After U.S. Army infantryman Timothy Weston requested advice on learning the violin while on deployment in Iraq, the online community at Violinist.com took over. Soon Weston had a violin, bow, strings, case and many musicians willing to help him learn the instrument. The Los Angeles site's founder, Laurie Niles, posts:

"The violin has arrived," Weston wrote to me on March 7. " I have had it for just over a week. I have thrown myself into learning how to play. I would love to send you a picture of myself and my violin though the Internet here is really slow, and our personal Internet hasn't come online yet...Thank you so much for, everything. I will most definitely post any questions that I have."

Just a month and a half into his deployment, Weston's unit came under mortar fire and lost two soldiers, with 10 others suffering minor injuries.

"He was 20 feet away when it happened," [wife] Carissa said.

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"When you live on an Army base, you kind of lose sight of the fact that people outside the Army appreciate what you do," Carissa said. "I was in tears, seeing how much people were willing to do, – I couldn't even come up with the words to say thank you."

The effort has a surplus of $223 that Niles proposes be donated to a charity that connects soldiers with musical instruments.

Previously on LA Observed:
Trying out for the L.A. Phil
Etude, blogger?
A Strad comes to Pasadena