I finally read the summer fiction issue of the New Yorker last week (well, everything except the fiction- I'm kind of anti New Yorker fiction- it's a long, not so interesting, story that involves my father saying: "Mike, people who have everything like to be depressed by the books they read- it makes them feel less guilty about their wealth"). The summer fiction issue's focus is war, and in it is an excerpt from Operation Homecoming- a writing program funded by the NEA that will be publishing a collection of poems, emails, and letters that have been exchanged between soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, and people at home. It's a heartwrenching, and heartbreaking collection and I couldn't help think about this guy while I read them. He's a part of the Dark Horse battalion- the same group of Marines that my sister's boyfriend belongs to.