AMPHIBIOUS

In Hokusai’s “Kanagawa Wave,” the boatmen
look like a school of masquerading fish
about to disappear into the vast trough between waves,
the scene a masque for the knowing seascape.

Underwater, Ahab,
pinned to the great white
creature, like a wave that has
disappeared into silence.

In memory’s slow dancing,
flesh now dissolved,
seafloor muck covers bones
and shark-tooth nodules.

Out of the bubbling methane,
Ahab is reborn with tripod limbs
and tiny feet, the wooden leg
now a trail of seafloor slime,
amphibious.

There are few things I like better than sitting down with a copy of classic Central or Eastern European literature from the 19^th century onwards, especially its short fiction. The best authors from this area all have this in common with Stephen King: the longer works can be powerful, but there is something particularly pointed about their short work. Constrain them to a few thousand words and one is rewarded with beautiful, absurd, and entertaining stories suitable for any setting: morning or evening, summer or winter.

I read Jaroslav Hasek’s The Man Without a Transit Pass and Other Tales, published by Paradise Edition and translated into English by Dustin Stalnaker (@Jaro_Hasek on Twitter) over the course of two days. Consisting of 15 short stories of between a thousand and several thousand words, no single story is so sophisticated or overwhelming that it will require a PhD to read; furthermore, those references in the story that do benefit from context to which your average English speaking 21^st century reader does not have access are suitably footnoted.

The stories are filled with a wry and subversive humor characteristic of those places touched by the Austro-Hungarian empire — the absurdity of a space defined by hidebound bureaucracy and hereditary aristocracy, combined with the knowledge that its many flaws notwithstanding, at least the system was to a certain extent a known entity. Like the works of Babel or Kafka, one has the impression of looking into a world that could not exist after the Holocaust; the little indignities and tragedies of life not quite yet condmned to the absolute horror of totalitarianism.

Hasek’s Czech, Hungarian, and Galician regions bustle with charming frauds, shameless charlatans, fools, and ne’er do wells trying to hustle their way through life one scam at a time; these are its heroes. Aligned against them are those government functionaries, holy men, and police (always the police) who are embodying or upholding a fundamentally hypocritical and iniquitous system that is dedicated to oppressing its citizenry. In “The Footrace” a con man seeking a bed and a meal accidentally swindles his way into a betrothal with a young woman while pretending to be a British (or American) millionaire; this is similar to what happens in “The Beckov Monastery” where a con man lies about his purpose to monks and enjoys their repast on the backs of local farmers, and also “A Legitimate Business” and “A Guest in the House is a God in the House.” “The Reform Efforts of Baron Kleinhampl” follows an imbecile who inherits a manor and sets about bedeviling its residents with harebrained improvements.

My favorite story — a difficult feat in a book filled with delights — was “A Legitimate Business,” the heart of which is a familiar concept to fans of Seinfeld. A group of hucksters used to showing people things like flea circuses, while hunting for a new trick, come upon a novel idea — a show about nothing.

“Hang on a minute with the ‘show them something,’ I interrupted, drawing with my walking stick in the sand. “Why this ‘something’? Let’s go one step further. Do you get me? Show the audience nothing!”

The show consists of a person entering a dark room where they’re promptly seized and thrown out of the room into daylight; it proves a hit with locals who want to see others subjected to the “fun,” and ends (as do many stories in the collection) with police breaking things up.

Perhaps this story resonates in part because so many of today’s controversies feel so odd or irrelevant. A professional American football team, The Washington Commanders, were briefly known as The Washington Football Team (and before that, a name that was too rude to write here). A dislikable and argumentative short man, Ben Shapiro, reviewed a movie by way of a video titled “Ben Shapiro Destroys Barbie for 43 Minutes.” Meanwhile, a war rages in Ukraine — part of which, Galicia, appears in Hasek’s stories. It’s been a while since so much of so little consequence has occupied our attention — or so little of things of great consequence have not.

The society and time related by Hasek is filled with lighthearted and for the most part seemingly inconsequential mix-ups, which means people can feel comfortable taking pleasure in the follies that unfold over the pages. I encourage anyone who enjoys this sort of literature (as I do) to pick up a copy and read it. And thanks to Matthew Spencer (@unpaginated on Twitter) of Paradise Edition for putting this into print — you can acquire your own copy here.

Andrew Elliot Davis was born July 1, 1990 in Worcester, MA; his family moved to Milford, NH, where he graduated high school in 2008. Although Andrew had a lot of different interests as a young man, his dream was to be in the military, and he joined the Marines right out of high school—not knowing exactly what to expect but willing to take on whatever his country needed from him. Andrew faithfully served in the Marines as a Sergeant in the Infantry through three tours overseas, including a tour in Afghanistan. That is where he got his idea to write Korta Za. 

After he was honorably discharged from the Marines, he went on to get his bachelor’s degree in environmental economics from the University of New Hampshire. While attending UNH, he became an avid fan of their college football program, where Andrew was a season ticket holder. He would later donate a New Hampshire state flag that he had taken on his tours overseas to the UNH football program, and they still bring it out at every game to this day. 

Like many other military members, Andrew had a hard time in life after his service, and throughout his successes he also suffered from PTSD. Unfortunately, Andrew passed away before he could publish his story. His family is very proud to share this story with others and our hope is that he would be proud as well. Andrew is buried at the Boscawen Veterans Cemetery in Boscawen, NH and is finally at peace, at last.

Korta Za: Go Home

When you experience something so life-changing, it is sometimes with you everywhere you go. Such is the case of my experience. When I turn away, I see it; when I go to bed, I feel it. When I close my eyes, it haunts me like a horrible movie on rerun over and over in my head. I will drift to sleep in order to get some liberation, but the dreams always turn into nightmares. It’s like a rat caught in a maze with no sensible exit in sight—just a loop of walls and empty corridors. This is my experience that changed me from who I once was to the man I am today. Whether I like to admit it or not, it affected me with such magnitude that I cannot possibly ever hope to comprehend it. The only thing I know for sure is the change will forever be with me.

This is about my time in Afghanistan, when 45 men from Third Platoon, Alpha Company, 1^st Battalion, 2^ndMarines left the United States for seven months. We were going to a place we had never been but had read, talked, and heard so much about. For many of us, this was the first time out of the country, or even away from home for that matter. There is nothing in this world that could have totally prepared us for what we would go through in the next seven months. Not all the training, not all the class time, not a thing could. We left as boys. For those of us who did return, we were men, but not ordinary men. We were tired, broken, and defeated. This is my story.

***

The hum of the rotors pierced my ears like the sound of a million wasps swarming around my head. The heat of the helicopter engulfed me as I struggled to breathe through the exhaust filling my lungs. This was a United States Marine Corps CH-53 helicopter, and it was my golden chariot to battle. Inside it were twenty tightly packed Marines, not knowing what awaited us. I sat with my heart pounding out of my chest, clutching my rifle for dear life as we were tossed and turned in our seats. Outside, I could hear the gunfire from below and I could feel the pilot swerving to avoid it. So, this is it, I thought to myself. This is what I have been waiting for my entire life. Ever since I watched the World Trade Center Towers collapse on the screen over and over, I knew what I was destined for. Here I was, sitting in a metal coffin headed to the middle of nowhere in a country that might as well have been Mars.

We were given the signal for five minutes out and in one fluid motion I placed my rifle into condition one. This meant that I now had a bullet in the chamber and my rifle was ready to fire. We hit the ground, hard, and the ramp immediately dropped. Half dazed, we all threw ourselves up and ran out the back as we had practiced hundreds of times in the States. I struggled to see as the brown-out conditions of the sand overtook my eyes and throat. Still, I knew what I had to do and followed the outline of the Marine in front of me. Almost on cue, I threw myself to the ground in a defensive posture. I heard the helicopter take off behind me and then there was nothing but silence as I heard her rotors slowly fade into blackness. I pulled the butt of my rifle hard into my shoulder and immediately started scanning my surroundings, looking thoroughly for any possible sign of a threat. In the distance I could hear the sounds of war, but of them I could see nothing. The scene before me was like something out of a movie about other planets. All around me, we were surrounded by large mountains that would have looked more appropriate on Mars. They were nothing but rocks and dry dirt, not a tree on them. The ground itself was made up of hard-packed dusty sand that got into my eyes and throat with every breath. The sun beat down so hard it was like walking into an oven, the wind like holding a hairdryer on high to my face. We lay like this for what felt like an eternity, until the order came from around the group. Pickup and move! With my heart nearly pounding out of my chest and my body numb from adrenaline, I slowly rose to my feet and proceeded to fall into place with my comrades.

We set up our forward operating base in an abandoned police compound on the outskirts of a town called Dehana. This area had many strategic advantages. It sat right on the Dehana Pass, which was situated between two mountains. It was a central chokepoint for any movement coming through the area, and it gave us enough high ground from which to keep observation posts on the valley below. This pass was famous for Alexander the Great’s army moving through it during his invasion of Afghanistan. We felt as if we were following in his footsteps. At one time the town might have been flourishing, but all that I could see of it now were bullet-ridden walls and shops in appalling states. War had torn this town apart and its inhabitants were equally tattered. Our base consisted of one central building that had at one point held the town’s police force, and then before us was owned by a drug lord. Now it was to be our home for seven months. There was no running water and the only electricity we had was from two generators we set up ourselves. The generators were used specifically for charging radios and running vital equipment. We slept on any ground that lay within the walls of the compound, but mostly sticking to our squads of thirteen Marines.

We took no time at all militarizing our new home. We placed barbed wire on entry and exit points and set up trip flares all throughout the perimeter. If anyone came near us in the night, they would be surprised with a large flash of light. We built posts and filled the sandbags. To us, we were just doing what we knew how to do, what we had always been trained for. To the people of the village. we were invaders from a far off land. Whatever we were, one thing was for certain: The Marines of third platoon had moved in, and we were here to stay.

On our forward operating base (F.O.B), life to us was good. We had bottles of water plentifully, and we ate prepackaged food called MRE’s. But best of all, we had walls. Walls made out of mud so thick that the danger of what was right outside them seemed so far away. That for a moment we could feel safe was all we needed sometimes. Knowing that just right outside our gates was an entire town that wanted us dead would become disconcerting, on occasion. If I said life on the F.O.B was amazing, I would be lying. But if I said I couldn’t have asked for better, I would be telling the truth. We had water, food, and walls. I couldn’t have imagined it could get any better. I was nineteen years old and there wasn’t a telephone, toilet, or running water for that matter, in sight. We went to the bathroom in a bag and then burned it in a hole we dug out of the ground with our shovels. We would eat two meals a day consisting of food all out of a package, some twenty years old or more—but it was food. We would sleep maybe once every forty-eight hours or so—but it was sleep. I would huddle close to my brothers when the nights got freezing cold, and collapse into the shade of a wall when the temperature outside rose to 130 degrees during the day. On post, I would laugh with the children and throw them packages of freeze-dried muffins and anything else they would beg me for. This was my daily life within the base. Eat, stand post, eat again, laugh with friends, clean my gear, clean my rifle, and reload ammo. It was a good life, and it was a welcome opportunity from what lay just but a few hundred meters away.

Of all the men I was with, my best friend was Jake Fanno. He was from Oregon and had grown up similarly to me. He was in my squad, and we had gotten along from the beginning. We would always hang out and make jokes to each other to pass the time, and I always knew I could count on him for anything. I had no problem trusting him with my life. Of my best memories, I can recall this particular time when we found a bag of taco meat and then searched everywhere for packaged tortillas. Everything we found happened to be rotten and about thirty years old. We were so excited by the time we finally found tortillas that we forgot we had no way to cook the meat. So we just opened the bag and ate it cold. We were so happy we had found something good to eat that neither of us wanted to admit how horrible it really was.

“This is so good,” Jake said.

“The best,” I replied, “you could never get anything like this at home…”

“Dude, this is horrible.”

We both laughed hysterically for about ten minutes and finally gave up on the entire situation. This was what made us happy—finding food that was thirty years old and pretending like it was edible. Just because of the idea that it might make us think of home. We could never get past how fake the food was, or how sick we always got from it.

When it was our squad’s turn for patrol we would suit up and head out. Patrols were always conducted on foot and were the most dangerous parts of our days. We would wear our helmets, bullet proof flak vests, boots, camouflage utility uniforms, and of course our rifles, ammo, and whatever grenades or rockets we could carry. It was particularly dangerous because this was when we were most likely to be attacked. The enemy would watch and wait for us to get away from our base to open fire. Every step could have been our last. A favorite tactic of the enemy was to plant bombs in the ground, called IED’s, that could blow up right under any of us if we didn’t find them in time.

Walking through the village was always the most stressful time for me. The people did not like us at all and made us very aware of it. As we walked by them, they would clamp their mouths shut and berate us with their eyes. Any sign of weakness and they would be quick to take advantage. We were outnumbered by them, so it was important to always be on watch and not allow for any mistakes on our part. Whenever I was dealing with the villagers, I always had both hands on my rifle and kept such an aggressive posture that no one would dare to attempt to get the better of me. No matter what it took, I was coming home alive. I would let nothing get in my way.

IED’s were always my biggest fear while on patrol. Of all the times I was shot at it was easy to take cover and shoot back. IED’s were another thing. While patrolling, my heart would fall into my stomach with every step. My mind was always so convinced that this would be my last step on earth. I had seen it happen to so many friends, to so many villagers that I was convinced that I was next. One second, everyone would be walking around like everything was fine. The next second, the ground was opening up, and hell for a split moment was swallowing the world as I watched my friends launched into the air with agony and horror in my heart. This was the fate that scared me the most. I was a grown man, and I went through horrible things on a daily basis. But of everything that happened to me this was the fate that was always so continuous in my mind.

One day while I was eating lunch, it began to thunder. I found this odd because never in all my time being in Afghanistan had I seen it rain. That was when I heard the familiar snap of rounds overhead. I instantly sprang to my feet and threw on my gear as fast as I could. My adrenaline was pumping so hard that I couldn’t even remember placing a magazine of bullets into my rifle and making it condition one. It was just all a fluid motion, as if my rifle was an extension of my body. I flew to the gate where everyone was already waiting anxiously. They had never dared to attack us in our own backyard, and we were all nervous of what we would find right outside the door. Without hesitation I opened it and led the way out. They had come looking for a fight from us and they were going to get one. Had my body been listening to my mind before I opened the door and went outside, then maybe I would have acted more slowly or rationally. My mentality of “act immediately without hesitation” is exactly what had kept me alive up till that moment, but I feared this mentality would now get me killed. Instantly, upon stepping out of the gate I heard and felt the symphony of death play its encore all around me. The dust at my feet and the air around my body was being sprayed with what felt and sounded like millions of little firecrackers. I pushed on and flung myself behind a grave and began to return fire. Rockets exploded right in front of me, but my body was so full of adrenaline that I ignored them. As my mind screamed for it all to stop, as my gut gave out, as I instantly wanted to vomit, my legs carried me, and my hands reacted. It was as if I was acting on autopilot and was up above watching the entire situation. When I made my way up to the wall, I knew that my fire team was behind me. I knew that if I pushed on, they would be there. They always were. I had two choices, go left or go right. If I chose right and everyone followed me, we could all be killed. If I chose left and everyone followed me, we could also be killed. It was the most important decision of my life, and I knew exactly what to do. I followed wherever my legs would take me. These are the moments that defined my time there, the times that I can gaze back on and know that I am lucky to be alive.

So many years later I can look back on my experience and I can talk about it. There are many things I did not mention in this story. Some things are so horrible that they need never to be talked about to a single soul, things that nobody could possibly comprehend. Those horrible things were part of my everyday experience. But it has shaped who I am today. Not a day or a minute goes by that I do not think of these things. That how at nineteen years old I was a grown man, knowing that each day, each moment, each step could have been my last. I have many friends that do not have the opportunities that I have today: to go to school, to enjoy a football game, to kiss a girl. They are no longer here, and they are some of the best men I have ever had the honor of knowing.

In Pashto “Korta Za” is a phrase that means “go home”. The locals would always tell us that, meaning that this was their home and we needed to leave. To me, it always had more meaning. To me, it meant that we would be going home. But not going home as who we once were; we would be going home as shells of those young men. Forever changed by our experiences, our innocence forever left on a mountain top in the Dehana Pass of Helmand Province, Afghanistan.

An old unsolved murder mystery in a foreign sea-port. Ship Captain the victim, done nobody any harm. Who killed Captain S. Palori and why?

Why was Palori’s mission kept quiet from the populace of the island country that received his cargo three full years? This was the further and larger question, one ultimately of State and international relations.

Poor, unfortunate Palori. Second-Mate Rashid was still grieving the man more than thirty years later, in the midst of his own recent misfortune.

Palori’s misery might have been over instantly with a single bullet, no lingering or hardship. Rashid’s lot on the other hand would be hardship and trouble all the remaining days of his life.

The tale of Palori’s end and Rashid’s own present difficulty were bound up together. You could not have the one without the other.

Usually Rashid kept a fine and sunny disposition. Even eighteen months after his accident he had learned not to complain and irk listeners with his troubles. People could not listen more than a little to tales of woe. That kind of thing could not be endured more than once in a while. Little wonder Rashid adopted that uncomplaining manner.

It’s OK. A nuisance, but you know. Not so bad.

In the first place, Rashid would do himself no good at all moaning and groaning.

How does a man turning sixty cope living suddenly with one half-leg and a half-foot? Eighteen months after his accident Rashid had time to consider and rake over the past. There had been the lying prone in a hospital bed a good time too. Out on the water seamen were tutored in reflection by waves and far-fetched skies. Rashid showed all the signs.

One thing Rashid had surmised was that amputees had a shortened life span. The problem was something to do with the circulation, the truncation bottling up the blood somehow. In his remaining limbs Rashid could feel the change, even in the unaffected arms. The former strength in Rashid’s hands had been lost, his secure, tight clasp never returning. A simple double-knot was beyond Rashid now.

*

Just as Palori and the ship’s story came in segments, the matter of Rashid’s condition and his particular circumstances followed the same pattern. The wheelchair was one thing, presenting the general case plainly enough for anyone to see. Enquiring after details and examining more closely needed a number of meetings.

Vietnam came up somehow without warning. Being a younger man still short of sixty, Rashid seemed an unlikely source for anything touching the war in Vietnam. Developing the account of sailing days, the usual roll-call of countries and ports was tallied. All the old sailors brought out the extensive experience. There were something like two hundred countries visited during Rashid’s career on the water, numerous ports among them. Mombasa, Panama, Texas… Ho Chi Minh was finally included in the list of impressive, out of the way points on the compass.

Following which full circle, Rashid’s last, fateful trip to Vietnam, where he had gone to investigate a business opportunity. First Palori’s fateful trip to Vietnam; followed thirty years later by Captain-in-his-own-right by then, Rashid the Malay.

*

Palori never made it out of Vietnam; Rashid had gotten more than three quarters of the way home. On the Peninsular highway in Negri Sembilan, Malaysia, riding his big Kawasaki 900 through the monsoonal downpour, the rear tray of a Double B it may have been suddenly swinging across in front of Rashid and pulling him under its wheels.

Through the early telling, before we had arrived at Palori, it had been assumed the shoe on the end of Rashid’s good leg enclosed an intact foot. Not the case; therapeutic item.

On the fourth or fifth meeting, Rashid waved a hand at the shoe with its adhesive straps rather than laces, only then observed for the first time.

Though wasted, both arms and hands were whole and undamaged; ribs and shoulders well-healed.

Divorced. An eighty-nine year old Ceylonese mother, who spoke a language unknown to her children, living alone out in Bedok South. Estranged sibling relationships made things harder again.

The former sailor’s grass-widow encountered her first husband across at Geylang Serai Market recently for the first time in twenty years. A small island like Singapore, yet even so the former wife had heard nothing of Rashid’s accident of more than a year and half ago. Their two daughters the same no doubt, ignorant of what had become of their father.

The former wife had asked after Rashid’s new wife and was surprised, shocked indeed, to learn there was none.

(Had Rashid rehearsed what he would tell his wife when they finally, inevitably met? It was impossible to tell and difficult to ask)

I have only one wife. Never another, Rashid told the woman who had divorced him twenty years before.

Pointing at his heart when he delivered the encounter at the Labu Labi table.

It made the former wife cry. Seeing him suddenly in a wheelchair; then comprehending the solitariness on top.

*

Almost certainly, one assumed, Rashid had led the wayward sailor’s life away from home. Rashid himself had been the victim of a port shooting, at a table outside a bar in the Philippines. Jealous husband or boy-friend involved, Rashid had surmised.

In fact, on the contrary, Rashid maintained, the usual seaman’s dissolution did not apply in his case.

A handsome man still, Rashid held to the position. There had been no whore-houses, no girls in any ports, no girlfriends of any intimate kind. An irony for such a Sea-salt to lose the loved one blameless like that.

Rashid’s good leg carried the marks of his earlier lucky escape in the Philippines: one wound from the bullet that went in above the knee and the other grazing the thigh. That incident too had required a period of hospital recuperation. Put in the shade now by subsequent events.

*

Palori had collected his bullet in the head. Early nightfall, Ho Chi Minh City.

Dusk was a strange time in Ho Chi Minh even five years after the war. It was as if the smoke of bombs and chemicals still rose up from the fields despite the intervening years, bringing a premature close of day. Some of it was the peasants burning off, though this was different to what Rashid was accustomed to in Singapore from the Sumatran and Malaysian burn-offs.

Shrouding dusk that rose from the ground in the port of Ho Chi Minh and drew unexpected nightfall in strange, unfamiliar hues.

Even when not on his watch, Captain Palori came up to the bridge, ordered coffee and handed round cigarettes. Palori often sang tunes like the troubadour Malays.

Palori had taken his cigarette over to the port-side window. There beside the bearing compass, at the open window, the Captain blew toward the cranes loading the Seasweep’s cargo. Marines below working in the compound, trolleys rolling over the jetty back and forth.

Second-Mate Rashid was down in the Mess Hall taking an early supper when the shots rang out. After the heat of late afternoon, all the port holes were still wide open.

*

Rashid was scheduled to attend regular medical check-ups for his wounds at two different hospitals. Transport was a problem. One morning Rashid waited from eight until well after noon for the friend who had agreed to drive him. A lift for the appointment would have been a great help. Rashid did not ask that anyone wait for him to finish with the doctors, just drop him.

Without money for cab fare, a few weeks previously Rashid had wheeled himself back from Tan Tock Seng out in Balestier Road. Cars honking behind. Rashid had kept to the kerb and pushed on. Luckily some Bangla boy helped him over the Kallang Bridge. The soon-to-turn sixty former bike enthusiast enjoyed the rush going down on the other side.

Sore shoulders and fingers afterward, thumb and forefinger especially. Three hours in all. Twice now Rashid had returned from the hospital under his own steam.

As Rashid’s story emerged the news-reports of the death of the famous old Viet general Nguyen Vo Giap,  reminded of the figures. Two and one half million Vietnamese casualties during the course of the war; 58,000 Americans on their side, Rashid was told after some double–checking.

No surprise this for former Captain Rashid. The population of Singapore three decades ago dying in a long, protracted war against the French and then the Americans.

Fifty-eight thousand Americans tallied roughly for Rashid too. A short while Rashid had revolved the latter figure, calculating quietly for himself over some minutes.

*

Second-Mate Rashid signed on from the beginning with Captain S. Palori, in 1979. Full three year term on the Seasweep. After Palori was killed a Filipino Captain was brought in to take command.

The job could not wait; as soon as the Seasweep was loaded, anchors away. Some kind of investigation dragged on for a while behind them at the dock. It was a hopeless, futile endeavour. Palori’s killer would never be found. Five years after the war, not only Ho Chi Minh, but the whole region was awash with guns of all kinds and no end of marksmen.

All the ports were dangerous, Ho Chi Minh particularly. The World Vision International Chief and the Shipping Agent had warned the men never to stray from the compound on the dock. It was highly dangerous. No-one had anticipated the deck or the bridge could prove equally so.

*

Rashid gave the well-known report of the returning sensation of the missing limb. Chuckles at it as if at the captivating play of a favourite child. Funny that.

One evening raking over the details, recapitulating key points, a small, precocious boy happened by and stopped directly before Rashid in his chair. Clearly the pair was known to each other from the footpath outside the kopi shop.

The boy had not forgotten Rashid. Not forgotten and perhaps dubious and unsatisfied at the man’s by-play.

Hey Mister. Where’s your leg?

Again Rashid repeated the tale of his fishing accident that he had told the boy previously.

Hanging over a line, no bite. Waiting. Waiting.

The boy was looking into Rashid’s chair harder than he was listening.

Like a rifle barrel suddenly raised, the stump twitching up from Rashid’s shorts and surprising more than just the boy.

TWANG!

Oh Gee! Fishy got dinner now. The Burger King one. The other leg was too spicy for Mr. Fish’s taste. Chuckle, chuckle, chuckle.

After the theatrics the child was peering closely again. That was what it looked like, alright. But really?

The Grandpa behind the young lad had showed chattering jaws for apology.

You know how it is.

Which was unnecessary for Rashid. No harm done; the boy was understandably curious.

