NEWS: Dulce et Decorum Est Pro Patria Scribere

CULTURE: Dulce et Decorum Est Pro Patria Scribere

A couple years ago, I came across a photograph of my great-grandparents when they were close to my age, horsing around and boozing it up at the beach. It's kind of a weird thing to see -- after all, human nature can be overwhelmingly rife with the compulsion to fragment and compartmentalize, observing immortal social constants and yet somehow still finding a way to parse them into a "kids today"-type youth culture trend. It's always kind of anachronistic and weird, then, to be inevitably presented with one of these perceived social anomalies alive and well in another era. Nevertheless, in its own way it's also kind of heartwarming to know that some things refuse to change.

Take blogging, for instance: thanks to the unparalleled publicity granted by the internet, it may seem plausible to blame some sort of uncharted aspartame-and-Sega-fueled chemical imbalance for our rampant desire to commit every waking moment of our oh-so-extraordinary lives relentlessly to print. This, of course, would be foolish and wrong, and it is perhaps with this in mind that CNN Online recently featured a spotlight piece on Harry Lamin, who took has offered us precious minutes snatches of his time to pen a truly unique war blog straight from the trenches. Now, I know that war blogs are perhaps not necessarily apt to be unique in this day and age, but this one separates itself from the pack with one simple fact: it literally comes from the trenches.

The blog is called Experiences of an English Soldier, and taken out of context, it isn't always the most thrilling thing in the world: in between Lamin the Younger's offhand commentary and updates on who's reading, most letters are peppered with small talk. The danger and fear creeping behind each letter comes on so subtly, however -- slipped in between "doing fine"s, anecdotes about cigarettes, and small complaints about rations or the rain -- that they almost go unnoticed.

Busy indeed: as our time's Lamin notes in the previous entry, a three-day battle two weeks prior saw 10% of British troops lost to death or wounding. A heavy statistic, and another part of life to weigh against the cheerful heralding of good news brought in upon beautifully handmade cards from back at home.

Half of the interest in the Lamins' blog (for really, I should say it belongs to both of them) lies in what the young one refers to as its "soap opera story." Posting each letter online ninety years to the day from it was originally posted, it's a running mystery as to whether our hero lived to see another entry. It's a love story between Harry and his wife and family, and it's an epic war story in which we are -- in spirit -- irrevocably caught.

More interesting to me, however (and maybe I'm alone in this, who knows) is its transitive time capsule quality. It's like looking at a supernova and knowing that it exploded millions of years ago, and it's why The Diary of Anne Frank will always be on more book lists than even the most brutal memoir. It's a look at a whole different world -- not summoned back through the soft-focus filter of time, but as it happened, the tedious mundanity of daily life making each struggle and fear and special moment stand out all the brighter. It's proof that when the layers of technology and whichever world war we happen to currently be living through are stripped away, at heart the only difference between us today and versions-of-us a century ago are the scopes of our immediate audience and the maximum loudness of our voice.

One of these days, I'm going to print out every journal I ever wrote. Maybe in a hundred years, someone will find it and write a blog about it.


_DictionaryGirl_ would like to dedicate this story to all these little bits of history repeating, reaching out from the past to resassure the kid that the world hasn't all changed as quickly and sharply as it sometimes seems (the cycles of being ourselves keeping the cold of some detached near-future Robocop distopia at bay for yet another day).

Interesting article indeed. Great title, too.

I've been eagerly anticipating this article, and, as always, _DG_ brought the goods.

I can't help but think, that some of the best stories, will never be commited to script.
Thanks.

Oh ! Great article DG. Thats fascinating.
Thanks.

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SPOILERS! (Click to view)

When you go to his profile it lists his age as 120.

DG this is great thank you so much

That is really awesome, although reading pretty much anything about war right now sends me into great heaving sobs.

Interesting.

Thanks DG.

Your choice of title == pure awesome.

Thanks _DG_.

Woo-hoo! DG is back!

Oh, and a great article, as usual. That is the most interesting blog experiment I've seen. Kudos to Mr. Lamin.

EDIT: Never mind, you've been back. How the hell did I miss that?

somehow this is pleasing to me...
our times may come and go, but our love never fades.

great article DG