Not to double-up...but Luis nailed it

As much as I dislike stories about heavy real-world issues that have been hashed and rehashed  countless times, and as much as I dislike blogging on a story someone else just blogged on...Luis Sinco really did an incredible job with this one. 

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/marlboromarine

The essence of the Marlboro Marine is not the skeleton around which Sinco builds the story, but the human element he captures with it. Anyone as involved as we are with Journalism has seen the bare bones of this piece...post-traumatic stress disorder, incredible tragedy, not given the attention some think it deserves, victimizing those who fought most nobley for our country...et cetera...et cetera...et cetera. This story should be boring and used up, if not at least touching in the process.

But it's not. It's gripping in a kind of mysterious way. If clichés are appropriate to describe a story that somehow sidestepped the clichéd modern military story, then a slew of pictures, each picture being worth a thousand words, coupled with the thousands of words heard in the voice of James Blake Miller's commentary create for us a human being. 

The photography merits praise by itself. Sinco clearly knows his craft and uses it perfectly to succinctly capture the essence of this man and his struggle. He even splices in enough video and gumby-style (the proper name of .gif motion photography escapes me, don't let my reference to a cartoon older than me tarnish anything) photography--like the clip where he lights his cigarette or lets his mind wander from the parking meter head-rest--to keep his audience from tuning out. Amazing job.

The one lesson we can all take away from this, regardless of our goals or ideas about the real world...this story lasts 15 minutes, 10 if you don't count the epilogue, but it's the result of months upon months of both these men's lives. I don't know if the time spanned topped one year, but if it did, this video may be the most fitting capture of a year of a person's life without letting important details or emotions fall by the wayside in favor of time constraint and artistic B.S. I've ever seen. 

Well done Sinco. Seriously guys, Holle's right...read this story, but don't blog on it because you'll make the two of us look worse.