*

It had been assumed Rashid had a flat of his own, rented if nothing else. More than thirty years a seaman; sixteen as Master.

The chaps around Geylang Serai still honoured the former Captain. Local businessmen establishing new ventures picked Rashid’s brain for various particulars.

How had the Captain let all that money slip through his fingers, never thinking of rainy days ahead?

By the mid-‘90s the shipping game had changed, barter trade becoming the norm, which priced Singaporean Masters out of the business. Far cheaper Indonesian and Chinese officers had been readily available. For a number of years Rashid led the local protests for native Masters on Singaporean ships.

In his chair Rashid slept nights there by Labu Labi. When the place closed for the day the old Sea-salt pulled up one of the red plastic chairs for his leg. An improvised sailor’s bunk.

When some money came his way Rashid took a hotel room, washing his clothes and using the aircon for drying. Being always so clean and presentable, one assumed other arrangements.

Luckily for Rashid, there would be money coming from insurance and also CPF, once the paperwork and procedures were complete.

*

A few years on there would come a whiff of the con man about Rashid. After four or five months of regular nightly sits at the kopi shops, Rashid disappeared for a stretch and on return said little about his absence. A hot scheme was afoot, a project that promised rich returns. Only a few thousand was needed, $4-5K for a nice windfall. Timber or sand it might have been, bundled with the usual oil. One of the Javanese Sultans was on board. If you or any of your Australian friends were interested.

A rift with Bee Choo preceded another absence. Surprisingly, Bee, who always pleaded straightened circumstances, had advanced the Captain a thousand or more dollars. A short-term return had been promised; the time blew out and Bee became importunate. Rashid fully intended to repay; Bee would be duly recompensed. But she could not get about making false accusations; Rashid would answer the police, or any other authority. The money had sunk in some kind of hole and Rashid was in no position to produce a sum like that at the drop of a hat.

Another disappearance saw a turnaround—here was the Captain flashing a wallet thickly stacked with fifties, easily over a grand. There was more in hand too. Had you eaten? Could the Captain buy you a meal or drink? Rashid’s numbers had come up on the 4D or Toto.

Rashid’s innocence in the rupture with the wife rang somewhat suspiciously too. Remaining faithful and supportive himself, there had been no reason; the woman had simply abandoned her husband. It was rare in that conservative Muslim milieu. The two daughters “followed” the mother; they had become estranged. One would have liked to have heard the other side.

*

Eight or nine day round trip, depending on the weather. Two voyages a month over three years. Palori was killed around the half-way mark of the cartage.

How many body bags had the Seasweep carried? On one particular trip there had been almost fifty in the hold, Captain Rashid reported over the richly sweetened kopi that he favoured.

Rashid was in a position to know the numbers. Second-Mate’s duty had included going down into the hold with the Marines to verify figures. Numbers correlated with names showing in the clear plastic pockets of the bags, where any personal effects were also placed.

Second-Mate counted off carefully for each delivery, presenting the documents to Captain Palori, and then the relieving Captains after him.

All present and accounted for, Captain.

The ship could not leave port without the clearance.

Verifications could be difficult for the Second-Mate when there was some kind of inconsistency, larger batches usually throwing up problem on top of problem.

So many Browns on numerous occasions, seven or eight not unknown on a large, single loading.

Browns in opaque bags of that colour, zippered tight and tagged.

After the exhumation of corpses that had been in the ground ten years many of them, there should not have been such stench rising from the hold and penetrating the entire ship.

Down in the hold masks were useless and the odour saturated clothing and hair. Some of the sailors took their meals on deck rather than the Mess Hall.

Some of the sailors surmised the chemicals the Americans had dropped infected their dead and possibly posed a threat to themselves now in turn. What might be in store as a result of their work on the Cross and Bones Seasweep?

It was the Devil’s own wages. Long-termers on the job were given cholera shots every three months; special pills were available to help the men cope, one morning and one night. Second-Mate didn’t like the whooziness and only took a single pill at most.

The bags were supposed to be air-tight.

Forklifts pulled pallets from the rear of delivery trucks. Sometimes the ship waited two or three days for a single truck to arrive, the officers on the Bridge watching the marines lounge, play cards and smoke below.

On the dock they carted ten at a time, slowly and carefully on trolleys pulled by motorized carts. Ten was the maximum on the trolley.

From the jetty alongside, the pallets were craned aboard directly into the hold and sorted into racks.

Second-Mate Rashid had needed to stand on his toes to get the particulars of the topmost bags. Occasionally watched by high-ranking American officers, once even a general of some kind, who climbed down into the hold to inspect.

Second-Mate was specifically charged with ensuring each tier was double bound and securely tied against the typhoons and other weathers.

Out on one side of the port the jungle came down almost to the water, tall trees in the midst that became the centre of suspicion after Palori’s killing. Captain Palori’s was not the neat, piercing wound from close range. A sniper awaiting his chance in amongst the lush greenery could have bided his time until Palori presented a clear target.

120-30 metres. Single bullet only ever found, though some of the men reported a hail of fire.

Another body-bag was added for Palori.

*

An easy, mostly uneventful passage down through the Gulf of Thailand, past some of the resort islands. Along the East coast of Malaysia and around into Sembawang.

Same route taken by land-lubing Captain Rashid on the Kawasaki more than thirty years later, not far inland from the coast.

Through the war there was good business from the Americans come down on R&R into the naval base at Sembawang. Like many other ports of the region, Singapore had prospered with the American presence. The soldiers on a break from the jungle were ready to spend up big. The prostitution industry in South-East Asia essentially derived from the Americans in Vietnam.

The trade in living flesh was an open secret in Singapore, well-known even to schoolchildren. That of the repatriation of foreign war dead much more closely guarded.

The matter was so sensitive that there was not a whisper of any kind. No one had heard of the arrangement in Singapore. Three years’ transport to-and-fro.

From Sembawang the bodies were trucked to Changi, where U.S. aircraft took the cargo the last leg home. Local carpenters were engaged for the pine caskets that would present the remains to kin in the States.  Military bands, draped flags and saluting guards of honour.

*

Nothing surprising about the secrecy for the City-State. Nothing shameful about repatriating war dead. On the contrary, it was an honourable, compassionate service performed for an important ally.

A certain prudence was all. The Malaya Emergency was some years before. Soeharto in command in Indonesia. The Near and Far East continued at the time very much full-blush Red.

No need provide information unnecessarily to the public. Why would one do that? No harm occasioned.

The Red Alert at embarkation at Ho Chi Minh ran counter to the usual story of the ready Vietnamese forgiveness and charity toward the former foe. Every war left grizzly, hard-arse tough guys up in the hills or jungles, continuing their private struggle. How could one blame renegade Vietnamese units?

Poor Palori, ni kriv, ni duzan; neither guilty, nor indebted, as the Montenegrins, well-versed in warfare, concluded for such personal tragedies.

For a while there Rashid had been selling the dried and seasoned packets of cuttlefish and cigarette lighters from one of the Labu Labi front pavement tables, earning a few dollars while awaiting his compensation. Smiles and good cheer maintained.

Memorable scenes of the Captain lighting up one of his Gudang Garams beside his eighty-nine year old mother, with her own expertly rolled tabacci.

*

In the first months listening to Rashid’s unfolding of the Seasweep you could not help wondering. A three year operation of that scale, without a whisper. Asking around, combing the newspapers of the period, the parliamentary record—nothing. Men from the marine sector, the army and police quizzed; politically engaged, educated citizens.

Eventually, five or six years after Rashid left the scene for good, it seemed—he had mentioned a plan to retire in Indonesia—an independent source emerged. Mohammed Noor from Joo Chiat Complex had worked a couple of decades at the Seletar airport, where he sometimes liaised with the port at Sembawang. No word in his time of the transport. But in his retirement, at the Haig kopi shops Modh frequented most days, a pal, chap called Man—Osman—an Indian, told of his sewing at Sembawang. It might have been others filling the bags; Man was tasked with the stitching of the fabric, working with industrial machines. Bodies of a single limb, or trunk only; ambiguous bodily segments bundled. Two left arms; a pair of heads. Man saw them go into the bags. They might have been sorted better on the other side. Telling what he had heard from Man at the Haig, Mr Modh swivelled in his chair with a chuckle and grin.

The Pretzelman died yesterday. He was shot on his corner half a block from his home, and if he has family they’ll pile stuffed animals, and one of his boys will spray-paint RIP, and someone will take his corner. Old ladies will sometimes mention him, but that will die out as well, and the neighborhood’s memory of him will fade like the colors of the teddy bears’ fur and the sharpness of the letters RIP and the print of the newspaper clipping in its vinyl sleeve stapled to the telephone pole.

Dana knew the Pretzelman. She was a fifteen-year-old girl from up the block. She knew of the Pretzelman before he had the corner, because her eldest brother had fucked the Pretzelman’s cousin for a few months, but the two of them never met until the Pretzelman took the corner and began to make himself known.

He stayed on the corner all day, unlike the men who owned neighboring blocks and took breaks on the hot days to drive around in their cars with their music and air-conditioning blasting, just to make themselves seen. He just walked down in the mornings and stayed there all day, every day. He and his boys would talk to each other, and stare down cars whose drivers they didn’t recognize, and sell to those who bought.

Dana first met him one morning when her grandmother sent her out for a forty of Olde English. It was a hot Sunday, and her grandmother’s favorite treatment for the brutal heat of their home was to drink something cold. The house smelled of death from the time that a great-aunt had declined and passed in the living room. Because the family had no money to keep her in a hospital, and because her bed couldn’t fit up the stairs, for six months she had been in the center of all activity in the house. The stench of her sheets and her disease had slowly permeated everything, and then she had died. Dana liked being sent to the store for forties and half gallons of milk and packs of Newport 100s because it got her out of the smell.

She walked down the street, looking out for any of her friends who might be awake and out on their stoops. She didn’t see anyone as she walked the block, so she crossed diagonally through the Pretzelman’s intersection toward the store that stood on the corner where he usually stood with his friends. The small white awning read, “Complete Grocery and Deli,” and there was a sign that said, “Hoagies Snacks Cigarettes We Appreciate Your Business.”

Dana knew enough to know what groups of boys said to girls walking alone, and she knew that her age was no longer a protection now that her body had changed. That day there were three others besides the Pretzelman. As she walked up to them, and they looked at her flip-flops and her shorts and her beater and her purple bra underneath, she prepared herself to deliver an insulting reply to their comments, but no one said anything. The Pretzelman smiled at her, and she passed through them into the store.

She walked up to the glass, spoke loudly, “Olde E,” to the distorted image of the lady on the other side, passed through the slot the five-dollar bill her grandmother had given her, waited for her change and the brown bag to spin on the carousel to her side, and left. As she passed back through the group, the Pretzelman said, “Have a good day now,” and she didn’t say anything.

That day the heat endured, so Dana was sent back to the store two more times on the same errand, and by the last trip, she had smiled at the Pretzelman. He told her to have a good night.

The Pretzelman lived in an abandoned house around the corner that he and his boys had fixed up a little bit. He said hello to the old ladies. He threw his trash in the can, at least when he was on his corner. Dana wasn’t sure if he made his boys do the same, but there wasn’t much trash on his corner compared with the other three of that intersection, so she thought that he did.

He got a puppy from a man he knew who bred pits. It was a brown-and-white dog with a light nose and light eyes. He walked it on a leash down to his corner in the mornings, and then he tied it to the stop sign, and it stayed with him and his boys. They fed it chips and water ice and other things that they bought from the store. The old ladies sometimes would stop and pet it.

Dana loved dogs, and she asked the Pretzelman one day if she could pet it, and he said, “Of course,” so she petted it and talked to it. After that, on trips for Newports and chips and hug juices, she would always kneel down quickly and whisper in the dog’s ear, “Good pup,” or “I love you.” The Pretzelman would smile down at her, and she would tug on the dog’s ear and then run in and finish her errand. One day as she knelt down to pet it, she looked over at a parked car and she saw a pistol sitting on top of the rear passenger side tire.

She got more comfortable around the Pretzelman through her relationship with the puppy. She asked him one day if she could see his gun. He chuckled and he said, “That stuff isn’t for girls like you,” but when she asked again a few weeks later, he reached into the wheel well and picked it up. He did something to it that make it rasp and click, then handed it to her. The weight of it frightened her, and she stared at it in her hand, thinking in a haze that it must weigh more than the puppy. She put her finger to the trigger, and the gun was so big that only the tip of her finger could reach around. She stood up and pointed the gun at the Pretzelman, and she heard her own voice say, “What now,” and she saw the Pretzelman’s face drain.

Her hand shook and her knees shook, and the Pretzelman took one step forward and snatched the gun from her hand and slapped her in the face. She didn’t cry out, but she shuddered and cried a few tears and said, “I’m sorry, I don’t like that.” She had scared herself as much as she scared him, and the Pretzelman saw this, and he said, “This ain’t no joke. Why you think I said guns aren’t for girls like you.”

She talked to him a lot about guns after that. They sat on the stoop of the house next to the store, and he told her that most boys held their left arm over their face while they shot with their right because they didn’t want to see what the bullets did. He said that only the crazy ones or the liars said they didn’t cover their face. She asked him if he covered his face, and he didn’t answer for a minute. Then he said, “Not the first time.”

He took her behind his house to shoot the gun, because she asked him if she could try it. They walked through the high nettles and the broken glass and the needles, and he said, “Watch out for dog shit.” He made her stop and then walked ten feet and set a bottle on the back of a chair and came back and handed her the gun and said, “Here.” She pointed the gun at the bottle, and her body jerked, and her ears rang, and the smell made her eyes burn. She looked at him after the first shot, and he said, “Try again, but hurry up ’cause they’ll call the cops.”

She shot six more times and hit the bottle with one of the shots, but she couldn’t tell which one because the cracks and the flashes didn’t match up. The wall behind the bottle was soft quarried stone with lots of mica, and the divots and craters where her bullets hit were a fresher shade of gray than the rest, and they sparkled in the light. She thought through the roaring in her ears that if someone were to shoot the whole house, it would look newer than it did.

She told people about the Pretzelman because she was proud to know him. She told her friends about him and introduced a few of them to him. One Saturday night she had her friend Kiana sleep over, and they whispered about boys until late. “He don’t say anything ignorant to you, and he’s even nice to the old ladies,” Dana said. Kiana rolled her eyes.

“You know he’s too old for you. You wouldn’t even know what to do when he started to try out that nasty shit.”

Dana shrieked and rolled over onto her belly. Then she said, “I would too know what to do. I would too.”

That night after the girls had fallen asleep, they were awoken by a string of gunshots and then tires squealing. When it ended they ran to the windows and looked up and down the block, but they didn’t see anyone. Kiana fell back asleep soon after, and Dana lay there for a long time listening to her steady breathing, thinking about situations that could be, and in them what she would do.

On her way to the bus the next morning at seven, Dana walked past the poppy store and saw the Pretzelman in his normal spot. He nodded to her, and she ducked her head. She felt a quickness in her chest and heard a buzzing in her ears. When she got on the bus, she tried to close her eyes and take a nap like she usually did on the way to school, but she couldn’t find a comfortable position in her seat.

In English class that day, Dana’s teacher talked about how the best characters always seem very real, yet a little too large for life. Dana raised her hand and said, “I know someone like that. He’s got the corner on my block, and he has this nice dog. They call him the Pretzelman because his skin color is like the pretzel part, and that stuff he sell is white like the salt.”

“He sounds like an interesting character,” said the teacher. “I would enjoy reading a story about the Pretzelman.”

After that Dana couldn’t help but think of the Pretzelman as a character. Everything he did was covered with a thin gauze of fantasy. One of the boys on the block wanted to work for him, but they already had a lookout and the boy was too young for any of the other jobs, so they sent him on little errands. One of these errands was to take the bus to Target and buy sheets, because the Pretzelman was tired of sleeping on a bare mattress. Or at least tired of hearing his girls complain about it. The boy took the hundred dollars he was given and rode the bus for thirty-five minutes and went into Target and bought the sheets. The Pretzelman had said to him, “I don’t need no change, understand?” The boy knew that the change was to be his payment for the errand, but in order to avoid looking like he was trying to profit too much, he bought the most expensive set he could find. He brought back a set of king-size sheets and proudly presented them to the Pretzelman, but they didn’t fit the twin-size mattress. According to Dana, the Pretzelman didn’t make the boy go back to Target and exchange them because the mistake had been his to not give the boy more specific orders. They made fun of the boy and called him King Size, and the Pretzelman slept on a twin-size mattress with sheets for a king. Dana looked at sheets the next time she was in Target, and she saw that the most expensive sheets sold there had a thread count of six hundred and cost $89.99, plus tax.

Another time Dana walked down to the poppy store and came upon the peak of an argument between the Pretzelman and one of his girls. She was standing in the street screaming at him and making motions with her arms like she was throwing something at him. The motion was like a Frisbee, and the girl did it over and over again with each hand, and sometimes with both. But the Pretzelman, like a character in a different movie, was just standing against the wall of the store. He wasn’t looking at the girl, and he wasn’t looking away from her, and it looked to Dana like he hadn’t noticed that there was anyone else there at all.

There was a certain face that the Pretzelman used when he was out on the corner, but this one was different. His normal stern-faced grill would crack sometimes. The corners of his eyes would crinkle up if he caught her spitting or stopping to adjust her belt or her shorts. His eyes would crinkle, and she would know he had watched her the whole time.

This face wasn’t crinkling at all, no matter what the girl screamed about his shithole house and his dirty, grubbing life. Suddenly Dana saw him in the same pose, leaning with his shoulders against the wall and his feet planted, but the vista had changed. The tan car in front of him and the picket fence across the street with its peeling paint were gone, and instead he was at the edge of an enormous, planted field, looking out at the work he had done and the work yet to do. Or he was at the top of a rocky hill, and he was looking down at the river below, at the cattle or the buffalo. Or he was on the balcony of a high-rise, looking past the skyscrapers toward the lower buildings, the row homes, and the narrow streets that he owned. Or he was in the tunnel at an arena, waiting to be introduced over the loudspeakers. Waiting for the roar of the crowd. The girl in the street was still yelling, her hair and her cheeks shaking with rage. He could have been made of stone.

Dana tried to talk to the Pretzelman about how she saw him, what she thought about him. Every time she tried it, her words ran into the obstacle of his eyes on her, the smile starting to play in the corner of his mouth. One time she made it as far as telling him, “You know, you’re nice. Really nice.” She wanted to continue, but she could tell he was making fun of her when he replied, “Well, some people think so. I’m glad you think so.”

In English class her teacher made the class do a writing exercise called “What everyone knows vs. What I know.” Dana continued the first sentence. “What everyone knows about the Pretzelman is his puppy, and his nickname.” She quickly wrote a full page in her looping script, smiling as she pictured his eyes, his hands.

She was still going when the teacher said it was time to begin the second part. She wrote, “But what only I know is that he…”

She stopped writing then, and thought about what would happen if she wrote what she knew—really knew—about the Pretzelman. Or if she told it to him out loud. How would his eyes look if she wrote it—all of it—and then handed this letter to him, rather than turning it in to the teacher? When the class ended, her ellipsis was still open, waiting to be filled with what she knew.

Before long the Pretzelman died, and here’s how it happened. He woke up on his mattress on the floor between the sheets he got by sending his boy on the bus to Target. He grabbed his gun from the floor next to his bed. He put the leash on the dog, and he hollered to the others to get up. He let himself out the back, which is what they always did so that the front could stay boarded up and keep its abandoned look. He walked around to the front of the house. He didn’t carry the dog over the broken glass, as he had done when it was a smaller puppy. He might have waved hello to an old lady. He might have stopped to wait while the dog took a shit.

As he walked down the street, he heard the engine of the car roaring, and he looked up to see why someone was going that fast. He saw clearly the face behind the wheel, and then the tires screeched, and he saw clearly the other face in the back seat, before the bright flashes. He went for his gun, but the bullets spun him around and knocked him onto his belly, and his arm and the gun got pinned under his body. The dog ran off. The Pretzelman bled out onto the sidewalk while one of the old ladies called 911, and his boys came out and saw what had happened and they ran off. Dana left her house to catch the bus and saw the cops taping off an area around a body that was covered with a heavy sheet too small for the whole creeping stain. She didn’t know it was the Pretzelman until she came home that afternoon and her friends told her.

As she lay in bed that night, she thought about the dark red color and feared that she might never be able to think about anything else. She searched her feelings, wondering distantly if she was going to cry. She fell asleep thinking, but she slept well. It rained that night and the whole day after, so the stain was gone. The Pretzelman’s mother placed the news clipping of his shooting inside a plastic sleeve and stapled it on the telephone pole, with a note about a reward for evidence leading to the killers. Before long the corner belonged to someone else, and there was a colorful cairn of stuffed animals piled against the fence where he’d lain, and one of the walls nearby read RIP. Dana noticed these things when she walked out to the store or the bus stop, and she passed them again whenever she walked back home.

Major publishing house enthusiasm for war, mil, and vet-themed books has noticeably waned in the past few years, but two small presses, MilSpeak Foundation and Middle West Press, have emerged to fill much of the void. Between them MilSpeak and Middle West have recently published a remarkable number of interesting titles by new and established vet and vet-adjacent authors: MilSpeak published six titles in 2022 alone, with more coming this year, while Middle West has been nearly as prolific. The energetic output reflects the passion and vision of MilSpeak and Middle West’s current executives, Tracy Crow and Randy Brown, respectively, both veterans and accomplished authors themselves. The vet-writer community is something of a subculture and vet-writing is something of a genre, but subcultures and genres require material manifestation. In this regard, MilSpeak and Middle West are carrying far more than their fair share of the load by publishing so much mil-writing. Frankly, their presence, let alone their accomplishment, within the contemporary war-writing scene has been a blessing. We are lucky to have them.

Tracy Crow is a former Marine and college writing instructor whose memoir Eyes Right: Confessions from a Woman Marine and craft-guide On Point: A Guide to Writing the Military Memoir are well-worth pursuing. As good as these books are, I’m even more struck by Crow’s publishing vision and eye for talent—she seems motivated by recognition that there is a surfeit of talent in the war-writing community that is underserved by the publishing industry. I first met Crow in 2018 at the War, Literature, and the Arts conference at the United States Air Force Academy, which featured an astonishing number of contemporary vet-and-mil authors. Crow may well have been recruiting, for a number of authors present at the conference have since been published by MilSpeak or have books on the way.

Randy Brown, aka “Charlie Sherpa,” is also a contemporary war-writing plank-holder, early-on offering war-writing commentary on his blog Red Bull Rising and frequently organizing panels at the annual Association of Writers and Writing Program conference. In those early years, Brown was still in uniform in the Iowa National Guard, with whom he later deployed to Afghanistan post-service as an embedded journalist. Along the line, Brown stood-up Middle West Press as an outlet first for his own writing. Soon came his poetry volume Welcome to FOB Haiku and then Twelve O’Clock Haiku, as well as the vet-writing anthologies Why We Write: Craft Essays on Writing War and Our Best War Stories. Later came titles by other vets and fellow-travelers, with an emphasis on poetry, and more vet-centric anthologies.

I recently asked Crow and Brown to answer a short set of questions about their enterprises, and each responded fulsomely with shrewd and entertaining responses. Their stories offer lively insights into military press publishing and each is packed with guidance for aspiring writers. Crow answered each of my questions as I proposed them, while Brown composed a narrative that riffs on my questions. Read them below, please, and join me in saluting their efforts:

:

Interview with Tracy Crow, President of MilSpeak Foundation

 When you became President of MilSpeak, what was your sense of its potential? What was your vision for it?

My vision for MilSpeak is constantly evolving. In 2017 when I became president, my vision was limited to relaunching the Foundation’s dormant writing workshop component. I’d already been leading workshops for women veterans and women military family members when MilSpeak’s founder, Sally Parmer, a retired, disabled Marine Corps veteran, encouraged me to merge my workshop program with the Foundation’s. A year later, we secured the Foundation’s first grant, which was from Wounded Warrior Project® for the funding of two weekend writing retreats for women veterans and family members that could accommodate 200 participants and 11 faculty, each of whom was a vet or spouse with creative writing teaching experience and published books.

But Sally’s vision when she founded MilSpeak in 2009 had included two components—writing workshops and book publishing. Her retired status had afforded her the time to manage both from 2009 to 2013, and MilSpeak’s titles from this era are still available on our archived website and on Smashwords. In 2020, I received an unexpected, generous donation from a friend who had seen me lead workshops and wanted to fund others; when I suggested we use her donation to relaunch the Foundation’s publishing component, she was overjoyed to do so, and has been actively involved ever since as our CFO.

In 2022, MilSpeak released 6 books in paperback and ebook formats, and will release 5 in 2023, and at least 4 in 2024. Meanwhile, we continue to offer writing workshops, mostly online since the start of the pandemic.

Today my vision for the Foundation is so much larger than I’d dared to dream in 2017. Using Graywolf Press as a model, I hope to evolve MilSpeak Books and our newest imprint, Family of Light Books, as presses recognized for their artful efforts to explore and elevate our understanding of human consciousness.

