Last week I wrote about the death of Andrew Olmsted, a military blogger who always caught me off guard with his ideas and images about the Iraq War. Meet Olmsted in his final, inspiring post.
Writers need to read and think about this war, and the writings of bloggers like Olmsted should be required reading.
Today, you should read this tribute to Sergeant Scott Lange Kirkpatrick written by my friend, Ian Daly. It's an essay about a slam poet, writer, and soldier who died in Iraq last year. In addition, Kirkpatrick's father blogged about the story here.
According to the story (which includes this photo of Kirkpatrick), this young writer joined the military after telling his wife, “Here I am writing and analyzing and bitching about things, and I’m not doing anything.”
Now I'm not telling everyone to enlist, but all writers need to be grappling with this conflict, not pretending like the war isn't happening. It is a real issue affecting hundreds of thousands of Americans. Don't let this complicated war stay in the margins of your writing.
Jason,
Thank you for this post, it is good to see Scott's sacrifice remembered and it helps to keep the word circulating. I think that so many people go about life everyday and forget just what is being given and by whom and how much this war is costing our country in so many incalculable ways.
ed
Posted by: Ed Kirkpatrick | January 18, 2008 11:52 AM | Permalink to Comment