thedrifter
12-13-06, 06:23 PM
Tears of Joy
Posted By Blackfive
Captain Lee Kelley - of Wordsmith at War and one of the authors in The Blog of War - is part of a local ABC story in Utah...
...The day that brought tears to Lee Kelley's eyes did not happen in Iraq, even when he tightly held trembling soldiers who had just finished gathering up body parts scattered by a roadside bomb.
It did not happen when his mother died of cancer or when his marriage fell apart while he served in the Middle East.
The day the tears came was when he held the hand of his little daughter Chloe and took the six-year-old to her first Brownie Scout meeting, holding his four-year-old son Leelee in his other arm...
Wina on the Web: Local soldier takes aim - with words
LAST UPDATE: 12/12/2006 12:40:32 PM
By Wina Sturgeon
ABC 4 Contributing Columnist
The day that brought tears to Lee Kelley's eyes did not happen in Iraq, even when he tightly held trembling soldiers who had just finished gathering up body parts scattered by a roadside bomb.
It did not happen when his mother died of cancer or when his marriage fell apart while he served in the Middle East.
The day the tears came was when he held the hand of his little daughter Chloe and took the six-year-old to her first Brownie Scout meeting, holding his four-year-old son Leelee in his other arm.
"I loved it. I was just overwhelmed with joy," said Kelley.
But Kelley's life, which could be the life of any soldier; and echoes the life of many soldiers, has one difference. He is part of an exploding underground. In that underground, he is a growing star.
It is the not-yet-mainstream craze of the military blog. These blogs, which number in the hundreds, are eagerly devoured by fans who number in ever increasing hundreds of thousands; readers who want the un-spun story of what it's really like over there, and what the troops are doing. From the day to day grunt work of cleaning up garbage to the bloody frenzy of a combat mission, soldiers are the new press corps in the Middle East.
And Kelly may be the Hemingway of the Iraq war.
His writing is sparse, yet descriptive. He blogged of last week's big storm:
"I drove to work slow, enjoying the once again familiar play of white snow at different depth perceptions: the tiny flakes clinging to my windshield before getting swept away, the sloppy wet snow being kicked up by 18-wheelers going too fast on the interstate, and the gorgeous white embroidery of snow blanketing the Wasatch Mountains."
The entry not only describes the winter storm, but gives readers the experience of the snow.
"I always wanted to write. In Iraq, I started a modest blog. But it was a literary endeavor, not just "Hey, here's what I did today." I was polishing my writing in a blog (wordsmithatwar.blog-city.com) It started growing. I kept building up a readership, a very dedicated readership," he says.
Then things started happening. Doonesbury cartoonist Garry Trudeau started a military blog called "The Sandbox," and invited Kelley to post the first entry. The New York Times read his posts and asked him to be one of their online op ed columnists for two months. His work was included in several books of blog anthologies. One of the largest literary agents in the world asked to see a manuscript of his collected writings.
Most recently, Time Magazine came calling, and interviewed Kelly for inclusion in the prestigious person-of-the-year issue. He will be a breakout profile in a major story on the growth of home grown writing on the web.
Kelley's writing is compelling because he lives so many contradicting lives. In the morning, he wakes his children and gently gets them ready for school, puttering around the kitchen of his Murray home in his slippers. Then the hard military boots go on over the uniform, and he begins the long drive to Camp Williams, where he is a no-nonsense battery commander and an administrative officer over several hundred troops; a man who in Iraq pointed a rifle close up at another man, calmly ready to kill at one wrong move. Then, in the dark hours when the kids are in bed and the uniform hangs in the closet, Kelley sits at the computer and becomes the writer.
One of his biggest fans is a middle-aged woman in France, who recently sent him a dozen big boxes of luxury gifts, including high fashion outfits for both children, bottles of French wine, cheeses, and cartons of chocolate and gourmet goodies.
"You give me words and thoughts for my heart and soul, so I send you food for your belly and wine for you spirits," she wrote on the card.
Captain Kelly seems a little stunned by it all. "For some reason, since I came home in July, the blog has become almost more popular than it was when I was in Iraq. My writing seems like a chain of events that is snowballing, and I'm really humbled by it," he says.
He is also filled by something he has rarely felt before; sheer and total happiness. Kelley says, "I'm not someone who cries much, but since I've been back, once a month or so, I will just cry tears of joy. I'll be putting the kids to bed, and I'll just be overcome by joy. I'm home, and I'm safe, and I have both arms and both legs. I'm a lucky, lucky guy."