What are the rewards of being a small-press publisher?

The rewards are numerous. The greatest reward, however, is being able to say yes to a writer with a meaningful, high-quality manuscript who has felt marginalized and shut out by other traditional publishers, and then the collaboration with that writer from copyediting to cover design, and beyond. Our team of freelance editors and designers work hard to ensure our authors enjoy every aspect of their publishing experience.

What catches your eye in regard to proposals/drafts submitted to you for possible publication?

While MilSpeak publishes books authored by veterans and family members, not all our books are about the military or even mention the military. Our mission is to support the creative endeavors from within our community, period. However, the quality of the manuscript—and I’m referring to everything from sentence level writing to use of sensory language, pacing, character development, and a narrative arc—determines whether we’ll make an offer.

We’ve published an excellent coming-of-age debut memoir by Norris Comer, a military family member, who spent his first summer after high school graduation salmon fishing in Alaska, and earned a lifetime of lessons. His memoir, Salmon in the Seine: Alaskan Memories of Life, Death, & Everything In-Between, has received so many awards this year I’ve lost count.

Another family member, Karen Donley-Hayes, reveals the heartbreaking story in her debut memoir, Falling Off Horses,of a friendship that began in high school over a mutual love for horses that survives numerous falls, a rollercoaster of love losses and triumphs, and finally, a heartbreaking diagnosis of a fatal illness.

Navy spouse, Samantha Otto Brown, author of the debut memoir, Sub Wife: A Memoir From The Homefront, lifts the curtain on nuclear submarine life, revealing how she and fellow wives keep themselves afloat during the occasional excruciating silence during their husbands’ sub deployments.

Amber Jensen, wife of a National Guardsman, reveals the loneliness of pregnancy when her husband is deployed to Iraq, and the marital strains for a couple when a loved one returns from deployment, forever changed, in her debut memoir, The Smoke of You: A Memoir of Love During & After Deployment.

Our new imprint, Family of Light Books, has released a brilliant young adult novel, American Delphi, by military family member M.C. Armstrong, in which his main character, fifteen-year-old Zora Box, sets out to discover the true history of her family, including her father’s secretive military mission, and finds herself at the center of an activist movement with international hashtag status following  the tragic death of her best friend, a trans-teen. The Greensboro, North Carolina, Library selected American Delphi for its summer reading program, and Kirkus Review described the book as “An intriguing kaleidoscope…compelling….An engaging story of current events and social justice for teen readers.”

And of course we’ve published books written by veterans about the military experience, such as Lauren Kay Johnson’s memoir, The Fine Art of Camouflage, about her service in Afghanistan as a public affairs officer, Kevin C. Jones’s short-story collection, Collateral Damage; RLynn Johnson’s debut novel, Cry of the Heart; and Jennifer Orth-Veillon’s collection, Beyond Their Limits of Longing: Contemporary Writers & Veterans on the Lingering Stories of WWI.

What have you learned about trying to market war-and-military themed books? What do books about war-and-military themes have to offer a general reading public?

As for the actual marketing, MilSpeak supports its authors and their releases as best as our financial and personnel resources allow, but we’ve also discovered that the most successful approach for us tends to follow an organic unfolding. I can’t say enough about the unwavering support from the military writing community, and this includes military publications as well. Our authors have also appeared on local television programming, podcasts, book clubs, book fairs, etc.

From a business aspect, MilSpeak boosts the success potential of its releases by offering the same wholesale discount to retailers as the large traditional publishers offer, and the same return policy for unsold books. Not many small presses can do this if they’re profit driven. As a nonprofit, everything from our sales after paying royalties to our authors gets earmarked for the publication process of another book by a veteran and family member.

I’ve been closely examining the cross-generational impact of military service for more than a decade now, especially the impact of combat service on families. My sincere hope is that human consciousness will more quickly evolve toward conflict resolution that never includes war, and so our books tend to reflect the lesser known, yet gut-wrenching, aspects of how and why our world mindset seems trapped inside a warmongering matrix.

What MilSpeak titles are forthcoming? What is exciting about them?

In the fall, we’re releasing two novels:

Releasing October 15 is The Waiting World, by Andria Williams, author of The Longest Night that earned a starred Kirkus Review, and that Entertainment Weekly described as “A stunning debut.” In The Waiting World, Andria takes us back to the era just after WWI, and explores the seedy underworld of an American business tycoon, and that of his two Irish servant girls and their chauffeur-friend who are intent on forging a life on their terms, no matter the risks.

Releasing November 15 is Changelings: Insurgence, a captivating science-fiction thriller by Navy veteran and Cal Poly Pomona professor, Liam Corley, who shares that he drew from his experiences as a humanities professor and his overseas deployments to Afghanistan and Iraq to portray a futuristic world with a potentially harmful outcome for humanity if it eliminates what makes it truly human.

Spring 2024, we’re releasing three titles—The Celdan Heresies (a fantasy) by Megan Carnes; Shoalie’s Crow (a young adult novel by Karen Donley-Hayes); and Hills Hide Mountains (a novel) by Travis Klempan.

Fall 2024, we’re releasing a collection of essays and poems about a family’s cross-generational military service, The Indignity of Knowing, by University of Tennessee-Knoxville professor, Amber Nicole Albritton.

Randy Brown on the history and vision of Middle West Press:

I started Middle West Press as a sole proprietorship in 2003. I had been editor of a number of national Better Homes and Gardens-brand “how-to” newsstand magazines, and I continued to provide freelance writing, editing, and editorial project-management services to that sector, while also pursuing a graduate degree in architectural studies. My architecture thesis involved something you might call cultural-terrain analysis. Emplacing an object of public art as grit in the community oyster, to see what develops.

In 2008, my family and I started preparing for a deployment to Afghanistan. I was an Iowa National Guard citizen-soldier with one previous overseas deployment. Preparing for war, my daytime Army job involved internal communications and organizational lessons-learned. It wasn’t public affairs—although I often worked alongside the Public Affairs officer and NCO—but the brigade commander kept asking us all for ideas on best-practices and -policies regarding soldiers’ off-duty blogs and social media. The Internet was the Wild West back then. Sometimes, I didn’t know what to tell him.

There weren’t any training manuals, so I started my own off-duty blog under the pseudonym “Charlie Sherpa.” The exercise was equal parts “learn by doing” and “ask forgiveness, not permission.” People still call me “Sherpa,” particularly in veteran circles. It helps people find my published work. It also helps differentiate between my efforts as a veteran-activist, and as a for-hire writing and editing professional.

I ended up not deploying to Afghanistan. Got the word about 10 days before Mobilization-day. I retired instead. However, I eventually went to Afghanistan on my own, embedding as civilian media with my former unit. That story became an essay, and has even been re-told in comic book form (True War Stories, Z2 Comics).

In 2015, I registered Middle West Press as a limited liability corporation in the State of Iowa, and expanded business operations as an independent book publisher of journalism, non-fiction, and poetry. Poet Lisa Stice joined us as an associate editor in 2023. In the past, we’ve also had the pleasure of working with guest editors such as the Line of Advance journal’s Christopher Lyke, and Steve Leonard—the creator of the military-themed DoctrineMan!! cartoon.

We call ourselves a “micro-press”—we publish only one to four titles annually, and our projects can be driven as much by intellectual curiosity and artistic exploration as by potential profit. Our bottom line: We like to complicate and enrich readers’ insights into the people, places, and history of the American Midwest—and the U.S. military.

What’s the connection between “military” and “midwest”? Both are often overlooked by ivory tower academics, big city publishers, and others who seem to have their own pre-conceptions about what being a Midwesterner or veteran must mean. The truth is, not all veterans are “heroes.” Neither are all veterans “broken.” Reality is more center-mass than those tropes; reality is equal parts sublime, mundane, and human. To paraphrase Walt Whitman: We contain multitudes.

Veterancy shouldn’t be flyover country—a place viewed from 40,000 feet every November 11. War poets—a term that can include veterans and mil-fam and anyone else willing to do the work—can short-circuit expected narratives with amazing, everyday insights into hurt and loss and growth and reconciliation. I’ve often said that every U.S. citizen has a connection with the military, even if only as a voter and taxpayer. The fight for hearts and minds and empathy for what it means to go to war is out here. In the hinterlands. In the boonies.

Middle West Press published our first book of poetry for the same reason Sherpa started a blog: Learn by doing. Once we learn how to something—and to do it well—we try to teach others. The Army would call it “lessons-learned integration.” In 2022, I tried to capture the philosophy in a short prose-poetry-memoir, Twelve O’Clock Haiku.

 (Another lessons-learned tie-in: After the unit returned from Afghanistan, Middle West Press also worked with my former brigade public affairs colleagues, compiling and publishing a 668-page organizational history titled Reporting for Duty: U.S. Citizen-Soldier Journalism from the Afghan Surge, 2010-2011.)

Since 2015, we’ve serendipitously developed an expertise in curating and promoting “21st century war poetry.” Many of these soldier-poets—but not all—are rooted in the American Middle West. Each collection we publish is intended to disrupt stereotypes of what it means to be an American veteran, or to be a member of a military family. After all, we’re not all Navy SEALs and American Snipers. Some of us are F-16 pilots. Or Navy Corpsmen. Or Coast Guard mustangs. Or Army logistics soldiers.

We use poetry to build bridges of mutual empathy and understanding, between “military” and “civilian” audiences. Every poem is a conversation.

Our collections usually comprise more than 50 poems. In considering manuscripts, we look for unique voices, life-experiences, and perspectives. We also like to see lots of chewy intersections and contradictions within a poet’s veteran-identity. People are not just uniforms, after all—they are parents, spouses, hikers, professors, nurses, etc.

From a business standpoint, poetry books provide low-stakes opportunities for experimentation. We are a traditional-model publisher; in other words, we pay our authors—they never pay us. We don’t fund our operations via submissions-fees or “contests.” We don’t ask our authors to pimp their friends and families for pre-sales. And, when we publish, we use Print-on-Demand (POD) technology—wherever it is sold in the world, a copy of a book is printed only when it is purchased. That way, no one ends up with 500 extra copies sitting in a garage or basement.

Our starting goal with poetry books is to sell more than 100 copies. Because we run on bootstrap-budgets, that covers most everything but editorial labor. Our poetry books are priced to be accessible: Usually about $12 recommended cover price.

With our first books, we ended up doing more than break-even, and we’ve been able to replicate those successes a number of times over. By the end of 2023, we’ll have published 13 individual poetry collections, as well as anthologies of military-themed prose, poetry, and non-fiction.

Our poetry books are eye-catching, award-winning, and best-selling. One forthcoming collection is by a U.S. Navy Reserve intelligence officer, who also teaches American literature. One is by a U.S. Army veteran of Iraq, who now also writes gritty (and funny) crime fiction [Liam Corley, who is mentioned above by Tracy Crow]. A third is an Army veteran of Afghanistan—she’s a divorced single-parent who recently gender-transitioned, after years of sobriety and therapy.

Our books can be found on the shelves of such places as the Pritzker Military Museum & Library, the Dean F. Echenberg War Poetry Collection at the University of Texas-Austin, and even the Library of Congress.

We’re particularly excited about an anthology forthcoming this November, The Things We Carry Still: Poems & Micro-Stories about Military Gear. Showcasing the work of approximately 60 war writers, the book will also feature a set of 10 discussion topics and writing prompts inspired by the book’s content. The foreword is written by Vicki Hudson, a former U.S. Army officer who advocated dismantling “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policies.

We’ve got some crazy things planned for 2024 and beyond. For example, Middle West Press recently opened a call for a “Giant Robot Poems” anthology that will engage themes related to culture, war, and technology. Everything from Predator Drones to R2D2. We’re also conceptualizing a potential first call for an anthology of short war fiction; it would likely be organized around a particular geographic or genre theme.

I continue to volunteer as poetry editor for the national non-profit Military Experience & the Arts’ literary journal As You Were—a post I’ve held since about 2015. Editor-in-Chief David Ervin and other editors work hard to make that publication a welcoming, inclusive space. It’s a great market for war-writers who are just starting to explore their stories on the page. They love working with established writers, too.

Middle West Press also underwrites a community of practice called The Aiming Circle (www.aimingcircle.com), a resource for writers who regularly engage military themes and topics. Our coverage helps writers identify potential book publishers, literary journals, academic publications, and other markets for their work. The Wrath-Bearing Tree is one of our most-recommended literary markets.

So that’s a quick history of Middle West Press: Grit in the oyster. Learn by doing. Then teach others. Along the way, build bridges and disrupt stereotypes.

Wash, rinse, repeat.

Middle West Press: http://www.middlewestpress.com/

MilSpeak Foundation: https://milspeakfoundation.org/

Full disclosure: I have an essay in the MilSpeak anthology Beyond The Limits of Their Longing and another under consideration for an upcoming Middle West anthology.

Thank you Thank you for your service Thank you for going Thank you for coming back Thank you for not dying Thank you for taking the bullet, the mortar round, the shrapnel that is making its way to your heart by micromillimeters every year Thank you for eating that god-awful food gritted with sand so we don’t have to Thank you for eating Thanksgiving dinner on a paper plate Thank you for living in a metal shipping container for the first three months until they got their shit together and built proper housing for you and your men Thank you for driving a Humvee without armor while ambassadors and visiting senators and country music stars were going around in bulletproof SUVs Thank you for carrying a gun for slinging it across your body for wearing it like a heavy necklace that, after the first week, you hardly noticed was there Thank you for the magazine of bullets you polished every night Thank you for dripping with sweat Thank you for leaving your wife for eighteen months Thank you for telling your children you’d be back before they knew it Thank you for punching the walls of your shipping container Thank you for your bruised knuckles Thank you for screaming Thank you for crying quietly in the porta-potty when you thought no one was listening Thank you for enduring the stink and heat and filth of that entire year-and-a-half Thank you for writing back to that fifth-grade class when all you really wanted to do was sleep after a hard day of walking Thank you for looking through the tear-blurred sights of your rifle Thank you for crying over the dead Thank you for the sucking chest wound Thank you for the partial loss of your leg Thank you for your blood caught in a sterile metal tray shaped like a curled cheese puff Thank you for hating and killing Muslims Thank you for the hard clench of your jaw Thank you for thinking of us back here in the United States of Amnesia going about our war-free lives Thank you for our amber waves of grain purple mountains majesty bombs bursting in mid-air Thank you for Fox News and the pretty girl who reads the headlines Thank you for the freedom to fill my lungs so I can howl across the bandwidth of Twitter Thank you for this Big Mac and this Whopper and this Domino’s pizza Thank you for almost dying in order that I might live to gain another twenty pounds and then Keto myself back to normalcy two years later Thank you for the chance to marry Kevin S., to fuck him, to bear his two children, and to file for divorce when I was through with all of that Thank you for giving me the freedom to move from Portland, Maine to Portland, Oregon Thank you for my Golden Retriever Thank you for my God-given right to enjoy the rain Thank you for my new breasts and the blue pill which cures my erectile dysfunction Thank you for infomercials and the operators who are standing by Thank you for this cigarette and this beer and this fried pork rind Thank you for the chance to uncork this ’41 Cabernet and eat this Bernaise-smothered filet Thank you for the three Starbucks in my neighborhood Thank you for American Idol Thank you for my amazing Amazon Kindle Thank you for the Mall of America Victoria’s Secret Dippin Dots The Gap Best Buy and the weight of shopping bags that turn my fingers white Thank you for my Prius and the $3.34 per gallon which fills it Thank you for giving your blood for my oil Thank you for leaving and returning Thank you for limping through the airport on your half leg Thank you for that little American flag sticking from a side pocket of your rucksack (long may she wave) Thank you for your smile on a stiff upper lip and the way you tried to conceal your limp by swinging both legs in equal cadence like you were in a Sousa march Thank you for catching my eye Thank you for allowing me to stop you on the concourse Thank you for taking this stranger’s hand Thank you for saying You’re welcome No problem Glad to do it.

 The original version of “Thank You” was published in F(r)iction Magazine in 2015.

I fill the big bucket with soap and water and start heading across the field. It’s early on a Sunday and Gran Flower will want his solar cells cleaned, which they say isn’t really necessary, but Gran insists it helps. So I have woken up early and am hoping to reach Gran before he starts screeching and riling up the crows.

I pass through our low, flat garden plot. It used to be a marsh, and the rain still feels free to run downhill and stay awhile. From there, I head up the dusty northern hill, under the checkerboard shade of its acre-wide awning, half solar panels to farm the sun, half glass to keep the dust dry so we can farm that too. Then, descending the hill, I reach the desiccated riverbed fringed with crusty little succulents, which is where our property ends and the Gibsons’ begins. Gran wanted to be set up there last Sunday so he could spend the week swearing about them, the Gibsons, his synthetic voice cracking and popping at max volume, then—I imagine—going silent with awe the moment he saw a quail. The Gibsons don’t even live there anymore; the Government removed them decades ago. Gran knows that, but I think he just likes the solitude and the quail and a place to say “motherfucker” where the Holy Father can really hear him.

I get to the property line, and there’s Gran just where I left him.

From behind, Gran Flower looks like an aluminum sculpture of a sunflower. He has a long metal stem which sticks into the ground, and about five feet up, big metal leaves curl outward and upward. Hexagonal solar cells tessellate on the leaves’ upper surface; it is these I’ll need to clean.

As I walk around to face Gran, his head comes into view. It’s his own human face from before he was a Gran, cast (I assume faithfully) in metal like Agamemnon’s death mask. His head emerges from among the petals, as though they were a high starched collar and he a count.

“Hi, Gran,” I say.

WHO ARE YOU? comes the scratchy monotone of his synthesized voice. He’s probably filled up the tiny thumb drive stuck behind his head. Swearing at the Gibsons and God and country occupies a surprising amount of writable memory. He’s probably dumped unimportant stuff like who I am, who anybody is now.

I take a solid state drive from my pocket. This one’s much more capacious but nearly full just the same: eighty of a hundred petabytes. “Just a second, Gran. Don’t be scared.” I remove the small drive he’s currently using and swap it out for the other. Eighty petabytes of Gran Flower, the Gran that tells me stories, the Gran I went to the city and the museum with. My Gran.

GUHGUHGUHGUH SSSHIIIIT SHIT SSSSSSHHHHHIVER MY STAMEN, goes Gran. He gets glitchy when I swap drives since I am effectively replacing a bit of his brain.

“I’m here to clean your solar cells,” I say.

OH BEES OH BEES OH NO OH OH OH NO OH JONAS, he says, WEREN’T YOU HERE JUST AN HOUR AGO?

~

Gran Flower would be my sextuple-great-grandfather. He was among the first wave of Grans, or at least the first after the program became public.

A group of scientists had found some birds living in the most uninhabitably toxic places on earth, these big landfills full of old phones and computers and batteries. Places where the temperature reached 45, 50 Celsius all year round, and the ground was so acidic you could never go barefoot. The people had to wear masks and hazard suits and take pills, and their hair still fell out when they hit thirty.

But somehow the birds were doing fine—thriving, even. The way pigeons and rats live off human cities’ heaps of garbage, and not just live but live large, this one species of crow had found a way to turn people’s insistent fuck-ups into vitality and food.

So the scientists did the logical thing and caught a bunch of the crows and cut them open. The birds’ brains were all in various stages of conversion to metal. So they cut the brains open too and discovered that the metal was forming these perfect replicas of the nervous structure, down to little conductive nanotubes where there had been axons and dendrites.

Then they started experimenting on people. It was about two hundred and fifty years back, Gran Flower says. Nobody knew why all of a sudden there were so few homeless people. The poor and desperate just started disappearing off the streets, out of the campers they lived in, out of the factories and warehouses they worked in. People thought the president must be doing a great job, the economy improving, all that. But really some corporation was just plucking people up and taking them to labs to feed them bits of old laptops and see what would happen. And eventually that same president, who was president for life and had already had all his organs replaced three times, disappeared also.

The government held a candle for him and somehow installed an interim president. Then, five or six years on, the executive office called a press conference. Gran says everybody watched on the Internet as three secret servicemen wheeled something out on a hand cart under a giant purple mantle. They brought it out and stood it up and whipped off the mantle and revealed the likeness of the president, standing nine feet tall and made of titanium. A big POTUS golem affixed eternally to a podium.

When the golem started to speak they realized it was really him, it was President Gran as he came to be called, and not a sculpture or robot or art stunt. He explained the Gran technology and said we had finally achieved immortality, “we” being wealthy and powerful people (but he made it sound like the United States of America), and “immortality” being innately desirable. Then a bunch more Grans came out on stage under an aurora of flags as coronets blared. Some were carried or pushed, and some walked under their own power on weirdly-jointed metal centaur limbs. They were all these old rich guys, CEOs and the like, whose disappearances over the years had garnered various degrees of conspiracy-theoretic attention.

President Gran served as head of state for thirty more years that way. My Gran says he went crazy after that—REAL CALIGULA STUFF. When President Gran declared himself a pacifist and a socialist and an environmentalist, the Senate realized he was too far gone and voted to impeach, then melt him down. They then released a series of commemorative dollar coins, made of titanium and bearing his image.

~

I’m cleaning Gran’s solar panels and explaining to him that it’s been a year since we last loaded this version of his memory, not an hour. He says it’s disorienting when somebody swaps out his writable memory, like waking up from one dream into another. But he understands why I did it. The last time I left him with a full memory like that, he raved for a week straight and could barely string together a sentence by the end of it.

I’M GLAD YOU LEFT ME ON THIS SPOT, Gran says. THIS USED TO BE A RIVER, AND THE GODDAMN GIBSONS LIVED ON THE OTHER SIDE BUT THEY KEPT TO THEIR OWN, AND IT WAS PEACEFUL DOWN HERE BY THE WATER. THE DUCKS USED TO SPEND SUMMERS HERE, DUNKING THEIR BILLS UPSTREAM TO CATCH GUPPIES UNDER THE SHADE OF THE OAKS.

There’s not a tree for kilometers in either direction now, but I believe him.

~

Grans choose how their bodies look. Or, more often, their families or caretakers or lack of money choose for them. In Gran Flower’s time, they couldn’t efficiently compress neural structures to digital memory, so a Gran would only be able to remember new things for a few hours or so. This meant their minds were basically static: they could hold a conversation, but eventually they’d start to forget how the conversation had begun, and who you were, and hey why were you talking to them anyway?

Gran Flower hadn’t been able to afford the procedure; it was a benefit for military service. He’d been in The War for a long time: central Asia, then eastern Asia; then all over Europe; then putting down dissidents in unquiet cities throughout the U.S. But it was all The War. He got a leg and an arm blown off, so while he was becoming a Gran—doing the breathing exercises, reading the books, feeling his body and brain ossify—he designed his floral body plan. And once he was metal and his internal organs were useless, the family took him to a metalworker who forged his torso and remaining limbs down into a stem and welded the leaves on.

We went to Chicago once, Gran and I, to visit my mom’s side of the family. They had owned a few properties there in the city, and had been pretty well-off from landlording, enough that my great-great-great grandmother had been able to become a Gran. Gran Sticks, they called her. She had been really into video games. Of course now we don’t have “games” as such, just massive virtual worlds that you have to remind yourself every few minutes aren’t real. But in her time, you sat in front of the computer with a controller or a brain shunt. So that’s what Gran Sticks does. She plays games on a computer so antiquated the family can barely find parts for it.

That side of the family’s down to just one house now. They rent half of it to make a little cash and live huddled in a few rooms downstairs. You can hear Gran Sticks cackling at all hours in the singsong tones of her cutting-edge voice synthesizer as she blasts away virtual Communists, Fascists, extraterrestrials, insects, or disgruntled workers. The family wipe her memory once a week and delete her games’ saves, too, so they don’t have to buy her new ones.

~

WHAT ARE WE PLANTING THIS YEAR? Gran asks.

I’ve explained to my version of Gran the dust bowl, that we can’t plant much anymore, how it’s mostly a solar and sand farm. “We’ll have okra, and some wild cherries, black-eyed peas, nopales.”

THE CROWS WILL BE WANTING TO GET AT THE CHERRIES, I EXPECT, says Gran. SET ME UP THERE FOR THE WEEK; I’LL SEE IF I CAN’T SCARE ‘EM OFF.

Even after two hundred years of dust bowling, and climate change, and droughts, Gran still knows how to work the land. And I think he enjoys playing scarecrow.

I pull his stem up out of the ground and strap him across my back, into a kind of bandolier I’ve made for this purpose, and start walking.

~

That’s how I got Gran to Chicago on our trip—I carried his long, light body. I hitched a ride in the bed of a pickup truck from the farm to the train station with Gran balanced on my crossed legs. On the train, I leaned him against the window, and his metal nose tapped the glass as we bumped over rail ties.

Walking the streets after our visit with Gran Sticks, I kept Gran Flower in the bandolier, slung diagonally across my back. The sidewalks were full of people and Grans of all shapes. Somebody had placed their Gran in a baby stroller, a smooth little eggplant of a Gran with an artfully etched face. A pair of Grans across the street terrorized the sidewalk in wheeled go-cart bodies, their heads mounted like hood ornaments. An old man held hands with a humanoid Gran and rested his head on the round chrome shoulder. The pair trundled along aristocratically, careless of the impatient crowds.

