Review: A triumph of long-form journalism
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 04 22, 2012
A lot's been made of this series winning a Pulitzer for the Huffington Post, as if it somehow legitimized "blogs" as a conventional news/information source.Just because David Wood's series appeared on the internet in a non-print style doesn't make it some sort of niche product. This is the result of painstaking reporting, carefully-crafted writing, and decades of experience and skill - which typically is what will earn a Pulitzer, regardless of the venue.I've embedded as a journalist in Iraq a few times, and was a soldier in Desert Storm. I was never injured, nor saw an injured US soldier; but I did see an Iraqi after he suffered a 'mild' gunshot wound to the foot. The bullet had gone through-and-through, pushing small bones out the exit wound. A second shot had grazed his back, opening a ragged furrow of skin - lucky, though, because it missed the spine.Those were minor injuries, but even still, I imagine he was going to be walking with some pain for quite some time. But it reminded me how serious and life-altering a 'minor' injury can be.Wood explores the far more grave and serious injuries suffered by so many US soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan. Multiple amputations, burns, brain damage - it's ghastly, and hidden behind meaningless terms like "seriously wounded."It affects family members whose lives are upended - forever. Spouses who go from a partnership to lifelong care providers. And it's just begun - we're only in the first few years of care that thousands of veterans will require for decades to come. We are able to provide revolutionary medical care to soldiers who probably had no business surviving their injuries (and would not have in previous conflicts), but that carries a steep price.There are so many aspects to these terrible injuries, and Wood seems to have explored them all. It's tough, unpleasant reporting - this doesn't have a happy ending. The uplifting part of the story is that these injured soldiers do the best they can. You're not reading these accounts to feel good; you're reading it to know more about what these soldiers went through, so you didn't have to. I'd say it's a social responsibility.As usual, the media misses the full story here - they focus on a "blog" winning a Pulitzer, when the real 'victory' here is the important and vital storytelling that this kind of long-form, public service journalism can provide, regardless whether it appears on a website or written on a paper bag.Readers should buy this series in this e-book format, or look it up on the Huffington Post. I'd say it's the least we can do to remind ourselves that "sacrifice" is not a word reserved only for those who died.