Can you help me find this essay?

November 8, 2009 8:18 PM

I'm looking for a World War 2 essay that may be titled "Missing the War", which is about the difference in perception between how the Second World War was portrayed in the media and how it was for the soldiers involved.

I remember reading it in a best-of essay collection that might've been published in 2006 or 2007. Google searching for that title doesn't bring up anything similar. It's a really great essay, and probably some of the best war writing I've ever read.

posted by codacorolla to Writing & Language (7 answers total)

Best answer: "Losing The War" by Lee Sandlin
posted by dancestoblue at 8:28 PM on November 8, 2009 [5 favorites]

btw, if anyone knows where (online preferred, natch) I can read the essay by Eric Sevareid (published in The Nation) which Sandlin references in his essay, I sure hope you'll let us know...
posted by dancestoblue at 9:05 PM on November 8, 2009

MeFi mail me if you'd like me to send you the essay - it's not online, but I have a pdf.
posted by lesli212 at 10:10 PM on November 8, 2009

Even if "Losing the War" isn't what you're looking for, it's very worth your time.
posted by Pope Guilty at 11:48 PM on November 8, 2009

Pretty sure this essay appeared in The New Kings of Nonfiction, edited by Ira Glass. Great Remembrance Day reading (the article, not the book).
posted by Brodiggitty at 2:28 AM on November 9, 2009

dancestoblue, thank you. Was heavy reading, but important.
posted by titanium_geek at 4:50 AM on November 9, 2009

Response by poster: Thanks! I was so sure that I had the title right that it threw off my searching.

If anyone is browsing this topic and hasn't read that essay, then please do so, it's terrific. I've considered making a post out of it for a while...
posted by codacorolla at 6:54 AM on November 9, 2009