We didn’t head back to the train station immediately but checked out the natural history museum, where they had an exhibit about human evolution. I walked Gran down the line of taxidermy and animatronics, from rhesuses to orangutans to gorillas, bonobos and chimpanzees, Neanderthals and Denisovans. Finally us, “us” being humans who haven’t become Grans.

At the end was an art piece consisting of two busts: a furious-looking chimpanzee and a surprised, wilted-looking old lady. The chimpanzee wore glasses with an archaic, silver chain around the frames, and he stared the old lady down. The old lady wore a plastic tiara.

In front of the art stood a placard outlining an evolutionary theory. It talked about how, sometimes, evolution works by lopping segments off an organism’s life span or adding new ones. How maybe humans were just chimps that never grew up all the way. “Neotenous apes,” the theory was called. It noted that most other mammals stop being so plastic and tolerant and apt to learn after a certain age. They get set in their ways, like an old dog you can’t teach new tricks to.

I peeked over my shoulder at Gran, his stem crossing my back like a greatsword, his petals nearly poking me in the eye. Sweat soaked my still-flesh ape back where the stem pressed into my skin. Gran was a bit languid in Chicago, the weather being so cloudy and he being so solar-powered. But I thought maybe this metamorphosis into a sleepy, near-deathless Gran was like humans’ next stage of life, the one we neotenous apes were missing. Like old dogs who can’t learn new tricks but somehow know when their human has a seizure, or that an earthquake’s coming, or not to trust the guest you’ve invited home. We won’t all reach that stage. Unless I get rich like Gran Sticks, or go to The War and manage not to die like Gran Flower, I’ll live a few short decades as an unfinished mammal, sweating and stinking and never setting in my ways.

~

I arrange Gran in the bandolier and take him to the cherry orchard. He’s facing backward and telling me bits of family history as we pass.

THAT’S WHERE WE SET UP THE STILL; OH, THE PARTIES WE’D HAVE AND THE MOONSHINE FLOWING TILL SUNUP, Gran says, AND AUNTIE STERN’S FIDDLE COMMANDED OUR FEET TILL THE DEVIL BANGED A BROOM ON HELL’S CEILING.

I am trying not to think about average memory formation rates. How many megabytes per minute are filling that drive, the one that holds my Gran. How many more times I’ll be able to talk to him like this. When the drive fills, that’s it, and I don’t have anywhere to back him up to. He’ll start babbling and swearing as virtual neurons half-overwrite each other. And I guess I’ll have to delete this bit of him, the memory of Chicago and the museum, and introduce myself again: “Hi Gran. You don’t know me; I’m your great-great-great- …”

We reach the orchard and I plant him. I wipe away a tear. SWEATING SO MUCH? DON’T TELL ME THAT LITTLE WALK WORE YOU OUT, BOY. HA. HA. HA. WHEN WILL I SEE YOU NEXT?

“Soon, Gran,” I say, as I remove the solid state drive.

OH NO OH OH OH NO, he says.

There Will Be No Irish Pennants

“Discipline organizes an analytical space.” [1]

Field Day & Inspection.

Windows shut blinds open half-mast.  Sinks will be bleached, faucets are to be
pointed outward, and aligned.  The toilet paper roll will be full.  The shower handle
will be left facing directly down towards the shower floor. Waste basket will be
empty, cleaned out with no stains or markings, set between the secretary and the
window, where the front corner meets, farthest from the door.

Beds will be made showing eighteen inches of white; six beneath and twelve above
the fold.  The ends will be neatly tucked at a 45 degree angle.  One pillow will be
folded once and tucked in the pillow case.

A shoe display will be at the foot of the bed and will consist of one pair of jungle
boots, one pair of combat boots, go-fasters and shower shoes, in this order.  All
laced left over right.

Each lock will be fastened on each locker and secretary, all set to ‘0.’

Inside one wall locker, hanging up there will be: one all-weather coat, one wolly
pully sweatshirt, one service ‘A’ blouse, two long sleeve khaki shirts—pressed
with the arms folded inward, four short sleeve khaki shirts, three cammie blouses,
two pair of green trousers, three pair of cammie trousers, and one pair of dress blue
trousers, in this order.  All shirts will be pressed and buttoned up.  All trousers will
be pressed and folded over.  All clothing will hang facing right.  All hangers will
face inwards, separated uniformly by one inch.  On the shelf inside the locker,
starting at the inner most edge, there will be six green skivvy shirts and three white
skivvy shirts—folded into six-by-six squares, six pair of underwear folded three
times, six pair of black boot socks, folded once.

The markings will be last name, first name, middle initial, stamped on white tape,
no ink spots or bleeding.  All collared shirts will be marked centered on the collar;
on all trousers and belts on the left inseam, upside down so when folded over they
read right side up.  On all underwear markings will be centered along the rear
waistband.  On all socks markings will be on the top of the left sock.  All covers
will be marked on the left inner rim.

On top of the wall locker covers will be placed, from left to right as staring at the
wall locker, one barracks cover with service skin, one piss cover, one utility
cover—pressed and without Irish pennants.

Irish pennants are not permitted.

Stand up straight.  Arms to your side, thumbs along the seams of the trousers,
shoulders back, chin up.  Heels and knees together, with feet pointed outwards at a
45 degree angle.

Eyes.   Click.
Ears.  Open.

Attention.

[1]  Michel Foucault. Discipline and punish. 143
[2]  Two faucets in each barracks room.
[3]  Irish Pennants are loose threads or strings coming out from the stitching.

Camouflage can exist on a number of levels. There is the basic military definition of disguising personnel, equipment, and installations to make them “invisible” to the enemy. There is the idea of blending into one’s surroundings to be unobserved, hiding in plain sight. There is the connotation of pretending, concealing, falsifying. One could add that there is also self-camouflage, where one pretends or conceals or falsifies to others and even the self. These latter connotations are more relevant to Lauren Johnson’s The Fine Art of Camouflage. Indeed, her epigraph is a quote from Bryce Courtenay’s The Power of One:   “‘I had become an expert at camouflage. My precocity allowed me, chameleonlike, to be to each what they required me to be.’” The book follows the familiar three-part pattern of going to war, being in country, and coming back home. The twenty-five chapters in five major sections, utilizing copious flashbacks, interweave all three phases of her military experience, along with the gradual peeling away of self-camouflage leading to a more truthful vision of self and others.

Lauren Johnson comes from a line of familial military service. Her grandfather, his two brothers, her mother’s father-in-law, and her mother, all served. When Johnson was seven, her mother deployed to Riyadh in December of 1990 as a reservist Army nurse in the first Gulf War. These months were a time of uncertainty and stress for the young Lauren. She feels emotionally disconnected and, of course, worried about her mother’s safety. However, when her mother returns in March of 1991 “the world was whole again.” It seems as if everything has returned to normal:  “Then, gradually, the Army faded into the background again, one weekend a month, two weeks a year. The blip, Desert Storm, followed us all like a shadow, not unpleasant, but always there.” Her mother would give Veterans’ Day talks at local schools, and Johnson felt immense pride about her heroic mom. However, what Johnson did not recognize at the time was her mother’s struggle to re-integrate into “normal life,” the camouflage her mother wore psychologically upon her return:  “She didn’t discuss her terror at nightly air raids, or her aching loneliness, or her doubts about her ability to handle combat. I didn’t know she carried trauma with her every day, . . . I didn’t understand her earnestness when we made a family pact that no one else would join the military, because one deployment was enough.” Later in the book, her realization of her mother’s war experiences comes again to the fore:  “I saw the infallible hero that I wanted to see. I saw what I was allowed to see; because we needed her, and because she knew no other good option, Mom spent twenty years swallowing her trauma.”

Eleven years after her mother’s return, during Johnson’s senior year in high school, that pact is nullified by 9/11. Upon hearing news reports that day she writes that “Something inside me awakened” and she feels “a latent patriotism, the subconscious pull to serve, like my grandfathers had before me, and to emulate my hero, my mom.” She takes and passes a ROTC exam and eventually signs a contract to be become a cadet during her four years in college. After graduating as an Air Force 2^ndlieutenant she has a month-long post to Mali. Finally, in 2009, after three months of training, she deploys for a nine- month tour to Afghanistan. She is optimistic about the Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) objectives, working with locals and actually helping people.  At the same time, she is torn, because going to Afghanistan “felt like a betrayal . . . because part of me  . . . wanted nothing more than to be a good daughter.” The theme of split emotions is one of the major motifs in the book and reflects the idea of camouflage, putting a positive spin on a less than ideal situation. In one email to her family she raved about her living conditions at FOB Gardez in Paktia Province, but she also admits to herself that “Other details, like the knot corkscrewed around my stomach and the choke hold of fear on my mind, I left unsaid.” Similarly, she also fears that, despite outward appearances and newly-minted rank, she would not measure up:  “I was afraid I wouldn’t be good at taking or giving orders, that I would fail, somehow, as a military officer, and in doing so I would betray my family history.”

The book actually begins in May of 2009 while Johnson is undergoing three months of training at Camp Atterbury in Indiana to prepare for deployment to  Gardez. She is an Air Force public affairs officer, a self-described “desk job chick,” now armed with an M9 and M4.  As a member of a PRT headed for Paktia she is not expecting combat, but the team has to be prepared for any eventuality. In this particular exercise she has to clear a village. The exercise ends on a mixed note:  as she charges into a plywood room a “bomb” of pink paint explodes and covers her, leading to her new nickname, Combat Barbie. Even though there is laughter and a hint of humiliation in this result, at the same time the incident was a catalyst, giving her a sense of accomplishment:  “When I charged into the room, I looked professional and confident, like I belonged. And for once since arriving in Indiana, I didn’t feel out of place. I didn’t feel like a displaced Air Force desk officer, or a city girl, or even a woman. I felt like a soldier.” Her feelings of achievement and optimism in pre-deployment training will gradually give way to doubts about her role and what exactly the mission in Afghanistan is all about.

For example, she writes an op-ed and a commentary about the August 2009 Afghanistan elections (“I commended the success of the Afghan security forces and the bravery of the voters”). In the back of her mind she seems to recognize that there was a discrepancy between the successful appearance of the elections as presented in her articles and the reality of what actually occurred:  fraud, violence, desertion by the Afghan security forces.  Her generally rosy view was countered by Thomas Ruttig, an observer for the independent Afghan Analysts Network.  In his response he calls her articles ‘“plain propaganda.’” She writes that in September of 2009 she disagreed with his assessment but, she adds, “In April 2010, I agreed.”  This is the start of her questions about her role in the mission to “win hearts and minds.”

Another incident illustrating the dissonance between “good news” and reality involves an elderly detainee who is being compassionately released and sent home. She looks forward to interviewing the man, with coalition forces radio DJs, because he could be “an ally in our information war.” He could speak to local citizens about the merciful Americans and tell how thankful he was for his release. However, the man is not the terrorist she expected but an old man who did not know why he was originally detained. She admits:  “And all I felt was pity.” The interview turns into a disaster and the public affairs team has to edit out awkward details from the interview. Johnson later writes a blog post which puts a positive spin on the incident by writing that the “detainee spoke kindly of his treatment,” adding “that his eyes ‘were also thankful,’” but admits that “I don’t know if it was a conscious lie.  . . .  Mostly, though, I simply wanted that line to be true. . . . More importantly, I needed the line to be true for myself.”

In October 2009, around the time of her 26^th birthday, she helps prepare for a visit by the American ambassador (who never shows) by diverting resources and personnel to give the appearance of safety and progress (“For the ambassador, we flipped the notion on its head: our security mission was to create an illusion”). In addition, there was a communications failure in attempting to develop a media training session for government officials. She takes the brunt of the attacks on this failure. Gradually, as the negative incidents, blaming, and finger-pointing cascade she concludes that her duties were becoming more and more meaningless at best, counterproductive at worst, “the claims [the PR team were making] were starting to feel exaggerated, the efforts sleazy.” The title of chapter 14 succinctly represents her outlook on “the mission”:  “F*#K.”

Part Four/chapter 16 opens in spring 2013 after she is well out of Afghanistan. But as she watches Zero Dark Thirty with a friend she flashes back to December 2009, the deaths of CIA agents at Camp Chapman, which puts a chill of paranoia, loss of trust toward Afghans, and anger on Gardez. In January, 2010 threats escalated, including a possible suicide bomber at Gardez and mounting civilian casualties. She tells, in an extended sequence in chapter 18, “The Fog of War,” of a joint U.S. and Afghan raid to capture a suspected insurgent. Unfortunately, three civilian women, one pregnant, were killed, and initial reports blame the Taliban for the deaths. However, as the story unfolds, certainty turns into ambiguity. As the possibility arises that American troops were culpable, she has to produce euphemistic reports: “I hated the way the words tasted coming out of my mouth, and how easily they came, even when I fought against them. I hated that there was nothing I could do but tap dance, stall, and repeat hollow command messages.” She is in a continual psychological battle between telling the truth and loyalty to the mission (“Even when my emotions ran counter to the tasks of my job, duty always won out”). She continues:  “A new kind of fear stalked me too. Maybe I was not only not changing the world for the better; maybe I was actually making it worse. What if my IO messages, radio broadcasts, and media talking points—all promoting support for the war, the American military, and the Afghan government— what if those messages sent ripples. And what if, on either side, people got caught in those ripples. And what if people died. My job isn’t life or death, I’d always told myself. But what if it was?” As the chapter ends, though, she cannot bring herself to tell the truth, writing “I still wanted to be a good officer.”

On March 2, 2010, replacements arrive at Gardez, she departs a week or so later, and after nine months in country arrives in Tampa, and 18 years from her mother’s deployment reunion she re-unites with her family. Hovering in the background, though, is a sense of alienation.  She writes that the first two weeks back, before returning to PA at Hurlburt, were “a period of numbness . . . driving aimlessly around town . . . my brain lingered in Afghanistan.” She is caught between two worlds and unable to reconcile either. She is hit hard by the deaths of friends, two by car accident in Scotland and two by a plane crash in Afghanistan. While earlier she was able to emotionally distance herself from death, she is now haunted by the faces of the dead:  “Now, faces swam like holograms across my vision. Ben, Amanda, the seven CIA agents, the pregnant Afghan woman, the seventeen Fallen Comrades of Paktia Province.”

She takes a short trip to Seattle as a “lifeline” but receives orders to South Korea.  She faces a dilemma:  report, or decline the orders and finish her military career. She chooses the latter, and “would be a civilian by Christmas.” She also learns that U.S. forces were responsible for the deaths in the Gardez raid. This information, among other factors, begins her downward spiral into depression, excessive drinking, and PTSD. When she returns to Florida she decides to get help. The counseling seems pro forma and she does not immediately return for a second session, although the counselor does recommend that Johnson talk with her parents about her experience. Her “confessions” are the first step in regaining control of her life and stripping off the camouflage:  “Talking to my parents was a catalyst for a conversation that would go on for years to come: an open discussion with my mom and often my dad, sometimes my siblings and grandparents, about our wars: how they’d affected us, all the ways they were different, and all the surprising ways they were the same.” She also realizes that “War, I was starting to understand, was part of my inheritance too.” Another step she takes is to pursue an MFA in Creative Writing from Emerson College in Boston. Her writing has appeared in a number of newspapers, magazines, and journals, and in the anthologies Retire the Colors, The Road Ahead, and It’s My Country Too.

In her Epilogue dated August, 2021, she writes of the traces that PTSD left on her:  “In many ways, my brain has spent the eleven years since my deployment withdrawing from Afghanistan.” She adds:  “Still, the military always bubbled under the surface.” This included a dysfunction marriage to an Army veteran. It takes her five years to get her “bearings.”

As the book ends the “bearings” seem to have held:  she is remarried and has two-month old twin daughters. But images of Afghanistan still cast a shadow. The year she became a mother was the year of the withdrawal. Reflecting on her daughters she recalls photos of Afghan children being handed over from their families for evacuation. She writes, “I try to wrap my head around the kind of desperation that would lead a parent to surrender a baby.” She wonders if her life took a different turn would she be standing on the tarmac of the Kabul airport; perhaps she would be interviewing heroic Marines and writing uplifting press releases. She wonders if she could, or should, dissuade her daughters from following in her military bootsteps, and she wonders further about the young Afghan girl she met eleven years ago, and her musings speak to the unreconciled questions raised by “the mission”:  “She must be a young woman now, likely with children of her own. I hope she experienced a glimpse of the brighter future we promised. I worry she is among those seeking refuge, and that she may not find it.” Have the promises, and the hopes, been fulfilled?  There is no way to tell.  But there is a lasting truism: wars are never over.

In 1939 Vera Brittain, in her notes to “Introduction to War Diaries,” ponders her World War 1 experiences as a nurse and how those experiences affected her post-war sense of self. She writes:  “For myself to-day I feel sorrow no more; my grief is for those I have known & loved who were cut off before their time by the crass errors of human stupidity.  I can only give thanks to whatever power directs the seemingly unjust and haphazard course of human existence that I have survived the sad little ghost of 1917 sufficiently long to know that the blackest night – though it never ceases to cast its shadows – may still change, for long intervals of time, to the full sunlight of the golden day” (16). Over eighty years later Lauren Johnson echoes this sentiment in “War and Peace of Mind,” one of the final chapters in The Fine Art Of Camouflage:  “In the eerie quiet, I thought about the ripples I sent in my IO job, imagining them joining with other ripples sent by other naïve soldiers and aid workers, feeding a tsunami that swept across the country, swallowing people like Ben and the seven CIA agents and the pregnant Afghan woman. I couldn’t close my eyes without seeing their faces, or conjuring other nameless faces yet to be swept away.” Yet she also speaks, if not of Brittain’s “full sunlight of the golden day,” of a dawn that can dispel the darkness of Afghanistan, depression, and PTSD.

The Fine Art of Camouflage by Lauren Kay Johnson, Liberty, NC:  Milspeak Foundation, 2023. 

Website:  https://laurenkayjohnson.com/

Brittain, Vera.  Chronicle of Youth:  The War Diary 1913-1917.  Ed. by Alan Bishop and Terry Smart.  New York:  William Morrow and Company, 1982.

The War of Little Things

A review of David Chrisinger’s The Soldier’s Truth: Ernie Pyle and the Story of World War II

“I’ve got something I want you to have,” Grandpa Art told me, apropos of nothing, “wait here.” Pre-double knee replacement, it took him some time to climb the stairs to the second floor of the moderately chintzy two-story house he shared with his wife, my Grandma Jo, in Delaware, Ohio. My dad—their eldest—and I had flown out from Oregon for 4^th of July weekend that year, a rare trip to his home state for a visit with the grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins.

A deeply awkward teenager at the best of times, I was also deeply uncool at 15-16, and as such I had no issue leaving home if it meant getting to spend time with my only living grandfather. It certainly wasn’t a hardship: Arthur Kambury was a delight to be around. He was always quick with a funny story, a fascinating family anecdote, or a jazzy riff on his old trumpet. He loved to entertain people, especially family. His laugh was infectious, and I can still hear the whistling sibilance of his S’s when he spoke.

Our love for each other was born out of our relationship as granddaughter and grandfather, naturally, but it was deepened by our shared interest in World War II history. Unlike a lot of the men I’d already encountered in my young life who’d questioned, even interrogated, my sincere interest in the war, Grandpa Art never so much as blinked. It would be years before I truly understood how important that steadiness was to me, and how profound an expression of love it was on his part.

When he returned from his sun-drenched office on the second floor, soft shoes chafing against low-pile oatmeal colored carpet, Grandpa Art was smiling. Coming to a standstill in front of me at the dining room table where he’d left me in eager anticipation (what kid doesn’t love getting a present from their favorite grandparent?), he barely paused to catch his breath before holding out his gift to me.

“A book!” is what I think I said. Probably, since that’s my usual reaction to such a gift. (Honestly, I think my obsession with books is hereditary.) Grandpa Art certainly loved them. And I could tell he loved this book, if only because it was already so visibly worn, and it was one of the few books he ever gifted me—knowing, perhaps, that I wouldn’t need a lot of help growing my own personal library over my lifetime. But the way he handed it to me, the way he held my shoulder for a moment after, the way he talked to me about it, felt like I was being given the one book he thought I needed to own now, that he needed to give me himself, before I followed this path of study, however informal, any further.

Wrapped with librarian-level precision in crystal clear cellophane, the faded remnants of the brick red first edition hardcover dust jacket were still easy to read. The pages inside were yellow with age and probably smoke from my grandpa’s four-decade, four-pack-a-day smoking habit; the text was printed in columns of two, a hallmark of books printed during the war.

I was most struck, however, by the face on the cover looking over my left shoulder: Below a broad bald dome haloed by cotton whisps of white hair (features, I immediately thought, that closely resembled my own grandpa) was the disembodied head and neck of a middle-aged man who wore a furrowed expression of consternation above a thin-lipped open mouth, hovering large over a shadowy line of American soldiers, their helmeted heads dipped low, stretching backwards, shrinkingly, until they seemed to fall off the edge of the jacket and into space itself.

This was my introduction to Ernie Pyle.

***

Years after Grandpa Art gave me his first edition wartime copy of Pyle’s bestselling Brave Men, I jumped at the chance to receive a galley of David Chrisinger’s latest and, in a breathless ask to my fellow WBT editors, to write about this remarkable travel-memoir-meets-biography about that whip-thin chain-smoking Hoosier who told America as much of the unvarnished story of World War II as he humanly could (and as much as the war department’s censors would allow).

A prescient and engrossing story, Chrisinger intricately weaves moments of memoir and hard journalism with incredibly granular and well-rendered studies of Pyle’s life, the parts of war he witnessed, and the people he met, knew, and loved. This is history writing, which means these are rigid threads—I can begin to imagine the author caning a chair—and Chrisinger maneuvers them over and under each other with enviable deftness.

More importantly, he prioritizes them correctly: on the biographical relief map of the home front(s), mountains, valleys, and beachheads (“bitchheads,” as they were at times called by American infantrymen) of Ernie Pyle’s dynamic life, Chrisinger’s crisply written accounts of his own travels across North Africa and Western Europe rests like carefully laid cling film, transparent (this is a fairly straightforward narrative structure) but strong (I couldn’t put the book down, and not only because of personal bias).

Here, the author operates in the true spirit, as I understand it, of Ernie Pyle. He offers us a portrait, flawed and faceted, of a “middle-aged travel writer without any experience covering combat, the military, or foreign affairs.”

A man—nothing more, nothing less.

Ernest Taylor Pyle was born in Dana, Indiana in 1900, a farmer’s son; neither of Pyle’s parents had more than an 8^thgrade education. A shy, bookish child among small-town sharecroppers, his world was comprised almost entirely of humble individuals on the blue-collar scale; grandiosity, one could argue, was not in his vocabulary. In time he picked up the grease pencil and began wending his way up and down and all around the United States, befriending “pilots…outside Washington, DC…lumberjacks in the Pacific Northwest…bellhops and bartenders…” many of whom would one day be fighting in the war Pyle reported on.

By the time Pyle stepped foot on Algerian soil, he had spent most of his life churning out slice-of-life columns for the local paper, a skillset that would serve him well on the frontlines and would make him the correspondent Americans came to trust most during the war. “It was his familiarity and kinship with ‘unimportant small people and small things,’ as a writer for Time put it in the summer of 1944, that would suddenly become enormously important to millions of readers when the American involvement in the war began.”

Indeed, it was Pyle whose “version of the war…became the version America chose to remember.” Some of Pyle’s contemporaries were quoted referring to him as “more of a propagandist” than a journalist, “a public relations man [who] sold a story about the war that omitted more truth than it espoused.”

But to the folks back home with family overseas, reports about generals and machinery and troop movements—the cold, hard facts of war—meant almost nothing. To them, Pyle’s approach to describing the war, “not the mode of strategic overview, but that of moral intuition” was far more valuable. As the author writes, “Americans at home needed [Pyle] to explain the war to them, and what life for their sons and husbands was really like. If those who made it home were ever going to find some semblance of peace, Pyle realized, the American people needed to be able to understand why their boys froze at the sound of trucks backfiring, why the smell of diesel or copper transported them back to some shell-pocked battlefield, why they were coarsened and reluctant to talk about all they endured. It was the least they could do.”

Of course, no biography of Ernie Pyle the man would be complete without the woman at the center of his life. Geraldine Elizabeth “Jerry” Siebolds, Pyle’s relationship with her, and their fascinating dynamic, rightfully takes up as much space in the book as Chrisinger or Pyle do. Many of the letters quoted throughout seem to be from those Pyle wrote to Jerry while overseas, and they feature some of the most transparent writing about the war coupled with some truly sweet expressions of love and devotion.

References also abound to what could be considered affairs, but in the context of Jerry and Ernie’s relationship take on the shape of what we now might consider an “open” marriage. Jerry struggled with severe mental illness (most likely a form of bipolar disorder), a kind I personally recognize all too well, and Chrisinger does a fine job of depicting it here without judgment. (I was moved to see the author include a note in the frontmatter mentioning references to suicide in the book; he also provides the relevant hotline(s) for those readers who might need them.)

