the loves and hates and dreams and nightmares of the warriors. Things are incredibly busy, then they are not. The Iraqis are welcoming, then they are not. The war is going well, then it is not. The mission makes sense, then it does not. ... (video, audio, email, and text)
posted by amberglow on Mar 30, 2007 - 14 comments

Cold Ground for a Summer Love. A 19 year old visits the grave of her dead 19 year old boyfriend every day. Every day at Arlington Cemetery, she cries. The weekends are crowded there at Arlington, with so many families wishing 3000 dead soldiers goodbye.
posted by four panels on Jan 1, 2007 - 135 comments

A soldier in War. A letter home. Nobody will ever top Sullivan Ballou's. (Youtube Video) A week before the battle of Bull Run, Sullivan Ballou, a major in the 2nd Rhode Island Volunteers, wrote home to his wife in Smithfield. The actual letter begins @ 2:25 into the video. But it's far from a waste to watch the whole six minutes.
posted by thisisdrew on Aug 8, 2006 - 16 comments

Love that can't be withstood,
Love that scatters fortunes,
Love like a green fern shading
The cheek of a sleeping girl.
Seamus Heaney's search for the soul of Antigone.
(more inside, with Christopher Logue)
posted by matteo on Nov 4, 2005 - 15 comments

"It has ever been my study and ever shall be, to render you as happy as possible. But I have been obliged in many instances to sacrifice the present pleasures to our future hopes." From a Camp Croton bivouac of 1778 to a bunker in Afghanistan, a collection of wartime love letters in their original hands, movingly read aloud. Chapter 3 in The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History's online exhibit Battle Lines: Letters from America's Wars. [Flash, but quite worth it]
posted by Tufa on Feb 14, 2005 - 6 comments