Search Results for: Army

Joe Spring & Chris Keyes: Our Top 5 Longreads of 2010

Joe Spring and Chris Keyes are editors for Outside Magazine.

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The Most Isolated Man on the Planet, Slate, Monte Reel (Aug. 20, 2010)

He’s alone in the Brazilian Amazon, but for how long?

The Last Patrol, The Atlantic, Brian Mockenhaupt (November 2010)

A veteran unit patrolling the Devil’s Playground hands off its territory to a new patrol.

An Army of One, GQ, Chris Heath (September 2010)

Who would be crazy enough to hunt Osama bin Laden alone…11 times?

The Ballad of Colton Harris-Moore, Outside, Bob Friel (January 2010)

One the trail of a teenage fugitive.

Last Drop, Outside, Brad Melekian (December 2010)

An inside look at the last days of surfing’s most troubled star.

Andrea Pitzer: My Top 5 Longreads of 2010

Andrea Pitzer is writer and editor of Nieman Storyboard.

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To eliminate some of the choices that have already been popular—hello, David Grann! ;)—I haven’t included anyone I’ve met in person. All stories from 2010.

Rabbi to the Rescue, by Martha Wexler and Jeff Lunden from The Washington Post Magazine

Spiritual longing, the Holocaust, and the bitter line between the truth and a beautiful story.

TVs Crowning Moment of Awesome, by Chris Jones for Esquire

I know, everybody loved the Roger Ebert piece, but check out the surprises here, including an angry Drew Carey.

An Army of One, by Chris Heath from GQ

Meet Gary Faulkner, American patriot and would-be assassin of Osama bin Laden. 

The High Is Always the Pain, and the Pain Is Always the High, from Jay Caspian Kang on The Morning News

Yes, everyone else has already picked it too, but it’s that good. And I bet they didn’t interview him.

The Amazing Tale, by Rick Moody from Details

Read this story to the end. It will blow your mind over and over, and almost never in the way you’re expecting.

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And an honorable mention for an entry that topped my list until I realized it was from December 2009: The Last Vet, by Aminatta Forna in Granta. How much suffering can a country take, and what will it value in the aftermath? An essay on empire, war, and the last vet in private practice in Sierra Leone. 

Everyone Hates Ticketmaster — But No One Can Take It Down

Longreads Pick

Ticketmaster didn’t come to rule an industry by suffering interlopers. Over the past 30 years, the company has killed or eaten nearly every competitor: Ticketron, TicketWeb, TicketsNow, Paciolan, and Musictoday. And a potent combination of top artists, venues, and long-term ticketing deals makes Ticketmaster one Goliath well positioned to crush a whole army of Davids.

Source: Wired
Published: Nov 1, 2010
Length: 8 minutes (2,204 words)

Traumatic brain injury leaves an often-invisible, life-altering wound

Longreads Pick

The doctor begins with an apology because the questions are rudimentary, almost insultingly so. But Robert Warren, fresh off the battlefield in Afghanistan and a surgeon’s table, doesn’t seem to mind. Yes, he knows how old he is: 20. He knows his Army rank: specialist. He knows that it’s Thursday, that it’s June, that the year is 1020. Quickly, he corrects the small stumble: “It’s 2010.”

Source: Washington Post
Published: Oct 3, 2010
Length: 12 minutes (3,134 words)

View Is Bleaker Than Official Portrayal of War in Afghanistan

Longreads Pick

As the new American commander in Afghanistan, Gen. David H. Petraeus, tries to reverse the lagging war effort, the WikiLeaks documents sketch a war hamstrung by an Afghan government, police force and army of questionable loyalty and competence, and by a Pakistani military that appears at best uncooperative and at worst to work from the shadows as an unspoken ally of the very insurgent forces the American-led coalition is trying to defeat.

Published: Jul 25, 2010
Length: 8 minutes (2,132 words)

Hood

Longreads Pick

Last November, when Army psychiatrist Nidal Malik Hasan murdered thirteen people at Fort Hood, Texas, the country watched, riveted and scared. But to the people of this small American city, war is nothing new.

Source: Esquire
Published: Mar 1, 2010
Length: 49 minutes (12,279 words)

How Susie Bayer’s T-Shirt Ended Up on Yusuf Mama’s Back

Longreads Pick

If you’ve ever left a bag of clothes outside the Salvation Army or given to a local church drive, chances are that you’ve dressed an African. All over Africa, people are wearing what Americans once wore and no longer want.

Published: Mar 31, 2002
Length: 25 minutes (6,255 words)

Remember His Name

Longreads Pick

Even as a boy Pat Tillman felt a destiny, a need to do the right thing whatever it cost him. When the World Trade Center was attacked on 9/11, he thought about what he had to do and then walked away from the NFL and became an Army Ranger. #Sept11

Author: Gary Smith
Published: Sep 11, 2006
Length: 46 minutes (11,700 words)