Pyle himself only ever seems to express despair over Jerry’s health and discusses the other women in his life with her freely. They share in each other a depth of love and mutual respect that seems impossible to maintain, because it is—with Pyle constantly overseas out of his immovable sense of obligation to the “goddamn infantry” and Jerry’s alcoholism and drug abuse combined with her mental illness, the pair openly acknowledge in multiple letters that their relationship seems doomed no matter how much they wish it were otherwise. They divorce; they stay together. Ernie writes about war because he must, but also because it pays Jerry’s medical bills, which he also must do because he loves her more than he hates the war. The fame that comes with his columns is indulged only barely so that she never lacks for anything, including round-the-clock in-home care and multiple visits to psychiatric hospitals and sanitariums.

It’s a fraught, destructive relationship, but one that is also full of love and respect and understanding. In the hands of a lesser writer, it’d be all too easy to reduce Jerry to a troublesome housewife, a thorn on the stem of Pyle’s upwardly mobile rose, but Chrisinger understands that nothing is further from the truth, and the truth is abundant in the countless letters the couple sent back and forth to each other. It’s also in the letters Pyle wrote to the others in his life, including his editor, his friends, and his few but cherished lovers: Pyle was a deeply loyal, loving man, who could be both to a fault, and his relationship with Jerry was as inextricable as his relationship to the war. She supported him in his pursuit of telling Americans the truth about the war even as she spiraled out in his absence, and she held the fort back at their home in Albuquerque, New Mexico as long as she could, and when she couldn’t, he supported her in turn.

It’s Jerry who, in “a letter Ernie would never receive,” expresses the sentiment that so many other Americans felt toward the correspondent: “I am thankful for whatever it is that has made me feel through the years that as long as you were somewhere, nothing could be completely wrong—or hopeless.”

The two most important relationships in Pyle’s life, his wife and his war, have equal airtime in The Soldier’s Truth, and the book is an even more remarkable accomplishment for it.

Indeed, The Soldier’s Truth further adds to my theory that some of the best war history writing isn’t written by greyed British historians or the generals who spent their war miles behind the line, but by people who, like Pyle, have lived their lives close to the ground, or in some cases, in a foxhole a few feet below it. The bulk of my personal library that is just war history is comprised of [a not inconsiderable number of] books written by individuals exclusively about individuals. Both philosophically and in practice, I leave the minutiae of things like artillery technicalities, troop movements, combat tactics, and top-brass politics out of it—as much as is possible, anyways. Because the “underbelly” of war isn’t the underbelly at all, but the whole damn digestive system: it’s the people who fight, and the people who die, and the people they leave behind.

The reason we remember Ernie Pyle, and the reason I suspect my grandpa gave me that copy of Brave Men, is because Pyle understood this fact better than anyone. Better than any other correspondent reporting from the ETO, anyways.

So, if you’ve ever wanted a “worm’s eye view” history of the North African and European Theater of Operations, The Soldier’s Truth is your book. Put another way, speaking as someone who edits this stuff for a living, The Soldier’s Truth is a phenomenal example of the hybrid memoir—a book that roots a big subject in a personal narrative—at work. It is a course correction, the kind American classrooms desperately need, to say nothing of the general adult reading public. Perhaps most importantly (to me anyways), it’s a book that does what all genuinely good books with good writing in them do: it makes you think, and it makes you feel. It’s the kind of writing Pyle became famous for, became beloved for, the kind of writing we remember even after the fighting has long since ended.

Following Chrisinger across Tunisia, Sicily, mainland Italy, and France, we are taken on a vivid, emotional road trip across space as well as time: As I read scenes from the author’s time in Normandy, I was transported back to the four separate occasions I’ve visited that particular battlefield, most recently in 2019 for the 75^th anniversary of D-Day, when I stood on a bluff similar to the one Chrisinger describes here, one overlooking the long, snaking French coastline from Pointe du Hoc to far-off Sword Beach.

In Tunisia, the author’s interpreter, Yomna, guides him as part of his tour of Kasserine Pass to a field of worn-down rubble that was once her family’s compound. It had been destroyed during the war, she explains, but “we can’t prove who did it, so we don’t know which country [Germany or the US] to ask for damages.” A few pages later, while sitting down for lunch, the author describes hearing what sound like far off explosions coming from the nearby Mount Chambi, which had become an al-Qaeda stronghold in recent years. “That’s the army,” Yomna tells him. “They must have spotted a terrorist.”

It’s the perfect encapsulation of my other theory, which is that most wars, especially one as big and all-encompassing and globally destructive and devastating as World War II, don’t end. In many cases, the fighting literally never stops, but is instead taken up by younger and younger generations as the older ones die out, or move up the ranks, or flee at their own risk. It’s not hard to draw a line, however jagged, from Pyle’s war to our own. Not if you look hard enough. The author himself draws the line all the way to the current war in Ukraine:

“War really was hell, no matter who told you different. But sometimes it was necessary, especially when some purported great power felt that its proper place in the world was to invade, conquer, and subjugate its sovereign neighbors because it had the power to do so, and because some intoxicating ahistorical claim to greatness that helped salve the humiliations wrought the last time the world went to war.”

I think anyone who’s read and genuinely appreciates Ernie Pyle’s work as a war correspondent will appreciate the tack Chrisinger took with his approach to covering the man’s life by retracing the long, arduous steps leading up to his death. We follow the author sweating, breathless, up mountains and quietly along sandy beaches in the middle of winter; we attempt to speak foreign languages and drink the local because it’s what you do when you travel, especially when the local is three fingers of a truly unique ’44 vintage, a “premixed calvados cocktail” some “enterprising residents…designed…which the Americans preferred to straight apple brandy.”

It’s the kind of detail Pyle would have loved (and a detail that literally made me shout, “You lucky bastard!” out loud when I read it).

Also to the author’s credit is his understanding that while it’s pointless judging historical characters against modern values, it behooves us who do write about those historical characters to point out their objective flaws regardless. In the case of Chrisinger with Pyle, the author does his due diligence in rendering the man honestly: Amid his worsening battle with what is now recognizably alcoholism, we see Pyle struggle with depression, his marriage, his resentful relationship to the fame that brought in the amount of money required to care for Jerry during his long absences, and his toxic attachment to the war, itself.

In one of the last chapters of the book, we read some of Pyle’s descriptions of the Japanese soldier and can easily recognize his renderings of them as being deeply racist; even after exposure to the enemy outside of combat, he struggles to adjust his thinking. “In Europe we felt our enemies, horrible and deadly as they were, were still people,” whereas “the Japanese are looked upon as something inhuman.” He would later describe them as “human enough to be afraid of us.” Sentiments that are perhaps not surprising given the sheer amount of explicitly racist and xenophobic propaganda the U.S. put out during the war, let alone the fact that there were still thousands of Japanese American citizens being forcibly interned on U.S. soil in 1945.

In all, Chrisinger offers us a detailed, unsparing, and empathetic—but never pitying—biography of a man who had plenty of chances to turn the job over to someone else but chose not to, kept choosing not to, because to do so in his mind would dishonor the doughboys, both living and dead, who’d come to see him as one of their own.

The combat scenes Chrisinger renders throughout The Soldier’s Truth embody this sentiment well. He relies almost exclusively on direct quotes and lines pulled from Pyle’s columns, veterans’ recollections, and postwar histories. Very rarely does he editorialize for the sake of it. But when he does, Chrisinger shines as a writer unto himself: One night in Italy, he writes, “The air bit a little. Not too sharply. The soothing sound of gentle surf massaging the sand was a comfort at first. Then, walking along the sea’s dying edge in the melancholy winter light, I thought about life on the beaches during that miserable winter of 1944, about young lives snuffed out capriciously. After nearly a half mile of walking, it struck me that life at Anzio was not separate from death; they were knit as tightly as the threads in a carpet.”

Or, in a beautifully restrained rendering of the first moments of the landings at Omaha Beach:

“As the first wave of landing craft drew close to shore, the deafening roar stopped, quickly replaced by German artillery rounds crashing into the pewter-colored water all around them. The flesh under the men’s sea-soaked uniforms prickled. That many of them would die was a matter of necessity. Which of them would die, exactly, was a matter of circumstance—and they knew it. So, they waited, barely daring to breathe.”

My favorite history books all have this in common: They all recognize, as Pyle did, that as ugly as war is, it is often marked by moments of the kind of exquisitely painful beauty that steals the breath from your lungs. Both should be written about in order to paint a more complete picture of what it is like to go to war. In Chrisinger’s case, these moments of beauty (his and Pyle’s blended description of flying over the Atlas Mountains at sunset comes to mind) are balanced, sometimes in the same sentence, with brutal renderings of men in combat or the aftermath of it that made the hair stand up on the back of my neck.

The author’s depiction of Jerry’s suicide attempt with a pair of scissors—a gift, he notes, from the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus to Ernie years before—is harrowing, but not overly descriptive, as Chrisinger acutely understands the profound value of restraint when it comes to portraying such a thing on the page. (Jerry, a woman of wanderlust and immense intelligence and creativity, whom Ernie’s readers knew well as “That Girl,” died seven months after her husband did, of “acute uremic poisoning,” in November 1945.)

It’s only in the context of combat that Chrisinger lets the horror truly rear its head, and even then, he lets Pyle take the reins. In one of Pyle’s most famous columns, written in the immediate aftermath of D-Day, he wrote: “As I plowed out over the wet sand of the beach…I walked around what seemed to be a couple of pieces of driftwood sticking out of the sand. But they weren’t driftwood. They were a soldier’s two feet. He was completely covered by the shifting sands except for his feet. The toes of his G.I. shoes pointed toward the land he had come so far to see, and which he saw so briefly.” Later that summer, he attempted to describe myriad scenes after battles had moved on from an area, drafting line after anaphoric line:

“From the scattered green leaves and the fresh branches of trees still lying in the middle of the road.

From the wisps and coils of telephone wire, hanging brokenly from high poles and entwining across the roads.

From the gray, burned-powder rims of the shell craters in the gravel roads, their edges not yet smoothed by the pounding of military traffic.

From the little pools of blood on the roadside, blood that had only begun to congeal and turn black, and the punctured steel helmets lying nearby.”

By the time he left Jerry for the Pacific, we understand that Pyle had reached a critical breaking point as a man and as a correspondent. Exhausted, sickly, stuck, and missing Jerry terribly but needing to be away from her, he oscillated between hyper-productivity and complete collapse regularly as he hopped, island-to-island, from Guadalcanal to Guam to Okinawa with the First and Third Marine Divisions and the 77^th Infantry Division, among others.

Alcohol became a mainstay of Pyle’s writerly tableau—if he was at his typewriter, he was probably smoking a cigarette with a drink close at hand. “Not even the end of the war, not even victory and that last trip home, would be able to bring back all the people killed or counteract the damage done to the war’s survivors,” Chrisinger writes of Pyle’s mindset toward the end of his life. “By the time the unconditional Allied victory was within grasp, Ernie had come to believe that there was simply no way the war could ever simply be a story with a happy ending.”

Indeed, one of the few detriments to a book about Ernie Pyle is knowing the ending at the start. The Allies win. Pyle is killed by a machine gun round to the head on the island of Ie Shima, during the Battle of Okinawa, in April 1945. In terms of narrative stakes, it’s about as anticlimactic as you can get. Chrisinger, to his credit and to the strengthening of an already strong narrative, embraces this fact of his subject, and it results in what I would classify as one of the finest obituaries to come out of this or any war involving the United States—a piece of writing that not only exemplifies who Ernie Pyle was in life, but underlines the importance of him as a citizen correspondent among citizen soldiers.

“Pyle was embraced by enlisted men, officers, and a huge civilian public as a voice who spoke for the common infantryman,” he writes. “With his traumas in Sicily, Italy, and France, he had, in essence, become one of them. After sharing so much of their experience, their pain and their purpose, he understood better than most how gravely war can alter the people who must see it and fight it and live it. He knew that many survivors would come home with damage that is profound, aching, and long lasting. It was a truth that he found hard or even impossible to communicate to his readers back home—and it’s a truth that is still difficult and troubling now, all these decades later.”

***

One of the many downsides of losing loved ones when you’re young, I realized recently, is this tendency to think of questions you wish you’d asked them in life but thought of too late. “Staircase wit,” or l’esprit de l’escalier; that moment when you think of the perfect response (usually a pithy one) to the person at the top of the stair’s words only when you’ve just reached the very bottom.

I have plenty of these moments, on a very regular basis, and the worst ones aren’t the witty rejoinders I wish I’d lobbed at this or that rude person, but the questions I wish I’d asked my grandpa while he was alive. Most of them are questions I was never brave enough to ask, despite knowing deep down that he would have been incredibly generous with his answers; toward the end of his life, Grandpa Art shared with me, during what would end up being one of our last phone conversations, the story of him shooting the shit with some buddies one afternoon during his time stationed in India. “I walked away for a minute,” he told me, meaning of course it could have been hours, but time can make even the strongest memories a little fickle, “and when I came back, they’d disappeared. I found out later they’d been roped into going to the Pacific, and I never saw them again.”

The subliminal, ghastly horror of it was in his voice, so I didn’t feel an immediate need to ask how the memory sat with him. I was simply honored to at last receive a piece of my grandpa’s war story, the true one, not just the one he’d spent his life burnishing into a series of charming anecdotes about trumpet playing and beer stealing and shooting off rounds into the air because he was young and bold and far from home (the last two, of course, being closely related). Both are true, in their own way, but measured by Pyle’s yardstick, only one touches on what it was actually like for the average American servicemember to be anywhere in the world during the war. And like so many who’ve seen war, my grandpa kept the darkest truths of that experience close to his chest, because how could anyone begin to understand?

Somehow, he knew I would. In his absence I try not to punish myself for not trusting that more. But I do wish I’d asked him their names, if he’d tried looking them up after the war; if he was scared about being sent to the Pacific, too, or if, like Pyle, he’d been resigned to it as a fact of his existence as a soldier in wartime. I would have loved to know how he felt when he found out Ernie Pyle died. If he, like Robert Capa, “drank himself stupid in silence,” or if he picked up his trumpet and played “Taps” while his fellow soldiers stood at attention and saluted the horizon, in the direction they knew Ernie Pyle, “the rail-thin son of an Indiana tenant farmer,” now lay dead.

Whatever he felt in the moment, however he mourned, perhaps it meant more to my grandpa that he’d found someone he could share Pyle with, even decades after the fact; they were both wordsmiths, after all, and war writers, ourselves a niche bunch, tend to recognize other war writers. Perhaps Grandpa Art giving me his timeworn copy of Brave Men was as much a gesture of that recognition as it was a lesson-by-proxy in writing about World War II, namely, in the only way that did it any justice.

As Pyle handwrote in his final, unpublished missive, a note found on his body before he was buried: “To you at home they are columns of figures, or he is a near one who went away and just didn’t come back. You didn’t see him lying so grotesque and pasty beside the gravel road in France. We saw him, saw him by the multiple thousands. That’s the difference.” Shadowed men all in a line, falling off the edge of the dust jacket.

Look harder, I now realize Pyle’s face hovering above them seems to say: Do not look away. This is not a story with a happy ending. How could it be? It is a war story. Tell it anyways.

We were staying in the youth hostel in Zermatt at the base of the Matterhorn and on a day trip to see the castle in St. Nicklaus. I was twelve and my sister fourteen. My period started the night before while we played foosball in the hostel’s arcade. Starting your period at the base of the Matterhorn summons amazement, but my mom, surrounded by our backpacks she had emptied to do a laundry, handed me an inch-thick sanitary napkin with the simple instruction, “The tape goes on the panties.” My father was in the room, standing between the bunk beds. He was stressed out. Mom was stressed out. They had a disagreement before on the hike to Pontrecina.

We each wore a distinct-color K-Way windbreaker. My father was red, my mother yellow, my sister green, and I was powder blue, always in the back. I had small legs. We walked with what felt like a mile between us, wending our way between unbelievably tall pines and all the silence in Switzerland. My sister said it is because Dad wanted another baby and Mom did not. What a day to start your period. It was the end of my autonomy. Things were tense in St. Nicklaus. My usual efforts to get everybody laughing failed. The family had entire moods, and this was a dark one. My sister’s hypoglycemia was at least yet in check, but I knew eventually she would eat a Toblerone, then, a couple of hours later, lose her mind. Now that we were in the region that appears on the Toblerone triangular box, things felt shaky.

Castles, for my sister and me, were a reason for travel. Yes, there were art galleries and Eiffel Towers and windmills, but we loved castles, especially the one in Montreux with its crypt and torture chamber and a hole from the gallows down to the rocks and waves of Lake Geneva. A terrible way to die and darkly intriguing. Just a meter or so away: the pillar to which Lord Byron was chained or about which he wrote the poem The Prisoner of Chillon. I didn’t have the whole story yet. I won’t say I didn’t understand anything. I understood enough. In third grade I had found a brick in the basement of our Toronto home, and with a crayon I had written three words: Daddy is dumb. I’d tossed the brick back into the pile of bricks. One day soon after, my father found it and brought it upstairs.

“Did you write this?” he asked me.

“No,” I said.

I had just earned my “writing license” at school, an actual document that meant I could write in cursive on my assignments. I took it to mean something more. We writers are supposed to downplay what we know and how we live, like it is some sad accident, like we do not know exactly what we are here to do. I knew exactly what I was here to do: to listen, to watch, to write about it. There was nothing else to do. The writing license did not come with a list of ethics or guidance on what we should or should not write. This was something we figured out on our own. I had written on the brick in reaction to something my father had said or done. I had externalized my pain. This was a learning moment: you can write anything you want on bricks with a crayon, but you shouldn’t throw the brick back with the other bricks.

Thinking every castle must be as cool as Chillon, my sister and I wanted to see the castle at St. Nicklaus. We did other things that my father wanted to do, and my mother towed along in constant damage-control mode, forever appeasing him and ensuring that my sister and I were not entirely in danger. There were precedents of danger. In British Columbia he had insisted we take this long hike through Burgess Pass, where an avalanche had recently torn apart a valley. With instructions not to talk, we walked for two hours amid upended whole trees on a sea of shards of Rocky Mountain. We made it to our destination and back before midnight, but when you are in the Canadian wilderness, where bears happily steal honey from backpacks not strung up in trees, anything after sunset is late. He seemed happiest when he was risking our lives in some situation he created. All of this was his lifelong reflex to being a child in a Japanese prison camp in China. We failed him repeatedly. Nothing we did could reach that high of an infancy in barbed wire, bayonet, liberation by atom bombs. In St. Nicklaus, Switzerland, he decided he did not want to see Waldegg Castle. He wanted to go back to Zermatt and watch the Mistral windsurfers on the lake. He was thinking of trying it. Windsurfing.

My sister had not yet eaten a Toblerone so was complacent. I was less so. I really wanted to see the castle. I was a castle junkie. I wanted secret tunnels between chapels and courtyards. I wanted crypts, ossuaries, and carpets hung on walls. I did not know that Waldegg Castle was not a medieval castle but a baroque one, and that it was not in St. Nicklaus but a little way out. So I fought for it like it was Chillon and just around a corner. My father did not let me argue. A Great Wall had grown out of that one brick. There was no returning it to the earth. No getting over it, such a small thing, so few words, eternal damnation. Standing in the street of this small town in the shadow of the Matterhorn, my father grabbed my mother’s arm and led her away. We followed because we were children. He led us to the train station. I could not stand the idea of missing a castle. The train to Zermatt was on Gleis 1. We were right there beside it. The door opened. My father, holding my mother’s arm and pulling her, got on the train.

“Get on the train,” he said.

“No,” I said.

“Get on the goddamned train.” My mother pleaded with us with her eyes. My father glared at her for doing so.

The thing people who have not seen it do not know is that the Matterhorn is not a mountain like the other mountains around it. When we first arrived in Zermatt and disembarked from the train, my father had told us to look at it. The Matterhorn. I looked and saw a row of mountains with some clouds over them. I wondered what the big deal was and felt this massive wave of betrayal by the world that told me this was a spectacular mountain. I pretended to see it just so we could get to the hostel and rest.

“Look up,” my father said.

“I’m looking,” I said.

“Look up more,” my sister said and placed her hand on my chin and tilted my head up. And I saw it, above the clouds, the wall of its north face, the sheerness and height I had seen on the Toblerone boxes my sister devoured and transformed afterward. It was everything a mountain on a chocolate bar shaped like it should be, a sight that makes you glad you can see, to behold it, to recognize it as something you have always known. It has been sold to you and you to it. Even when you are taller, it will be forever taller, more vast, more imposing, and out of proportion than anything else ever could be. With my chin lifted, now forgetting I was tired, I was metabolizing wonder, awe, and, in a little way, terror because when we look at mountains, we are always both where we stand and at the top of them looking down at ourselves through its eyes, and we feel we could easily disappear with all the other small things in the world. When I was only three, the family had camped at Interlaken, and for days helicopters floated over us in search of a Japanese climbing team who had all perished on the Eiger’s north face. The north face of everything was terrifying to me. It was what you got lifted off of after it killed you.

The train doors began to close, and our father did not step off with our mother. The door closed. The train left. We stood there in St. Nicklaus, wanting to see a castle but not realizing that our desires could so easily cause our abandonment. Not that we thought we could win, but we did think that he could concede. It was just a day in Switzerland. A holiday. It was a castle, something the children wanted to do. But that was incorrect. When he wanted to deny us something, he could. Control was altitude. He could come crashing down on us; we should have remembered.

Neither of us had any money, just our Eurail passes in little pockets around our necks with string. We learned that the castle is a walk from Solothurn, where we were not. It was afternoon. Our parents had left us in a town, although it had been noticeably clear to both of us that our mom thought Dad was bluffing since this was not normal parenting behavior. We would only catch on to how enthralled we had all been decades later when the entire world quieted down when he died. Yes, there were still wars and still starvation and every violation of human right imaginable, but they were not in our respective houses. That is a critical difference in how we perceive the world. My sister and I walked around St. Nicklaus in search of some other castle. It did not make us friends. We had truly little connection. But on that day we had something. We were the daughters of something that could leave us if we said no to it. We understood that now. Standing in quite possibly the safest place in the entire world, on cobblestone, between white stucco buildings with high-pitched roofs and geraniums in the stained-dark window boxes, with tickets in our neck-safes to anywhere on the continent, alone, we understood.

Bordentown is a pleasant town located on the New Jersey side of the Delaware River about twenty miles north of Philadelphia. For a small town, Bordentown has seen a fair amount of history and notable residents. Clara Barton lived there for a while, as did Napoleon Bonaparte’s brother Joseph. Most famously, Thomas Paine, the British author and friend to the American and French Revolutions, bought a home in Bordentown in 1782 and lived there on-and-off until his death in 1809. Paine is sometimes called “the father of the American Revolution” for his writing and active support of the American cause. His 1776 pamphlet Common Sense stated the American case against England’s King George III clearly and persuasively and so helped galvanize the American will to fight for independence. Later in 1776, another Paine essay, titled “American Crisis” contained the famous words:

These are the times that try men’s souls: The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. 

I don’t live far from Bordentown, and occasionally visit it in the course of daily life. So it was on a Sunday afternoon this past February that I arrived in town to find the downtown square packed with people assembled to honor the memory of Peter Reed, a Bordentown native and former Marine who had recently been killed in Ukraine aiding the resistance against the Russian invasion. I had read of Reed’s death earlier in the week, but had not noted the Bordentown connection. Given my own sympathy for Ukraine and interest in the lives of veterans, it seemed a fortuitous coincidence, or even a matter of fate, that I happened upon the ceremony held in Reed’s honor.

From the spoken remarks, it was clear that Reed was well-liked and admired, and also a guy cut from a different cloth. Speakers remembered Reed fondly as a good guy, but also something of a joker. One story was that he had streaked through the new local high school in the days before it opened, christening it in his way to the delight of friends who cheered him on. Another speaker told of how Reed had filled her car interior with wadded-up newspapers in a friendly show of prankster one-upmanship. Every speaker noted Reed’s desire for adventure, to help, and to serve—impulses revealed in service in the Marines as a medic and culminating in stints as an NGO providing medical aid in Mosul and then in Ukraine. This impression is corroborated by a reminiscence published in the Guardian by an author who had worked with Reed in Mosul helping fight ISIS: “Pete was one of the most selfless people I’ve ever met. You should know a bit about the good he did in this world.”

While I listened to the speakers at Peter Reed’s memorial, I did not hear mention of Thomas Paine. Maybe I missed it. Maybe the speakers thought it a stretch to invoke his name in connection with Reed’s sacrifice on behalf of Ukraine, or they didn’t know how. For myself, I greatly admire Paine in his time as a man who combined striking writing ability, political acumen and righteousness, and courageous service in the field. As I listened to the speakers in Bordentown, I came to admire Reed in his time as a man who, like Paine, was possessed by an unwavering sympathy for people fighting against tyrannical government.

Reed, as far as I know, was not a man of the pen, as was Paine, but he was just one of a number of American military veterans who have volunteered to fight on the side of Ukraine. Early on, the most prominent of these has been James Vazquez, a former Marine whose Twitter dispatches from the frontlines described in vivid detail the action and emotional caliber of the war. No doubt Vazquez’s model inspired other vets to volunteer, either through admiration or envy.

