Touch the Elbow - Blogging the Civil War

I get a lot of emails. Sometimes I cringe at what I read, sometimes it is just an “oh” reaction, and sometimes, I am really happy the person took the time to email.

The other day, I received an email with the subject line “LOST at war”. As a huge fan of the TV show Lost, I thought it might be something cool to tide me over until 2008 when the new episodes start showing (If you watch the show, you want to know two things right now – who was in the coffin and what went wrong when Jack left the Island).

At first I was disappointed when I read that it was really about an online magazine entitled LOST Magazine, until I read a bit deeper. I had never heard about the magazine before, so read a bit from their “What LOST does” page, which begins with

LOST Magazine is an online monthly magazine that combines elements of many other literary, online, and national magazines with a singular mission -- to reclaim in writing lost people, places, and things.

This month, the magazine is using a war theme, looking back across the centuries of American History, touching on the major wars in a unique way.
As I read through the magazine, I was really impressed. The Civil War article is a song from the war, which I was a bit disappointed with as I have already read so many songs. It was the Vietnam War article that really got to me. Not to give too much away, it is an email to a Marine about to go to Iraq from a Marine that served in Vietnam. I’ve already sent it to several Marine Corps friends, who have all given it rave reviews – something I totally agree with.

Take some time and go visit the magazine. More than likely you will be like me and read right through it and hope the next issue comes out a bit early.

So yes, the email was definitely a so glad they sent this to me email. Maybe I’ll get another one of those today.