LAS VEGAS, Nev. — Christopher Gallagher, 26, U.S. Marine Corps corporal, 3rd Battalion, 4th Marines, served in Iraq three times: In 2003 during the invasion; in 2004 at Haditha Dam; and in 2005 in Fallouja. This post contains an archive of letters he wrote home and photographs he saved. Included are his “final letters” — the… [Read more…]
October 3, 2009
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This is what you will remember when you get back: your cramped foxhole, the stench of your unwashed body, MRE menu item No. 2, Jamaican pork chop. You’ll remember the way the sand of the Kuwaiti desert would drift into your eyes, your ears, everything, giving you reason to clean your weapon twice a day… [Read more…]
October 3, 2009
LAS VEGAS, Nev. — History books will commemorate 2008 as the year America faced what some people are calling its greatest financial crisis since the Great Depression. Stephen Christoffersen, 23, will remember it as the year he became a banker. As such, he belongs to a curious breed of people — a generation of financiers… [Read more…]
October 3, 2009
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People collect things. This happens all over the world for different reasons. Children collect bottlecaps, rocks, erasers, stickers and baseball cards just for the hell of it. A woman at UCLA used to crisscross the school grounds collecting plastic bottles and soda cans. In many places people collect scrap metal, combing through trash heaps and… [Read more…]
October 3, 2009
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ALAMO, Nev. — How to describe the darkness? If Las Vegas is a city of light, rural Nevada is a creature of the opposite nature. When night falls, a blackness, thick as velvet, engulfs the world. When the last light goes, drivers turn their cars’ headlights to the brightest setting, rolling cautiously down the highways… [Read more…]
October 3, 2009
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LAS VEGAS, Nev. — Las Vegas is a place of natural beauty, a place that speaks of mankind’s limitations. Raucous as it is, this city is an outpost of civilization, set in a lonely valley against elegant mountains of bleached, red rock. Drive fifty miles in any direction and you will find yourself in the… [Read more…]
October 3, 2009
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