But more recently, Vazquez’s claims to prior combat experience have been discredited, and doubt has been cast on the verity of his reportage from Ukraine. Unfortunately, other articles have also portrayed some American vets in Ukraine as thrill-seekers, or as not having much to offer, as seeking profit, or as having little stomach for the long fight. Several veterans and the organizations with which they are affiliated have become ensnared in legal and financial turbulence that besmirch the good names of the participants and which suggest their utility, even at best, has been marginal.

Such articles are necessary, for the complete picture is important to understand. But in our overheated political times, they also seem motivated by an instinct to discredit the Ukrainian cause and undermine support for it in America. From my vantage point as chronicler of Iraq and Afghanistan literature, art, and movies, I’ve been most intrigued by the accounts of Ukraine written by veterans of the GWOT art-and-literary scene. My sense that these men (all men that I know of, so far) have much to offer in terms of insight and expertise and possess the capacity to write shrewdly and in-detail about their experiences. In short, I trust them—not that their ideas are conclusive, but that their words are sturdy start-points from which my own thoughts develop.

Three writers in particular have published long trenchant articles that weigh their observations about American vets in Ukraine in light of their own war-and-military experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan: Elliot Ackerman, Luke Mogelson, and Matt Gallagher. Another, Adrian Bonenberger, the founder of The Wrath-Bearing Tree, has spoken at length about support for Ukraine on a recent podcast.

Ackerman, a former Marine and now a novelist and journalist, has written frequently about Ukraine for high-profile media outlets such as The Atlantic and Time. Ackerman’s articles often address policy and strategy, but my favorites have been those that describe scenes and people. Ackerman’s portrait of soldiers already in the fight or moving to the fight, refracted through his own thoughts about the allure of war, are brooding and evocative, never more so than in an article published in the literary journal Sewanee Review titled “Four Letters from Ukraine.” The passage below renders Ackerman’s talent for scene-setting:

The driver nodded glumly. We piled our bags in his trunk, and he sped us through town to the hotel I’d booked on Expedia a week before. It never ceases to amaze me that you can e-book your rooms in a war zone. Wars can often feel to me like distant, far-off things, even though I have experience writing about them and fighting in them. With a war I’ve never seen, I usually feel this distance. The stream of headlines, the assault of images—it commodifies war, condenses it into a packageable story. When I feel that distance—whether I’m planning to head to that war or not—I’ll often pull out my phone and see what it would take to get to the front line. In nearly every instance, I discover I could arrive at the war with a place to stay within twenty-four hours. And suddenly, the war feels closer.

Later, Ackerman ruminates directly about the international volunteers he meets in Ukraine:

The effort to rally foreign fighters to Ukraine seems to suffer from an adverse selection problem. Although many are sympathetic to Ukraine’s cause, a person must place their life on hold to fight. Typically, this means a person can’t have much of a life to begin with. If you have a job, or a family, or myriad other adult commitments, it is likely you can’t drop everything and go to Ukraine for an indeterminate amount of time. If you don’t have any of these commitments, it might be for a reason, and perhaps these folks … aren’t the best raw material from which to forge an international legion.

Luke Mogelson is not a vet, but a journalist and fiction-author who often writes about war-related and veteran subjects. His short-story collection These Heroic, Happy Dead is one of my favorite collections of GWOT-themed fiction. Even better, his New Yorker account of Kurdish fighters in Mosul served as the basis for my favorite post-9/11 war film so far, Mosul. Last year, Mogelson traveled to Ukraine to take stock of the international fighters fighting on Ukraine’s behalf. A passage from his New Yorker article “Trapped in the Trenches in Ukraine” describes the best and the worst of the new arrivals:

Of the hundreds of foreigners who had been at the facility when it was hit, many had returned to Poland. According to my Canadian friend, this was for the best. Although some of the men had been “legit, values-driven, warrior-mentality” veterans, others were “shit”: “gun nuts,” “right-wing bikers,” “ex-cops who are three hundred pounds.” Two people had accidentally discharged their weapons inside his tent in less than a week. A “chaotic” lack of discipline had been exacerbated by “a fair amount of cocaine.”

The [recent] attack functioned as a filter…. 

As the article proceeds, Mogelson describes members of the Ukrainian military International Legion in action on the front-line, to include the precarious experience of trench warfare. At the article’s close, he balances the sense of purpose that animates vets to volunteer in Ukraine against the lack of purpose many veterans felt in Iraq and Afghanistan. One vet in particular impresses him:

More than any other foreign volunteer I met, Doc seemed to be genuinely motivated by a conviction that the conflict was “a clear case of right and wrong.” I sometimes wondered to what extent his desire to participate in such an unambiguously just war was connected to his previous military career…. 

 Expanding on that last sentence, Mogelson juxtaposes service in Ukraine with the tenuous displays of gratitude veterans received from Americans for fighting in the Global War on Terror:

I also suspected another appeal in Ukraine for International Legion members. During my lunch with Doc on Andriyivsky Descent, in October, I’d been unexpectedly moved when the old man in the fedora thanked him for his service. I shared Doc’s discomfort with similar gestures Stateside, but something here was different. Although the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan were transformative for those who fought in them, they had no real impact on most Americans and Europeans. Everyone in Ukraine, by contrast, has been affected by the Russian invasion; everyone has sacrificed and suffered. For some foreign veterans, such a country, so thoroughly reshaped and haunted by war, must feel less alien than home. 

Iraq veteran Matt Gallagher and author of the novels Youngblood and Empire City has published two long articles in Esquire about his trips to Ukraine. The first describes a quixotic venture in the company of fellow vet-writers Adrian Bonenberger and Benjamin Busch to train rear-guard Ukrainians in basic infantry skills and tactics. Gallagher possesses the sardonic, anti-authoritarian streak of a humorist, but in this piece the instinct for comic appraisal bumps up against his desire to help and belief in a cause that was no joke whatsoever for the Ukrainians he was training:

Then that lawyer does it again, and again, and again, and then, all at once, he’s capable. Because he must be. Every woman and man there said they’ll defend their homes if the war comes to western Ukraine. I pray it doesn’t, but they’ll be ready if those pleas go unheard. During our two weeks together, they gave our group their trust, their commitment. It’s a heavy thing, to pick up a gun in war. The choice, if it does come, belongs to them alone.

Gallagher’s sentiments made me think of Thomas Paine’s words from “American Crisis”:

He who is the author of a war lets loose the whole contagion of hell and opens a vein that bleeds a nation to death.

Gallagher’s second piece more directly explores the motives and behavior of American and other international veterans fighting in Ukraine. The article is buried behind a paywall, so you’ll have to accept my summary of it, but the title hints at the ambiguities Gallagher discovered: “The Secret Weapons of Ukraine: A Journey Through the Strange, Semiprofessional World of Volunteers and Foreign Fighters Who, One Year Into Russia’s Invasion, Are Risking Everything to Defeat the Invaders.” Not everything Gallagher describes is reassuring; several volunteers are obviously opportunistic and less than well-behaved. Gallagher is a fervent believer in the Ukraine cause, so he doesn’t throw the let’s-just-say “colorful” volunteers under the bus. But he’s a shrewd observer of the veteran-scene in America, and he doesn’t miss that that some of the same dynamics that have driven some American GWOT vets to folly have reemerged in the overseas fighting community:

Everyone’s story is different. Everyone’s story is a little the same. Certain traits and patterns recur as we meet more volunteers. Most are men, but not all. Many of the younger ones served [in the US military] at the tail end of the war on terror and didn’t get the combat experience they’d anticipated or perhaps wanted. Some of the older ones sold their businesses and homes to sustain their work. More than a few are living off military retirement and disability checks. I stop tallying the number of divorces and separations.

Taking stock of this ambivalent portrait, Gallagher lands of the side of the glass being half-full:

One can view this as a bit sad, even pathetic. Or one can regard their coming to Ukraine as an act of courage. Here they are, in another war zone, trying to pay it forward to others, because they believe they still have something to give.

 The aforementioned Adrian Bonenberger is a US Army veteran of two tours in Afghanistan and the author of a memoir and short-story collection, as well as the founder of The Wrath-Bearing Tree. Bonenberger’s wife is Ukrainian, and he has been in-and-out of Ukraine many times over the past decade. As I write, he is back in Ukraine and serving in the Ukrainian military as an advisor. Though he has not yet written at length about his endeavors, we await the time when he does, for it surely will be interesting. In the meantime, a podcast with Paul Rieckhoff offers insight into his motivations and actions. Speaking of his work helping Ukraine prepare for a spring offensive, he states, “Helping them get ready for the offensive was probably going to be the single most useful thing I could do as a democratic citizen, a citizen of the US, a citizen of the democratic world, of the civilized world.”

Later in the podcast Bonenberger explains, “The United Sates invested seven years of time in me. I went to Ranger School, to Long Range Reconnaissance School. I was a platoon leader and executive officer in the 173^rd Airborne Brigade. I was an [operations] officer and company commander in 10^th Mountain Division. I knew what I had to offer to the Ukrainians….”

How to read Thomas Paine’s belief and support for America in light of American veterans fighting today in Ukraine? Is the connection specious? Is it meaningful? Perhaps it’s best not to make too much of it. None of the veteran-authors I’ve described above made 1/100^th the impact of Paine in his time, even measured collectively, and the same might be said for the international fighters they describe. Paine’s life was not without complication and controversy, both during the American Revolution and afterwards. Today, he is as likely to be as invoked by the right as by the left as an ideological forebear to contemporary political currents. Roughly stated, conservatives view Paine as a fierce critic of overbearing state authority, contra the more popular understanding of him as an apostle of democracy.

Be all that as it may, given the force with which Paine met the demands of the 1776 moment, less savory particulars and after-events seem secondary. My own thought is that anyone who volunteers to get anywhere close to a war-zone has less regard for convention, propriety, and personal safety than most. For Ukraine to defeat Russia now requires men and women of action first, with talent important, and idealism and commitment factored into the equation in uneven doses.

Also important is the war-of-words that place events in context while guiding readers’ thoughts to the fullest appreciation of circumstances. At Peter Reed’s memorial ceremony in Bordentown, after friends and family members spoke, a representative from a local Ukrainian Church took the podium. Though not an official emissary, the man spoke with authority and gravitas. “I know the war in Ukraine is a distant one for many Americans, but for us it is life or death. Peter Reed’s death fighting for Ukrainian freedom may be difficult for you to understand, but to every Ukrainian he is a hero. Thank you for sending him to us. We know you will never forget him, and neither will we.”

Later, re-reading Paine, the Ukrainian’s words seemed reflected in this “American Crisis” passage:

It is not a field of a few acres of ground, but a cause, that we are defending, and whether we defeat the enemy in one battle, or by degrees, the consequences will be the same.

Works quoted in this article:

Elliot Ackerman, “Four Letters from Ukraine.” Sewanee Review, Fall 2022.

Adrian Bonenberger, Independent Americans with Paul Rieckhoff podcast. Episode 220, May 2023.

Matt Gallagher, “Notes from Lviv.” Esquire, March 2022.

Matt Gallagher, “The Secret Weapons of Ukraine.” Esquire, February 2023.

Luke Mogelson, “Trapped in the Trenches in Ukraine.” The New Yorker, December 2022.

Cengiz Yar, “My Friend Pete Reed was Killed as He Saved Lives in Ukraine. You Should Know the Good He Did.” The Guardian, February 2023.

Thomas Paine’s writings are easy to find on-line. I also found the following two biographies helpful in understanding his life, work, and times:

Edward G. Gray, Tom Paine’s Iron Bridge: Building a United States. Norton, 2016.

Harlow G. Unger, Thomas Paine and the Clarion Call for American Independence. DeCapo, 2019.

Numbers don’t lie, they say. 2 + 2 = 4. No matter how you rearrange it; no matter how you solve it. Turn it into subtraction (4 – 2 = 2), and it still works. Math’s rules are inviolable, unyielding. Particular inputs yield fixed outputs. Even, say, in cases of absolute value, where more than one answer is possible, the results are still finite and consistent.

Then again, numbers can be irrational. Complex. The existence of a mean requires that data fall above or below it. There are exceptions to rules (the commutative property doesn’t apply to division); theorems, you realize, rest on assumptions. You start to see that numbers, perhaps, aren’t as honest as they appear. Sometimes they trick you. Sometimes they betray you.

Twelve feet was how far the mortar had plunged into the ground of the CIA compound. People said the thud shook every trailer. I was on the other side of the Green Zone and heard about it on my radio. Lucky thing I’d been gone: the mortar had landed behind the Morale, Welfare, and Recreation building, only twenty feet from my trailer, along the path I walked to work every morning. A dud, thankfully: no detonation; no injuries. By the time I returned, workers had buried the unexploded ordnance, blended new soil with the old so thoroughly I could barely see the point of impact. Invisible, as though the thing had never existed—a null set, an imaginary number.

The mortar landing in the neighboring compound a few weeks earlier should’ve been a warning. But somehow an incursion into our own house seemed different. There were rules, hard-and-fast—of physics, probability—that all but guaranteed something like this wouldn’t happen. That assured us the chances were almost nil.

In November 2004, Iraq was many things: the location of my first tour as a CIA counterterrorist case officer; home to the confluence of the Tigris and Euphrates; safe haven for terrorist leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi; a sweltering, palm-freckled desert; the most dangerous place on earth. By November 2004, more than 800 American soldiers had been killed in Operation Iraqi Freedom.

At the CIA station in Baghdad, we were trying to track down Zarqawi, but the war kept getting in our way. We couldn’t conduct source meetings in the Red Zone. Couldn’t do the usual things: eavesdrop in cafés, schmooze on cocktail circuits, dine at strategic restaurants. Couldn’t even leave the Green Zone to walk the streets. We were trapped in a fragile green bottle. Five attacks a day. Ten. Twenty. Some in daylight; some in darkness. Some aimed at the center of the Green Zone; some, the fringes. Some victimless; some fatal. An almost infinite number of variables.

Iraq was the place I learned to do math.

Like an alarm, mortar rush hour began most mornings at 0700. I’d open my eyes a fraction, watch the neon green numbers on my small digital clock, guess the seconds before another mortar would launch. Outside, “Big Brother”—the centralized public address system—would broadcast unintelligible instructions from the neighboring U.S. embassy compound. Sometimes—depending on my ratio of fear to exhaustion—I’d drag myself out of bed and run to the bunker outside my trailer. I knew by heart the graffiti inside its concrete slab walls: slogans and drawings that laughed at war, taunted war, ran from war, tried to make sense of war.

We’d heard stories—of the State Department officer reading in his trailer when an inert rocket pierced the wall; of the Gurkhas, huddled inside a building, killed by a mortar. One station officer confessed that he slept on the bottom bunk, wore body armor to bed, and drank himself to sleep. Others talked of spending the night at the CIA station, which had a sturdy roof and walls. I was arriving at work earlier and staying later.

But amid the hailstorm, nothing had ever struck our compound—which surely meant that nothing could. After all, what good is data if it can’t predict outcomes, offer certainty?

There were rules, I’d learned. Mortar attacks were preceded by audible launches (deceptively gentle, like hiccups). Rockets offered little warning—except a high-pitched whistle on close ones—but produced deafening explosions. Car bombs were deeper, more sonorous, lasted longer. If you could hear but not feel a detonation, it was remote. When the ground shook and pebbles sprinkled down, you ran for cover.

Insurgents launched more attacks in warm weather, some at the station postulated. But others countered that wintry air prompted action. Daylight offered insurgents good target visibility and freedom from curfew, but night provided cover. During the occasional rain shower, U.S. military helos couldn’t fly and deter attacks. But insurgents’ trucks and grip stocks would get stuck in the mud. Everything boiled down to probabilities.

I was doing my own calculations. I didn’t condition my hair in the morning: five fewer minutes in the shower meant five fewer minutes under my flimsy trailer roof. Didn’t hit the snooze button. It was, we all knew, just a question of out-calculating the enemy: Master the math and you’d be fine.

Sometimes I chatted about the mortars and rockets with the Military Police on our compound. A few shrapnel-resistant guard booths offered shelter, but the MPs spent most of their time outside, unprotected.

“Shoots,” my favorite MP dismissed the threat. “We been noticin’ them mortars always go over our compound. Comin’ from the other side of Haifa Street. We ain’t in their trajectory. Ain’t got nuthin’ to worry about.”

Everyone had a rule. A failsafe equation. Until the dud mortar landed in our compound.

Some four months into my tour, and the sky was gem-blue, translucent. Usually, the air was choked with dust, char, and smoke from explosions and burn pits; at night, stars pulsated through the thick haze like small dying hearts. You never got a sky so rich, so blue.

I’d gone for a long jog. Stripped off my running clothes and turned on the shower. Iraq’s first democratic elections had triggered a fleeting and tenuous peace, and the mortars and rockets had temporarily receded, a bully nursing his wounds. The sky was quiet. I didn’t know how long it would last, but for now I could condition my hair.

I dropped the bar of soap. My left hand returned to my right breast. A lump. Hard, palpable, so close to the skin it was almost visible.

Naked, dripping wet, I walked to my bed, probed the small mass. The statistics, the calculations, began. I was too young. No one in my family had ever had breast cancer. I didn’t smoke. Most lumps were nothing. Worst case scenario, breast cancer had a high cure rate. The odds were all in my favor. Math, trusty friend: don’t fail me this time. Like you did with the mortar.

I palpated my breast and stared at my trailer’s thin ceiling. Pairs of Blackhawks descended toward Landing Zone Washington. I wondered if I’d miss their sound when I left. They’d keep coming and going long after a new tenant occupied my small trailer, after I was gone.

On my next home leave, I had a biopsy. The lump was benign. The math hadn’t failed me. But I knew the law of averages: eventually, you’re bound to land above or below the mean.

1,900? 1,950? How many soldiers had been killed? My yearlong tour was drawing to a close, and the number plagued me. More than double the count when I’d arrived. It couldn’t break 2,000 before I left Iraq, I decided: this was my hard-and-fast rule. Every day, like a fanatical horoscope reader, I checked the death count.

One month left in Baghdad and days slowed down, passed in paralyzed motion, as though they were slogging through mud. The math wasn’t adding up; 24 hours was longer than 24 hours. Thirty days became sixty, became a hundred, became infinity.

October 25, 2005. Number of American soldiers killed in Iraq: 2,000.

I left a few weeks later.

A week? A month gone by? Writer Graham Greene said, “When you escape to a desert, the silence shouts in your ear.” So it was for me. When I escaped Baghdad, the silence was deafening. Leaving war didn’t necessarily mean that war had left me, I found.

These days, it’s almost clichéd to recite the litany of stumbling blocks upon a return to civilian life—traffic jams, loud noises, big crowds. Some days, just getting out of bed. (Does anyone, in fact, come back from war without these stories?) Often, I stared out the window for hours at a time. Days fell through holes, disappeared like the mortar under the ground, as though they’d never existed.

I moved from my cramped condo in Washington, D.C. to a more spacious, quieter house in the suburbs. It was near Reagan National Airport. At night, sleeping on a mattress on the floor, I could hear airplanes descending. I thanked God they weren’t Blackhawks and at the same time wished they were.

It was a degree of luck, I knew, that I’d survived. For others, the math hadn’t worked out so well.

I volunteered at Walter Reed Hospital. I delivered care packages to injured and ailing soldiers. My fellow volunteers and I roamed the sterile halls around every major holiday like tooth fairies. The psych ward—the largest in the hospital—was off-limits. Nurses warned us not to put sharp objects in care packages. Even mentally healthy soldiers weren’t allowed to have access to instruments of suicide. War had reached every bedpost.

One evening, our charity organized a casino night for the recuperating soldiers: card games and raffles bearing prizes like stereos and computers. My job was to talk to the veterans while they played cards, divine what they wanted in care packages. Every soldier had ideas. They were unflappable, oblivious to their missing arms and legs, the bandages around their heads, the wheelchairs to which they were confined for life. Shot glasses, robes, candy, they suggested. Small things made them happy.

As casino night drew to a close, the volunteers assembled on the stage to announce the grand prize. The soldiers gathered below, excitedly comparing numbers of tickets won and lost. Two men—not more than forty years combined—boasted only one ticket between them, intending to split any prize they won. One had lost his legs and was lying on his stomach, leaning over the stage to grasp half of the precious ticket, while his buddy, in a wheelchair on the floor below, held the other half. They clutched the scrap gleefully like it was a ticket to another world. The odds, I knew, were overwhelmingly against them.

The announcer called the winning number. They’d lost.

I have a complicated relationship with math. Sometimes it’s my friend, sometimes my enemy; sometimes reassuring, sometimes brutal and uncaring. Either way, it’s here to stay, like a childhood memory or a scar. I still find myself crunching the numbers, often on a daily basis. Anytime I feel death might win.

During the pandemic, I computed the chances of getting COVID from passing someone on my morning jog. How likely was I to die if I got sick? (I was middle-aged, healthy, didn’t smoke…my numbers were good.) After getting vaccinated, I calculated the necessity of a mask, the risk of transmission at a restaurant, a concert. How long would it take for my inoculation to wear off? For a booster to kick in?

As I grow older, I get increasingly nervous at doctor appointments. I wonder if the smog of burning trash, ordnance smoke, and other toxins we breathed daily in Baghdad will eventually defeat my body’s defenses, warp my cells. If the math will tell me it’s my turn. Statistically, I know, I’m at higher risk.

Now I’m a parent, and every time there’s a school shooting, the numbers start forming columns on the page. Chances are small, I tell myself, that it will ever happen to my son. That a school in our district will be the next target. Miniscule probability that it will be my son’s school. Half a percent? Quarter percent? His classroom. Surely less than an eighth of a percent. (Right? Don’t fail me, math. Please don’t fail me on this one.)

Math is my memento from Baghdad. Adding, subtracting, multiplying, dividing chances of death, looking for answers and rules and reassurances, something to hold onto in a world that feels every day, in a million ways, like a war. All I can do is hope the numbers are on my side.

RABBIT TRAILS

in the Texas dust. We’re flat in the dirt

so we can poke around down there with a long stick,
while above us bullets fly and children

hold up their honor roll certificate shields.
You say blankets are the answer,
and backpacks and better officers and armed teachers

and doors that shut like Vegas vaults to keep your money safe,
keep your money safer than my child.

I forgot what we were talking about.

 What is the truth, and where did it go?
Ask Oswald and Ruby, they oughta know.

“Shut your mouth, ” said the wise old owl.
Business is business, and it’s a murder most foul. 

-Bob Dylan, Murder Most Foul

Doyle Whitehead flew Air Force One on November 22, 1963, the day JFK was killed in Dallas, Texas. Whitehead waited a long time before speaking up about the assassination of John F. Kennedy. He enlisted in the Air Force after graduating from Oxford High School in 1954. In 1959, after one of Dwight Eisenhower’s Air Force One stewards suffered a heart attack, Whitehead subbed in and became part of the executive detail. It was while serving on Air Force One that Whitehead came to know Kennedy. Caroline, JFK’s daughter, called the steward “Whitey.”

“Did you know I have a steward on my plane who went to Oxford?” Whitehead remembers the president teasing on occasion.

“People celebrated on the plane ride back to Washington,” Whitehead said in 2016. “They were laughing and talking about ‘what we gon do now.’ They were so loud we had to shut the door so Jackie wouldn’t hear them.”[i]

Only hours earlier, Johnson was being investigated for corruption by the Senate Rules Committee.[ii] As recently released evidence reveals, Kennedy was about to drop Johnson from the 1964 ticket.[iii] Thus, flying back to DC, drinking nearly a fifth of Cutty Sark whiskey on the way, LBJ had reason to celebrate. His job was secure. And as President of the United States, he now possessed control of the investigation into the murder of JFK.

The Radioactive Belief

In 2020, at the beginning of the pandemic, the Nobel Prize-winning songwriter Bob Dylan released “Murder Most Foul,” a seventeen-minute ballad about the death of President Kennedy. Many writers reported on the song’s length and surprise surge to the top of the Billboard charts. But Richard Eskow wrote, “most commentators tiptoed around the true news value: a major cultural icon has boldly given voice to a widely held but professionally radioactive belief: that John F. Kennedy was killed, not by the lone nut,’ Lee Harvey Oswald, but as part of a plot that was tantamount to a coup d’etat.”[iv] Is America finally ready to have an adult conversation about this “radioactive belief”?

It is time to reclaim the narrative of the Kennedy assassination from the propaganda machine Lyndon Johnson catalyzed when he commissioned the Warren Report, the official government version of the JFK assassination. Johnson played a hand in the murder of President Kennedy and America needs to reckon with what this means for our democracy. To be sure, we must be careful when handling the reputation of a public figure, especially one like Johnson whose presidential achievements in civil rights tie his story to so many others. But America is a deeply divided country whose democracy is in danger. The post-truth moment we find ourselves in will not go away by continuing to dance around the history of the coup in Dallas.