Ellie
Posted By Blackfive
Captain Lee Kelley - of Wordsmith at War and one of the authors in The Blog of War - is part of a local ABC story in Utah...
...The day that brought tears to Lee Kelley's eyes did not happen in Iraq, even when he tightly held trembling soldiers who had just finished gathering up body parts scattered by a roadside bomb.
It did not happen when his mother died of cancer or when his marriage fell apart while he served in the Middle East.
The day the tears came was when he held the hand of his little daughter Chloe and took the six-year-old to her first Brownie Scout meeting, holding his four-year-old son Leelee in his other arm...
Wina on the Web: Local soldier takes aim - with words
LAST UPDATE: 12/12/2006 12:40:32 PM
By Wina Sturgeon
ABC 4 Contributing Columnist
The day that brought tears to Lee Kelley's eyes did not happen in Iraq, even when he tightly held trembling soldiers who had just finished gathering up body parts scattered by a roadside bomb.
It did not happen when his mother died of cancer or when his marriage fell apart while he served in the Middle East.
The day the tears came was when he held the hand of his little daughter Chloe and took the six-year-old to her first Brownie Scout meeting, holding his four-year-old son Leelee in his other arm.
"I loved it. I was just overwhelmed with joy," said Kelley.
But Kelley's life, which could be the life of any soldier; and echoes the life of many soldiers, has one difference. He is part of an exploding underground. In that underground, he is a growing star.
It is the not-yet-mainstream craze of the military blog. These blogs, which number in the hundreds, are eagerly devoured by fans who number in ever increasing hundreds of thousands; readers who want the un-spun story of what it's really like over there, and what the troops are doing. From the day to day grunt work of cleaning up garbage to the bloody frenzy of a combat mission, soldiers are the new press corps in the Middle East.
And Kelly may be the Hemingway of the Iraq war.
His writing is sparse, yet descriptive. He blogged of last week's big storm:
"I drove to work slow, enjoying the once again familiar play of white snow at different depth perceptions: the tiny flakes clinging to my windshield before getting swept away, the sloppy wet snow being kicked up by 18-wheelers going too fast on the interstate, and the gorgeous white embroidery of snow blanketing the Wasatch Mountains."
The entry not only describes the winter storm, but gives readers the experience of the snow.
"I always wanted to write. In Iraq, I started a modest blog. But it was a literary endeavor, not just "Hey, here's what I did today." I was polishing my writing in a blog (wordsmithatwar.blog-city.com) It started growing. I kept building up a readership, a very dedicated readership," he says.
Then things started happening. Doonesbury cartoonist Garry Trudeau started a military blog called "The Sandbox," and invited Kelley to post the first entry. The New York Times read his posts and asked him to be one of their online op ed columnists for two months. His work was included in several books of blog anthologies. One of the largest literary agents in the world asked to see a manuscript of his collected writings.
Most recently, Time Magazine came calling, and interviewed Kelly for inclusion in the prestigious person-of-the-year issue. He will be a breakout profile in a major story on the growth of home grown writing on the web.
Kelley's writing is compelling because he lives so many contradicting lives. In the morning, he wakes his children and gently gets them ready for school, puttering around the kitchen of his Murray home in his slippers. Then the hard military boots go on over the uniform, and he begins the long drive to Camp Williams, where he is a no-nonsense battery commander and an administrative officer over several hundred troops; a man who in Iraq pointed a rifle close up at another man, calmly ready to kill at one wrong move. Then, in the dark hours when the kids are in bed and the uniform hangs in the closet, Kelley sits at the computer and becomes the writer.
One of his biggest fans is a middle-aged woman in France, who recently sent him a dozen big boxes of luxury gifts, including high fashion outfits for both children, bottles of French wine, cheeses, and cartons of chocolate and gourmet goodies.
"You give me words and thoughts for my heart and soul, so I send you food for your belly and wine for you spirits," she wrote on the card.
Captain Kelly seems a little stunned by it all. "For some reason, since I came home in July, the blog has become almost more popular than it was when I was in Iraq. My writing seems like a chain of events that is snowballing, and I'm really humbled by it," he says.
He is also filled by something he has rarely felt before; sheer and total happiness. Kelley says, "I'm not someone who cries much, but since I've been back, once a month or so, I will just cry tears of joy. I'll be putting the kids to bed, and I'll just be overcome by joy. I'm home, and I'm safe, and I have both arms and both legs. I'm a lucky, lucky guy."
Ellie