Dylan writes, in “Murder Most Foul,” that “We’ll mock you and shock you and put it in your face/We’ve already got someone here to take your place.”[v] But who was the “we” and what was Johnson’s role in the conspiracy? In November of 2022, longtime JFK assassination researcher Jefferson Morley asked on Twitter, “What’s the evidence tying LBJ to the crime or to Oswald? I don’t know of any.”[vi] Morley is not alone in viewing the LBJ theory as a hidden history. But there is a mountain of evidence hiding in plain sight to indict Johnson and demonstrate that he was the mastermind of the coup.

Nobody but Johnson had the means, motive and opportunity to kill Kennedy, and those who knew LBJ left behind a trail of transactions, confessions, and forensic evidence. As members of Kennedy’s Secret Service acknowledged after the murder, there were multiple conspiracies to kill JFK in the fall of 1963, such as one in Chicago just a month before Dallas.[vii] To pull off a coordinated attack against a formidable security apparatus required a command of the police on federal, state, and local levels. The fact that the successful plot finally played out in Johnson’s home state of Texas is no coincidence.

We cannot comprehend Johnson’s role in the plot without understanding the network of supporters he cultivated from his earliest years as a Congressman from Texas, among these being Herman Brown, Johnson’s number one source of money. Johnson’s “power base,” in historian Robert Caro’s words, “wasn’t his congressional district, it was Herman Brown’s bank account . . . His power was simply the power of money.”[viii] To understand Johnson’s part in the killing of Kennedy, we must map the finances and motives of the men who depended on Johnson’s access to Washington. Among these were three key figures: Herman Brown, the oilman D.H. Byrd and Ed Clark, Johnson’s attorney and a former lawyer for Brown and Root. The story of the Kennedy assassination is the map of Texas power. The “we” Dylan describes in his song is the bipartisan war industry that depended on Johnson for their work, both at home and abroad.

Forensic Evidence & CIA Confessions

Dylan’s “we” suggests that the Warren Commission’s official story of a lone nut assassin was a myth and that there was a second shooter stationed atop a slope of grass in Dealey Plaza. The songwriter sings, “Put your head out the window, let the good times roll/There’s a party going on behind the grassy knoll.”[ix] Twenty-first century scholarship supports Dylan, revealing that the decisive headshot from frame 313 of the Zapruder film was, in fact, from an angle consistent with the location of the grassy knoll. In a 2001 issue of Science and Justice, a quarterly from Britain’s Forensic Science Society, a government researcher named D.B. Thomas claimed that there was more than a ninety-six percent certainty that the infamous headshot came from the front right of JFK’s limousine and, more specifically, from the grassy knoll, not the Texas School Book Depository.[x] Thomas’ article, supported by Josiah Thompson’s 2021 study, Last Second in Dallas, refutes the Warren Commission’s 1964 “lone nut” theory and affirms the findings of the 1978 House Select Committee on Assassinations who argued the president’s murder was most likely the “result of a conspiracy.”[xi]

The power of Last Second in Dallas is a function of Thompson’s methodology “that ignores the sexy and elusive” question of “whodunnit?”[xii] Like the scholarship of D.B. Thomas, Thompson takes us back to the fundamental questions of forensic data such as “Were there multiple shooters?” and “Where did the shots come from?” By focusing rigorously on the forensic analysis, Thompson creates a firm foundation for investigators to now concern themselves with the question of culpability. The answer, in line with the work of researchers like James W. Douglass, Gaeton Fonzi, Oliver Stone, and David Talbot is that the CIA, using Cuban and mafia assets, murdered JFK, with Allen Dulles playing a key hand.

But we must now go one step further and share the big open secret in Texas: Lyndon Johnson sat at the top of the plot’s chain of command. Johnson, Kennedy’s Vice-President, ordered the hit and, through his attorney, Ed Clark, played a decisive role in the orchestration of both the assassination and the cover-up.

To prove this point, we must step behind the curtain of attorney-client privilege. Barr McClellan, who was the father of Scott McClellan, the press secretary for George W. Bush, was employed by the Johnson administration (National Labor Relations Board and Federal Power Commission) and served as a Johnson attorney from 1966 through 1971, working under Ed Clark and Don Thomas at Clark, Thomas and Winters. For decades, McClellan maintained a silence consistent with the code of confidentiality that attends lawyer-client relations. However, like Whitehead, McClellan felt an obligation to tell the truth before it was too late. In 2003, forty years after the murder of the President, McClellan wrote Blood, Money, & Power: How LBJ Killed JFK. What McClellan’s book reveals is a man who was an eyewitness to history and intimately understood why Johnson had Kennedy murdered: to end a government investigation into Johnson’s corruption. In 1973, the same year LBJ died, Don Thomas confessed to McClellan the firm’s role in the assassination and that Ed Clark was the figure who planned the hit. McClellan writes, “Edward A. Clark, attorney at law, Johnson’s right-hand man and the only man he trusted, was the key man in the scheme that culminated in Dallas on November 22, 1963.”[xiii] McClellan’s book investigates Johnson’s hand in the assassination, Johnson’s theft of the 1948 Senatorial race (Don Thomas stuffed the ballot box in Precinct 13), and also explores LBJ’s relationship with Malcolm “Mac” Wallace, whom McClellan claims was responsible, at Johnson’s behest, for the 1961 murder of government investigator Henry Marshall. McClellan writes that Johnson was a “psychopath” and capable of murder and that the Wallace case offers precedent for the murder of JFK.[xiv] Recent scholarship from Jeremy Kuzmarov supports the claim that Johnson had plotted other murders before Kennedy’s. McClellan, in his book and Kuzmarov in his article, “Was LBJ A Serial Killer Who Advanced His Career by Murdering 6 Other Men Who Stood in His Way?”, both reveal a nexus of Texas corruption (“Bubba justice”) that resonates with this student of the Iraq war under Bush and Cheney.[xv] But before the Kellogg, Brown, and Root that regulated the burn pits of the Global War on Terror, there was the Brown and Root that served Lyndon Johnson and his corporate partners in Vietnam.

McClellan points readers toward a “money trail” that shows contracts at risk before November 22, 1963, and contracts secured after the assassination. On January 17, 1963, John F. Kennedy proposed the repeal of the famous “oil depletion allowance,” a revision to the tax code that would have cost Texas oilmen up to $300 million a year.[xvi] In addition to documenting these provocatively progressive policies from Kennedy, McClellan goes beyond circumstantial evidence and delivers forensic data that places the fingerprint of Wallace, Johnson’s henchman, on the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository on the day of Kennedy’s murder. Furthermore, the Wallace print has now traveled through a blind submission peer-review process and has been confirmed by two independent researchers, including Interpol print examiners in Paris, France.[xvii]

The Wallace print is significant and so is the precedent of the Marshall case. In 1961, Henry Marshall was himself investigating Johnson and another LBJ aide, Billy Sol Estes. Wallace, implicated in Marshall’s murder, was spotted at the Texas School Depository on November 22, 1963, by a Chickasaw Indian named Loy Factor who claimed that he himself—Factor—was part of the kill team. Factor’s statement and Wallace’s fingerprint in “the sniper’s nest,” places Johnson’s key fixer at the scene of the crime. But Whitehead and McClellan’s disclosures, Factor’s eyewitness account, and Wallace’s fingerprint (available for viewing in the National Archive) do not close the case of the Kennedy assassination. No single data point does. As Jim Marrs, the author of Crossfire: The Plot That Killed Kennedy, writes, “when it comes to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, don’t trust any one source.”[xviii] Let it be clear: McClellan is not the only witness indicting Johnson. So let the story now turn to corroboration from participants in the coup: E. Howard Hunt and David Morales.

Famous for his role in the Watergate break-in, Hunt was also a novelist and screenwriter, as well as a friend of former CIA Director, Allen Dulles. Hunt, who died on January 23, 2007, admitted to being a “benchwarmer” on the CIA team that murdered JFK.[xix] Hunt’s testimony, published on the pages of Rolling Stone and Wired in 2007, can also be located in his son Saint John’s 2008 memoir, Bond of Secrecy.[xx] In the map of the hit that he provided to Saint John, Hunt places the name “LBJ” at the top of “the chain of command.” Beneath LBJ is a CIA agent named “Cord Meyer,” a man whose estranged wife, Mary, was a mistress of JFK and was herself murdered less than a year after the president. In addition to this “chain of command” map, Hunt provides a timeline for a plot that begins in 1962 and includes the names of CIA agents Marita Lorenz, David Atlee Phillips, and David Morales. Lorenz, Phillips, and Morales, separately, claimed Kennedy’s death was a CIA hit, but Morales went further, arguing, like Hunt, that Johnson approved the plot.[xxi][xxii] Even more than this, “According to his lawyer, Robert Walton, Morales revealed that he [Morales] was involved in both Kennedy assassinations.”[xxiii] Yes, Morales’ and Hunt’s story point straight at the man McClellan accused and the same man Whitehead heard laughing and celebrating on November 22, 1963: Lyndon Johnson.

“Business is business”: The Money Trail

Clare Boothe Luce, former Congresswoman and the wife of Henry Luce, the media magnate who founded Time, Life, Fortune and countless other mainstream media publications, knew a thing or two about power and propaganda. On the way to JFK’s inaugural ball in 1961, Luce asked the new Vice-President, Lyndon Johnson, if he minded being relegated to the number two spot. She asked Johnson to “come clean.”

“Clare,” Johnson replied, “I looked it up. One out of every four presidents has died in office. I’m a gamblin’ man, darlin’, and this is the only chance I’ve got.”[xxiv]

If Johnson rolled the dice and was indeed the figure at the top of the chain of command for the assassination of JFK, why should we care, now that both men are dead? Sixty years later, what does this story tell us about contemporary America where this is still so much talk of coups, corruption, and treason? In order to comprehend government corruption we have to understand how corporate power captures government agencies and assets. We cannot fully fathom the means and motives of Johnson without understanding America’s permanent war party, the ongoing bipartisan social network of politicians and their clients in the military-industrial community. In order to contextualize the killing of Kennedy, we have to study the city and state of “The Big Event,” as the CIA called the assassination.[xxv] If Johnson ordered “The Big Event,” and Clark and the CIA orchestrated the logistics and Brown was one of Johnson’s primary financial backers, who in Dallas facilitated the placement of Lee Harvey Oswald in the Texas School Book Depository?

In 2021, the year after Dylan released “Murder Most Foul” and the same year Thompson published Last Second in Dallas, the historian H.P. Albarelli published a posthumous book called Coup in Dallas. Based on the 1963 datebook of CIA operative, Jean Pierre Lafitte, Coup in Dallas offers readers a primary document that maps the cast behind “The Big Event.” On November 23, 1963, Lafitte writes, “Rene says, ‘Coup de grace.”[xxvi] “Rene” was the name of Lafitte’s wife, the woman who gave Albarelli the datebook. Rene Lafitte once remarked, “Dallas, ah goodness, I’m not sure what to say . . . I wasn’t there anywhere near as often as Pierre . . . not at all. But Pierre would say it was .  . . Dallas was like the arms and legs of the American secret service, your CIA.”[xxvii]  Albarelli’s book shines a light on the major players in the coup and pays particular close attention to Johnson’s friend, D.H. Byrd.

Other than C.I.A allegations, eyewitnesss accounts, and the fingerprint of Mac Wallace, how else do we answer Jefferson Morley’s question and connect Oswald to Johnson? The answer is David Harold “Dry Hole” Byrd, the military subcontractor, Texas oilman, and founder of the Civil Air Patrol, to which Oswald belonged as a teenager. Incidentally, Byrd also owned the building that contained the Texas School Book Depository where Oswald was employed on the day of the assassination. Byrd was a crony of Johnson and once said, “Sam Rayburn, Morrie Shepard, John Connally, and Lyndon Johnson on the national scene were to become men I could go to anytime that I wanted action, and so were a succession of Texas governors.”[xxviii] Like Brown, Byrd knew Johnson personally, stood to profit greatly from a Johnson presidency, and, likewise, stood to absorb substantial losses if the oil depletion allowance was allowed to expire or if Johnson went to prison. We may never know for sure whether Oswald was a whistleblower, CIA double-agent, or “patsy” (as he claimed on TV), but what is now irrefutable is the fact that there were multiple shooters and that on November 22, 1963, Oswald was working in the building Byrd had purchased just the year before and where a fingerprint of Johnson’s fixer, Mac Wallace, was discovered by police.[xxix]

McClellan, Byrd, Clark, Hunt, Factor, Wallace, and Morales all tie Johnson to Kennedy’s killing. McClellan claimed that Johnson’s attorney, Ed Clark, was horrified when Oswald wasn’t murdered after the assassination but was instead arrested and allowed to speak on TV and declare he—Oswald—was a “patsy.”[xxx] McClellan provided his colleague’s confession and Wallace’s fingerprint as evidence to connect Johnson to the crime of the century, but also insisted that researchers follow the money trail of Johnson’s social network in order to witness foreknowledge of the plot. Nowhere is the advance intelligence more apparent than in the pre-assassination stock trades of Byrd and his associate at Ling-TEMCO-Vought (LTV), James Ling, former employer of Mac Wallace. LTV, perhaps the inspiration for “Vought International” from the Dynamite Comic series, was one of the largest engineering and manufacturing conglomerates in the United States in 1963. Like with Brown and Root, the profits of Vought went through the roof in the years after JFK’s murder. Right before the assassination, Ling and Byrd, through an investment vehicle called the Alpha-Omega Corporation, “purchased 132,600 shares of LTV stocks for around $2 million.”[xxxi] LTV was responsible for developing a number of planes and weapons that were used during the Vietnam War. According to Albarelli, the “$2 million investment by Byrd/Ling was worth $26 million by 1967.”[xxxii] As Johnson reversed the Kennedy policy of withdrawal from Vietnam and the war progressed, LTV “would consistently be among the top-ten aerospace companies in dollar volume of prime contracts.”[xxxiii] Which is to say, Byrd got rich off the coup in Dallas, and so did Clark and Brown of Brown and Root, later renamed KBR. Lyndon Johnson was the savior of the military-industrial complex. So much depended on that day in Dallas.

“Lyndon Johnson Did It”

Critics might reasonably ask, “Where are the stories of the marginalized?” in the history of the Kennedy assassination? How do we summon the voices of the millions dead in Vietnam? We can’t possibly tell the tales of all the people around the world who were impacted by Kennedy’s murder. But perhaps some small measure of justice can be achieved by listening to four American citizens whose stories have been muted by the media. So, let us turn here in the end to Abraham Bolden, Evelyn Lincoln, Jacqueline Kennedy, and Dorothy Kilgallen.

On April 26, 2022, President Biden pardoned Bolden, a man JFK called “the Jackie Robinson of the Secret Service,” which is to say the first Black Secret Service agent to serve on White House detail. Bolden was hired by Kennedy and then later challenged Johnson and the Warren Commission with Secret Service evidence of conspiracies to kill Kennedy prior to the release of the Warren Report.[xxxiv] Was Bolden rewarded for his bravery? No. Like so many who came after him, Bolden was attacked for telling the truth and on May 18, 1964, Bolden was thrown in prison for bribery, conspiracy, and obstruction of justice.

Bolden committed a narrative violation. Decades before Snowden, Assange, Hale and Manning, Bolden blew the whistle on the military-industrial complex. He told the truth. For sixty years, Bolden claimed he had been framed by the very government he took an oath to serve. He has stated to this writer and others that he heard Johnson threaten both Kennedy brothers while serving in the White House.[xxxv] In the twenty-first century, Bolden has been forceful about his analysis of the killing: “[T]he assassination of the president went to the highest position of government,” he said in a 2018 interview. “There was a coup to take him [Kennedy] out of power.”[xxxvi] Like “many in the DFS” (Mexican CIA), Bolden’s investigation of the murder points to “the highest position in government.”[xxxvii] But for a long time, Bolden, author of The Echo from Dealey Plaza, has been ignored by America’s mainstream media. Fortunately, with the help of journalists, President Biden heard Bolden’s story before it was too late. In January of 2022, Mary Mitchell, writing in the Chicago Sun-Times, published an editorial in which she wrote, “While Bolden’s life story might seem like a conspiracy theory to some, Black Americans will identify with the brand of injustice that buries its victims under false accusations and legal documents.”[xxxviii] Mitchell’s voice, amplifying Bolden’s, was legitimated by Biden, the man who now keeps a bust of Robert F. Kennedy in the Oval Office and is currently being challenged by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. for the 2024 Democratic nomination.

Perhaps part of RFK Jr.’s challenge to Biden has something to do with Biden’s refusal to go all the way in the story of Kennedy’s uncle. Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., whose career and campaign platform focuses on government corruption and agency capture, may be the only American capable of compelling Biden to open the assassination archives. Certainly, others are trying. In October of 2022, The Mary Ferrell Foundation sued the Biden administration for once again postponing the release of the JFK files.[xxxix] In December of 2022, the Biden administration ordered the release of more than 13,000 records, but caved to the CIA’s appeal to maintain the redaction of more than 4,000 others.[xl]  Why does the censorship persist? Is this just institutional protection or is something else at play? And beyond the redaction and withholding of documents, why does the American media refuse to listen to the people closest to this case? What did Evelyn Lincoln, Kennedy’s secretary and a passenger in the motorcade, say at the time of the assassination and how did Jackie Kennedy, covered in the blood of her dead husband, view the crime she witnessed?

Lincoln, who was fifty-four on the day of the murder, visited JFK’s grave every year on November 22nd. On the plane ride back from Dallas, the same flight where Whitehead overheard Johnson celebrating, Lincoln wrote down a list of suspects. At the top of her list was the same name at the top of Hunt’s deathbed chain of command: “Lyndon.”[xli] Was Lincoln the only one on Air Force One who felt she was travelling with the architect of a coup?

No.

Jackie Kennedy knew what many in DC knew about her husband’s relationship with both LBJ and Allen Dulles. She knew that her husband loathed the Vice-President and that the ex-head of the CIA resented her husband after JFK fired Dulles subsequent to the disastrous failure of the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba. Did Jackie see the pictures in the Chicago Tribune on August 15^th, 1963, three months before her husband’s murder, revealing Dulles meeting with LBJ at the Vice-President’s ranch? Did she ever come to find out that Dulles, who kept a meticulous datebook, left that particular encounter with LBJ off the record?[xlii] We may never know the answer to these questions, but we do know that on November 22, 1963, Jackie Kennedy was an eyewitness to a crime that traumatized her, her family, her nation, and countless others beyond America’s borders. We also know that Jackie, like her brother-in-law, Robert F. Kennedy, suspected a conspiracy from the very beginning.

RFK once famously said, “If the American people knew the truth about Dallas, there would be blood in the streets.”[xliii] Jackie Kennedy knew there was a conspiracy. She was caught in the crossfire. Hours after the assassination, while aboard Air Force One with Whitehead and Johnson, she considered her grisly appearance. “My whole face was splattered with blood and hair. I wiped it off with a Kleenex,” she said. But then, “one second later I thought why did I wash the blood off? I should have left it there, let them see what they’ve done.”[xliv] Jackie knew from the start that her husband’s murder was the work of more than one lone communist nut bar. Her pronoun was “they.”

But Jackie went further.

According to Whitehead, after the assassination Johnson and his cronies were laughing and celebrating within earshot of the widow and were so out of hand that Whitehead had to hide Jackie away. Perhaps keeping this woman in the dark seemed an act of mercy in the moment, a gesture of compassion on behalf of “Whitey.” But the truth has a way of getting through those doors men close to protect women. No one was closer to the crime of the century than Jackie Kennedy. No one had a better seat for what Dylan called “the greatest magic trick ever under the sun.”[xlv] In the singer Eddie Fisher’s memoir, Been There, Done That, Fisher describes his relationship with Pamela Turnure, the press secretary for Jackie Kennedy at the time of the assassination. “On the flight back,” Fisher writes, “Pam told me, Jackie told her, ‘Lyndon Johnson did it.’ Words I’ll never forget.”[xlvi] Those words, like Bolden’s, Factor’s, Hunt’s, Lincoln’s, McClellan’s, Morales’, Whitehead’s and so many others, cannot stand alone. In this essay, however, they find accord. In closing, they stand here with the voices of Dorothy Kilgallen and Jack Ruby.

In “Murder Most Foul,” Dylan sings, “What is the truth and where did it go? Ask Oswald and Ruby, they oughta know.”[xlvii] Dorothy Kilgallen did ask Jack Ruby, the man who murdered Oswald on national television. Who was this fearless journalist who dared to question her government’s official narrative? According to Ernest Hemingway, Dorothy Kilgallen was “the greatest female writer in the world.”[xlviii] Kilgallen, in the final years of her short life, worked as a crime reporter and was about to publish a book about the Kennedy killing. But Kilgallen died on November 8, 1965, just before she could deliver the pages of Murder One to her publisher at Random House, Bennet Cerf.[xlix] However, history has documented that Kilgallen’s quest for the truth was focused on Ruby. Kilgallen attended the Ruby trial and was the only journalist granted a private interview.

In February of 1964, Kilgallen wrote, “It appears Washington knows or suspects something about Lee Harvey Oswald that it does not want Dallas and the rest of the world to know or suspect.” Kilgallen told her closest friends that her Ruby disclosures would “blow the JFK case sky high.”[l] But then, at the age of fifty-two, Kilgallen died of an “accidental overdose” of alcohol and barbiturates. Was she murdered because she knew too much? We may never know. But what the historical record can provide, even though her book and notes have disappeared, is the voice of Jack Ruby, the key to the Kennedy assassination, according to Kilgallen.

In a letter he sent to a friend while in jail, Ruby wrote: “I am counting on you to save this country a lot of bloodshed. As soon as you get out you must read Texan looks at Lyndon (reference to a book called A Texan Looks at Lyndon by J. Everett Haley), and it may open your eyes to a lot of things. This man is a Nazi in the worst order.”[li] Yes, Jack Ruby knew that Johnson was corrupt and part of the plot. Ruby shot Oswald to protect the cover story. Jack Ruby didn’t kill Lee Harvey Oswald out of love for JFK and he certainly didn’t do it out of love for the man he calls “a Nazi.” This pattern of focusing on LBJ can be further located in Ruby’s testimony to the Warren Commission and the videos of his brief exchanges with reporters.

“I wish that our beloved President Lyndon Johnson would have delved deeper into the situation,” Ruby said to the Warren Commission, but the Commission never granted Ruby his request to leave Texas and travel to DC where he felt he could tell the truth.[lii] So Ruby continued to hammer on the president in later interviews.

“The people that have had so much to gain and had such an ulterior motive for putting me in the position I’m in will never let the true facts come above board to the world,”[liii] Ruby said. When asked by a reporter to elaborate, Ruby who was himself about to die in 1967 (right after winning an appeal for a new trial), said, “I want to correct what I said before about the Vice-President.” He then continued. “When I mentioned about Adlai Stevenson, if he were Vice-President, there would have never been an assassination of our beloved President Kennedy.” The reporter asked Ruby to “explain again.”

“Well,” Ruby said. “The answer is the man in office right now.”[liv]

“[T]he man in office right now,” in 1965 when the interview with Jack Ruby took place, was Lyndon Johnson, the architect of the Vietnam War and the man Ruby characterized as a Nazi. Ruby’s response here gives the reader a sense of why Kilgallen was so excited about publishing her book, Murder One. Kilgallen’s voice, however, was never heard. Like Ruby and so many witnesses in this case, Kilgallen died a premature death. But here, alongside Jackie Kennedy and Evelyn Lincoln, we can see that the women closest to this case all came to the same conclusion. Cumulatively, as a people’s history, the story these women tell aligns with the arguments of JFK’s Secret Service, LBJ’s attorneys, and the CIA agents who were part of the hit team. Their voices, revealed as Bob Dylan’s chorus in this space, support contemporary peer-reviewed scholarship and its thesis of conspiracy. John F. Kennedy, the thirty-fifth president of the United States, was murdered by his successor, Lyndon Johnson, in a coup d’etat, an act where the means and motive were one and the same: power.

*

For More Information

M.C. Armstrong, “Josiah Thompson’s ‘Last Second in Dallas: https://brooklynrail.org/2021/04/books/Josiah-Thompsons-Last-Second-in-Dallas

Patrick Bet-David, Interviewing David Bolden: https//www.youtube.com/watch?v=BHEX8DZQ160

Nigel Turner: “The Men Who Killed Kennedy” (originally aired on The History Channel): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RSLWsojOL4A

Jack Ruby interview with court reporters in 1965:   https://twitter.com/FilesJFK/status/1620169101028249601

*

Works Cited:

Albarelli, H.P. Coup in Dallas. New York: Skyhorse Publishing, 2021.

Armstrong, M.C. “Josiah Thompson’s Last Second in Dallas.” The Brooklyn Rail. April, 2021.

Belzer, Richard. Hit List. New York: Skyhorse Publishing, 2013.

Bet-David, Patrick. Interview with Abraham Bolden. “JFK Assassination: Was It An Inside Job?”

Valuetainment. October 11, 2018.

Bolden, Abraham. The Echo from Dealey Plaza: The True Story of the First African American on the White House Secret Service Detail and His Quest for Justice After the Assassination of JFK. New York: Harmony. Books, 2008.

Bryce, Robert. “The Candidate from Brown and Root,” The Texas Observer, October 6, 2000.

Byrd, David Harold. I’m an Endangered Species: Autobiography of a Free Enterpriser. Houston:

Pacesetter Press, 1978.

Caputo, Marc. “Biden Releases Most JFK Assassination Records—But Withholds Thousands.”

NBC News. December 15, 2022.

Caro, Robert. The Years of Lyndon Johnson: The Path to Power. New York: Vintage Books,

1990.

Czachor, Emily Mae. “Biden and National Archives Sued Over JFK Assassination Records.”

CBS News. October 18, 2022.

Dylan, Bob. “Murder Most Foul.” Rough and Rowdy Ways. Columbia Records, 2020.

Eisenhower, Dwight. “Farewell Address.” National Archives. 1961.

Eskow, Richard. “What Everybody Is Missing About Bob Dylan’s JFK Song.” WhoWhatWhy.

May 5, 2020.

Mary Ferrell Foundation, “Memo: Lee Oswald/Contact with the Soviet Embassy.”

https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc2.html?docId=6673#relPageId=2

Fisher, Eddie. Been There, Done That. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1999.

Fonzi, Gaeton. The Last Investigation. New York: Skyhorse, 2013.

Goudie, Chuck. “44 Years After JFK’s Death, New Assassination Plot Revealed.” ABC News. February 6, 2009.

Hunt, Saint John. Bond of Secrecy. Walterville: TrineDay, 2008.

Kuzmarov, Jeremy. “Was LBJ A Serial Killer Who Advanced His Career by Murdering 6 Other Men Who Stood in His Way?” CovertAction Magazine, February 6, 2023.

Lane, Mark. Last Word: My Indictment of the CIA in the Murder of JFK. New York: Skyhorse Publishing, 2011.

Laney, Ruth and Doyle Whitehead. “Memories of serving three U.S. presidents as steward on Air Force One,” Country Roads. October 24, 2016.

Marrs, Jim. Crossfire: The Plot That Killed Kennedy. New York: Carroll & Graf, 1989.

Morrow, Robert. “Secret Service Agent Abraham Bolden, on or about June 28, 1961, Witnessed

an Explosive Argument in The Oval Office between Lyndon Johnson and the Kennedys,
JFK And RFK.” Robert Morrow Political Research Blog. January 27, 2023.

Nechiporenko, Oleg. Passport to Assassination: The Never Before Told Story of Lee Harvey Oswald by the KGB Colonel Who Knew Him. Boston: Birch Lane Publishing, 1993.

McClellan, Barr. Blood, Money, & Power: How L.B.J. Killed JFK. New York: Skyhorse Publishing, 2011.

Mary Mitchell, “It’s long past time to finally clear first White House Black Secret Service agent’s name.” The Chicago-Sun Times. January 14, 2022.

Morley, Jefferson. Twitter. November 16, 2022.

Phillips, Cabell. “Major Political Scandal Looming in the Bobby Baker Case.” The New York Times. January 25, 1964, 146.

Powell, Lew. “VP Sanford? How Serious Was JFK?” NC Miscellany: Exploring the History, Literature, and Culture of the Tar Heel State. September 17, 2020.

Report of the Warren Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy. New York: McGraw-Hill Book Co, 1964.

Reynolds, Nick. “New Documents Shed Light on CIA’s Connection to Lee Harvey Oswald.” Newsweek. December 6, 2022.

Rogers, Rosemary. “Wild Irish Women: The Reporter Who Wouldn’t Go Away.” Irish America Magazine. June/July, 2017.

Ruby, Jack. Interview. KTVT, Fort Worth. September 9, 1965. Retrieved February 11, 2023. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NiPl2DNwJJk

Ruby, Jack. Interview. Retrieved from Twitter, January 30, 2023.  https://twitter.com/FilesJFK/status/1620169101028249601

Spartacus Educational, “Oil Depletion Allowance.” Retrieved on February 11, 2023. https://spartacus-educational.com/JFKoildepletion.htm

Talbot, David. Brothers. New York: Free Press.

Talbot, David. The Devil’s Chessboard. New York: Harper Perennial, 2015.

Thomas, D.B. “Echo correlation analysis and the acoustic evidence in the Kennedy assassination revisited.” Science and Justice, (41: 2001), 21-32.

Thompson, Josiah. Last Second in Dallas. Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 2021.

Thompson, Paul. “Who Killed JFK? List of Suspects Made by Secretary of Assassinated President Goes Up for Auction.” Daily Mail. December 13, 2010.

*

Footnotes:

[i]Ruth Laney, Doyle Whitehead: “Memories of serving three U.S. presidents as steward on Air Force One,” Country Roads, (October 24, 2016).

[ii] Cabell Phillips, “Major Political Scandal Looming in the Bobby Baker Case,” The New York Times, January 25, 1964, 146.

[iii] Lew Powell, “VP Sanford? How Serious Was JFK?” NC Miscellany: Exploring the History, Literature, and Culture of the Tar Heel State, September 17, 2020.

[iv] Richard Eskow, “What Everybody Is Missing About Bob Dylan’s JFK Song,” WhoWhatWhy, May 5, 2020.

[v] Dylan, “Murder Most Foul.” Rough and Rowdy Ways. Columbia Records. 2020.

[vi] Jefferson Morley, Twitter, November 16, 2022.

[vii] Chuck Goudie, “44 Years After JFK’s Death, New Assassination Plot Revealed,” ABC News, February 6, 2009.

[viii] Robert Caro, The Years of Lyndon Johnson: The Path to Power, (New York: Vintage Books, 1990), 659.

[ix] Dylan, “Murder Most Foul.”

[x] D.B. Thomas, “Echo correlation analysis and the acoustic evidence in the Kennedy assassination revisited,” Science and Justice, (41: 2001), 21-32.

[xi] Josiah Thompson, Last Second in Dallas, (Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 2021).

[xii] M.C. Armstrong, “Josiah Thompson’s Last Second in Dallas,” The Brooklyn Rail, (April, 2021).

[xiii] Barr McClellan, Blood, Money, & Power: How L.B.J. Killed JFK, (New York: Skyhorse Publishing, 2011), 13.

[xiv] McClellan, 5.

[xv] Jeremy Kuzmarov, ““Was LBJ A Serial Killer Who Advanced His Career by Murdering 6 Other Men Who Stood in His Way?”, CovertAction Magazine, February 6, 2023.

[xvi] Spartacus Educational, “Oil Depletion Allowance,” https://spartacus-educational.com/JFKoildepletion.htm

[xvii] McClellan, 328.

[xviii] Jim Marrs, Crossfire: The Plot That Killed Kennedy, (New York: Carroll & Graf), Preface.

[xix] David Talbot, Brothers, (New York: Free Press), 405.

[xx] Saint John Hunt, Bond of Secrecy, (Walterville: TrineDay), 133-138.

[xxi] David Talbot, The Devil’s Chessboard, (New York: Harper Perennial, 2015), 503.

[xxii] Mark Lane, Last Word: My Indictment of the CIA in the Murder of JFK, (Skyhorse Publishing, 2011), 50-63.

[xxiii] Talbot, Brothers, 399.

[xxiv] Talbot, The Devil’s Chessboard, 490.

[xxv] Talbot, The Devil’s Chessboard, 484-509.

[xxvi] Albarelli, 335.

[xxvii] Albarelli, 335.

[xxviii] David Harold Byrd, I’m an Endangered Species: Autobiography of a Free Enterpriser, (Houston: Pacesetter Press, 1978).

[xxix] “Memo: Lee Oswald/Contact with the Soviet Embassy,” https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc2.html?docId=6673#relPageId=2

[xxx] McClellan, 213.

[xxxi] Albarelli, 376.

[xxxii] Albarelli, 376.

[xxxiii] Albarelli, 376.

[xxxiv] Abraham Bolden, The Echo from Dealey Plaza: The True Story of the First African American on the White House Secret Service Detail and His Quest for Justice After the Assassination of JFK, (New York: Harmony. Books, 2008).

[xxxv] Robert Morrow, “Secret Service Agent Abraham Bolden, on or about June 28, 1961, Witnessed an Explosive Argument in The Oval Office between Lyndon Johnson and the Kennedys, JFK And RFK.” Robert Morrow Political Research Blog, January 27, 2023.

[xxxvi] Patrick Bet-David, Interview with Abraham Bolden, “JFK Assassination: Was It An Inside Job?”, October 11, 2018.

[xxxvii] Oleg Nechiporenko, Passport to Assassination: The Never Before Told Story of Lee Harvey Oswald by the KGB Colonel Who Knew Him, (Boston: Birch Lane Publishing, 1993), 181.

[xxxviii] Mary Mitchell, “It’s long past time to finally clear first White House Black Secret Service agent’s name,” The Chicago-Sun Times, January 14, 2022.

[xxxix] Emily Mae Czachor, “Biden and National Archives Sued Over JFK Assassination Records,” CBS News, October 18, 2022.

[xl] Marc Caputo, NBC News, “Biden Releases Most JFK Assassination Records—But Withholds Thousands,” December 15, 2022.

[xli] Paul Thompson, “Who Killed JFK? List of Suspects Made by Secretary of Assassinated President Goes Up for Auction,” Daily Mail, December 13, 2010.

[xlii] Talbot, The Devil’s Chessboard, 493.

[xliii] Talbot, Brothers, 268.

[xliv] Talbot, Brothers, 251.

[xlv] Dylan, “Murder Most Foul,” 2020.

[xlvi] Eddie Fisher, Been There, Done That, (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1999), 258.

[xlvii] Dylan, “Murder Most Foul.”

[xlviii] Rosemary Rogers, “Wild Irish Women: The Reporter Who Wouldn’t Go Away,” Irish America Magazine, June/July 2017.

[xlix] Rogers, Irish America Magazine.

[l] Richard Belzer, Hit List, (New York: Skyhorse Publishing, 2013), 79.

[li] Belzer, Hit List, 35.

[lii] Jack Ruby, Warren Commission Testimony, 1964. https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=40#relPageId=215

[liii] Jack Ruby, Interview, KTVT, Fort Worth, September 9, 1965. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NiPl2DNwJJk

[liv] Jack Ruby, Interview. 1965. https://twitter.com/FilesJFK/status/1620169101028249601

I know what you’re thinking. What could this story possibly be about. Let me catch you up.

First of all, you’re wondering whether I shot Angela’s kid or Angela. The answer is: I shot neither. I shot a jihadist who spotted me. The next half hour was a blur of sniping, shooting, and explosions. Here’s how it ended: me bursting into Angela’s room and disarming her. I don’t remember many details about what happened to get me there, but I remember quite clearly what happened when I entered her bedroom. She tried to shoot me with her AK, it missed, and I wrenched it out of her hands. She tried to attack me with her fists, and I held her by her arms.

“Angela, it’s me,” I said, pausing her furious assault, but sparking no recognition in her blue eyes. I removed my helmet like Luke Skywalker in Star Wars. “It’s your neighbor, from high school. I’m here to rescue you.”

In fact I had been sent there to kill her, but the plan changed. You’ll be happy to know that I made her my wife, and adopted her kids (we weren’t able to find her jihadist husband, I heard he joined up with ISIS later, after Angela became my girl). Now they’re at Choate, and me and Angela have a couple kids of our own.

Big changes, huh!

This story isn’t about Iraq, though—not the parts from the first story, or the parts from when I went back to do more sniping in Mosul in 2017. It’s not about my happy marriage to Angela either, though that’s somewhat relevant. No, this story is about what happened when, after a long and illustrious career, having just retired, through a strange series of coincidences and serendipitous happenings I found myself in Ukraine, fighting against Russia’s wicked and immoral invasion.

In Ukraine, where I encountered the greatest test of my life—one that nearly ended me, and from which I emerged triumphant only by the barest of margins.

***

How to set the stage for Ukraine better than to explain that my heroic rescue of Angela from the clutches of evil jihadists wrought in me a profound and lasting change? A change that, given what you already know of my sniping aptitude, probably won’t be all that surprising… that’s right: after marrying Angela, it was no longer necessary for me to jack it before killing some bad guy or another.

Throughout the various places I was deployed with the Navy SEALs and then later Delta, Special Activities Detachment (SAD) and a Task Force that occasionally pulled me up for off the books black ops missions, I did not fap once during a mission. People in those units already knew me as the “American Fapper” owing both to the fame of my story (with which you’re likely familiar) and my unimpeachable combat record. But as is so often the case with fame and the things that bring people notoriety I had already moved on… I was no longer “fapping,” nor did Angela’s prodigious sexual appetite leave me much energy for anything beyond recuperation. I would look forward to two- or three-month deployments as only these were able to give me the time and space to adequately restock the vital energy I needed to do the level of sex Angela required to a standard that I felt was acceptable.

It got to the point where I could barely even remember the person who’d needed to rub one out before achieving the quiet clarity required to make a 900m headshot kill without flinching. Who was he? What odd neuroses consumed him? It was like thinking about a fictional character or trying to recollect the optimism and enthusiasm of a Christmas morning during childhood.

Countless missions later, I’d been promoted and aged out of combat operations. Angela didn’t mind and neither did I. Closing in on retirement with two bad knees and a broken down back, the desk job I had once regarded with revulsion and fear came to represent a goal. Nothing pleased me more than to think about quietly retiring to my hometown to teach history or maybe join the police force. As I remembered, and observed during trips back, the sleepy town was ideal for older people to wind down their final days.

The pent up and volcanic energies of my youth, satiated and slacked by the accomplishments of my adulthood, no longer compelled in me a reckless gallop for the unknown. I was admired within my company of peers, and that group was (who could disagree?) objectively a company of heroes.

This is all to say, nothing artificial pushed me to Ukraine; it was not an escape or a restlessness. The circumstances of my life were pleasant, comfortable, and satisfying. I was perfectly content.

Then Putin invaded.

***

In 2014 I’d done a training hitch in what Ukrainians call “polygon,” the name for a training area, somewhere in its north. It was an off the books rotation, I’d taught a strange crew of old and young men how to do sniper activities. I’d done training missions before all over the Middle East but could honestly say I’d never had a group ingest my lessons so quickly or completely. In fact, one of the older soldiers, a 55-year-old man named Yura who’d been in Afghanistan with the Red Army, taught me a couple tricks about concealment that stood me in good stead. That hadn’t happened in a long time; I considered him a master sniper and a peer, though his rank was that of a regular sergeant. Their promotion system was a little wacky.

My time in Ukraine gave me a sense that this was a serious people, and I never completely forgot about them, especially as they fought against the Russians over the next years. Occasionally I’d get a note from one of them, inquiring about my health or sending an update after a particularly fierce battle. My training of them seemed to have a profound impact on their development and confidence and I tried to offer them support and conversation as I could.

One of the updates, in 2019, came from Yura’s wife; Yura, it seemed, had been seriously wounded in an artillery strike in a town called Avdiivka. She related the details of his injury — the loss of his left (non-shooting) arm — asking for small monetary assistance and I thought, not for the first time and not for the last time, how different a war like his was. Getting injured or killed by a battery of Russian 300m rocket artillery pieces was never a conceivable end for me. Shot by the Taliban or AQ or ISIS, maybe, but a bomb or rockets? Forget it.

The Ukrainians were in the kind of war I’d only ever imagined or watched on TV. Even the battles for Mosul paled in comparison. I thought about this, and wondered at their ability to keep fighting against the Russians. We wired him $1000 which his family said was a godsend. Several months after his injury and with the help of a prosthetic, Yura was back in uniform and carrying his trusty Dragonuv rifle.

I thought about that, too.

***

There had been a foul energy building in the world. A bad moon. Even so, when Russia invaded, I was surprised. I didn’t think things like that could happen anymore.

Angela’s parents, who admired me (especially her father), were nonetheless owing to their German roots somewhat skeptical of Ukraine, and I would even go so far as to say passively pro-Russian. At least in the sense that they’d totally written off Ukraine once Russian tanks crossed the border.

This prejudice against Ukraine and for Russia was deep-seated with them. Angela’s grandfathers had both fought in WWII and I think after Germany’s defeat were inclined to view the Russians and Soviets both as horrible and paradoxically also at the same time superior to Germans — the Russians had proved this on the battlefield. To resist or defeat the Russians was seen somehow as impossible, or not worth the cost.

They swore (Angela’s father, and her mother supported him in this) that Russia would have the whole of Ukraine in two weeks. I told them as respectfully as I could that the Ukrainians would fight, knowing the people I trained, and fight they did; bravely, honorably, and against all odds, successfully. The invasion was parried in the north and south, then pushed back. In the east, however, it turned into a brutal shoving match. Mariupol and Melitopel were lost. The war itself darkened.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. The first weeks of the war the Ruhrs went from seeing things their way, to seeing them my way. I shared photos that Ukrainian friends sent. Then I shared photos that friends of mine, folks who’d retired or gotten out years ago, started taking. They’d gone over to join the International Legion or volunteer. very quickly, some of them stopped coming back, either committed to the fight or dead somewhere.

Those photos and the stories you probably all saw in the media had a dramatic impact on me. Simple and humble men, good people, standing up to what everyone knew was certain death and winning, making death itself uncertain. Defeating the bullet, the red horde, standing up to it chest to chest and stopping it cold.

It got so I couldn’t stop thinking about it, and then thinking about going over to do something, to help. I cleared it with Angela, who wasn’t thrilled, but who basically understood, and I reached out to Yura, who was serving in the Azov Battalion. He got back the same day. “Come on over,” he said on Facebook.

***

I probably should say a few words about Azov. You read about them in the news and in Russian propaganda where everyone in Azov is supposed to be a Nazi. I can’t say how things were in the past; the symbol they use looks like SS lightning bolts, and everyone there (Yura included) just about admitted that the unit was founded as a neo-Nazi paramilitary (funded, somewhat confusingly, by Kolomioski, a Jewish oligarch) in 2014. But times change. By the time I got to Azov, in March of 2022, it was a top-tier volunteer unit in the national guard, composed of experienced veterans and motivated volunteers. Maybe something analogous to the US Army Rangers. They took their tasks seriously and had obviously trained and prepared for the fight that was unfolding around them in Mariupol. Nobody was “far right” in the sense that Russia or pro-Russians in the west attributed to them. That was all old-guard Azov; people whose influence in the unit was to tell stories about 2014 (and those stories were quickly eclipsed by the actions of 2022 and 2023).

Why didn’t I go into the international legion? This is an excellent question. Mostly, I had no sense of what it was as an organization. If the Ukrainians had found a man to lead it, that might have been one thing. Certainly there were individuals — Westerners — who were suitable for the job, and had reputations that might have imprinted discipline and unity on the organization. But these individuals were never recruited — nor, as I understand it, even asked — who’s to say whether a Petraeus or McChrystal would have even said “yes” to such an uncertain proposition? In any case, the organization was shrouded in opacity and mystery. As a SEAL, I instinctively mistrusted such an organization…

How did I get to Azov? By helicopter. Things weren’t as difficult as they’d get in April, but it was still pretty tight. I flew to Bucharest in Romania, crossed the border, took a car to Odesa, and from there, hopped a series of cars to a point that was still contested across the Dnipro, where two MI-8s were loaded with ammo and personnel. Mine had a Soviet-era camouflage paint job, and flew low, below treetop for much of the journey, until at night we reached the city and our drop-off point.

These flights were extremely risky, though I happened to be lucky; neither of the helicopters on my flight were shot down or even received much harassing fire. In the very early days, Russian soldiers hadn’t learned to shoot at everything, and owing to their local air superiority, they assumed our helicopters (the same model as their own) were Russian, though that changed later. The pilots were, like so many Ukrainians, veterans of many conflicts and much combat. The pilot on my helicopter was, like Yura, a veteran of Afghanistan, and had also been employed as a contractor in Iraq, in 2007. Small world, I thought.

Disembarking from the helicopter, my knees and back groaning after the ride, I helped unload the ammo and equipment quickly, then loaded five casualties aboard— everything was done with great urgency for reasons that would soon become apparent — and two English-speaking soldiers hustled me into a basement as the helicopters took off. The entire operation from landing to liftoff took less than five minutes.

Five minutes after that, artillery came crashing down around us, plastering the courtyard and the surrounding buildings with 152mm shells. It was a storm the likes of which I had never before endured, and it lasted for almost 15 minutes straight. They must have put an entire battery to the task of destroying the helicopters; sadly for them, the Mi-8s were long gone.

This was it, I thought as the dust settled. Real war; the kind I’d always imagined. Not gun battles, the likes of which I and my special operations comrades had touched during the invasion of Iraq, and encountered sporadically since. No—this was authentically and unarguably war, Mars walking up and down streets in BTRs and tanks, swinging his red sword and laughing joyously as it struck business, apartment, car, soldier, and child alike. It was chaos.

For a moment, during the artillery barrage, I had even experienced something I never expected to encounter — concern. Had I made a mistake, coming here? Would I ever leave alive?

Using my American optimism and iron Will, I easily shook off that morbid thought. These were Russians, not supermen. They had advantages in personnel and equipment, but who knew better the price and blind spots of pride better than a Navy SEAL… those vulnerable areas were things I could exploit as easily as shaving errant hairs from my face in the mirror.

The soldiers brought me to Yura that night. I was equipped with a sniper rifle taken from a dead Chechen, one of Khadyrov’s henchmen (Azov had ambushed him in broad daylight as he walked down the street with a squad of his soldiers), and given the four magazines of ammo they had for it, totaling 120 rounds. “Make each bullet count and look out for Chechen snipers,” Yura said, shaking my hand with his good hand.

“I will,” I said, though this was unnecessary.

Yura made a jerking off motion, then winked. “American jerker,” he said. “The best.”

“Number one,” I said. The nickname didn’t bother me, and I didn’t bother to correct him — it was Fapper, not jerker, or masturbator, both of which I had heard. Getting hung up on that particular always felt like a waste of time, for one thing, and for another, appearing to care about anything usually produced the opposite result from which one hoped, in the military.

I chatted with Yura and his boss, and got a basic sense for the AO. We hammered out a plan for where I could operate, and how to get in touch with Azov if I got cut off (as I planned and hoped to do — one does one’s best sniping behind enemy lines). They gave me a manageably light ruck with a couple days of food and water that I would replenish during my forays through the city, warned me again about the threat of Chechen snipers, I grabbed a few hours of sleep, and set out into the early morning before sunup.

***

Mariupol — what to say about the city. People told me after I returned home that it was a formerly Greek, and this was true up to a point. The city was built on the site of an Ancient Greek colony, but the modern city was a much more recent phenomenon — and attempts to “Hellenize” its identity, similar to attempts to retroactively Hellenize other parts of Ukraine in Crimea and on the Black Sea were inventions by Catherine the Great and other Russian leaders hoping to connect their nation’s history more firmly to posterity.

What I saw in Mariupol was a shattered city; nothing of Greece, or anything beyond pro-Ukrainian spirit among the residents, a desire for peace, and a lot of Russian targets dancing through rubble.

Yura had explained to me how the Russians would attack, and I figured out pretty quickly a solid plan for taking as many of them as I could. First, I’d set up a position adjacent to where I knew there would be a firefight, but offset by 150-200m, preferably with a nice bit of stand-off from streets directly adjacent to the fight. When Russian soldiers popped up, I’d track one, and as soon as the shooting started I’d shoot, my fire masked by a machinegun or tank, then retreat from my wall or apartment or window or rooftop. I’d say my hit rate was around 100%; I can’t say for sure about the wounded / kill rate, body armor or helmets might have cheated my bullets, but as I understood from media coverage afterwards the Russians provided very little field medicine to their soldiers during that stage of the invasion, and even a relatively minor wound could result in a kill. In this fashion I was able to hit about 10 soldiers a day without taking any fire.

For about a week I was able to keep this up, old and battered as my poor body was, and in my head I started to think that I was probably informally closing in on Chris Kyle’s mark. As we were working, though, we were also falling back — always retreating — the noose slowly closing around our neck. It dawned on me that, American and rather notorious in certain circles as I was, doubly so as a sniper, my odds of surviving captivity were pretty slim — and the means by which they’d dispatch me were almost certain to be unpleasant.

Block by block, house by house we fought, and at some point during that second week, the Russians seemed to figure out that I was there. Maybe a prisoner talked, maybe I had worked enough squads that folks sort of figured out the routine. I suppose it was inevitable. Still, not knowing bothered me; I wasn’t sure what I’d done wrong, so I could correct it in the future.

By then I’d shot (again, I want to be careful to caveat that I never stuck around long enough to see the result) nearly 100 Russian soldiers, and going by the killed/wounded ratio my guess is that at least 50 of those had been kills. But I really can’t say for sure.

Some of the kills I’d seen — the Chechen fighters Kaderov sent didn’t always like to wear helmets for some reason, and I headshotted about a dozen of them — those, I know I killed. There was something familiar and comfortable about those kills; I suppose the targets reminded me of Taliban or ISIS, with their beards, and swaggering overconfidence. I didn’t headshot many of the regular Russian soldiers. Most were wearing helmets, and even a lousy steel WWII era helmet can deflect a bullet at the right angle. Russian soldiers I tried to killshot to the gut, I suspect with some effectiveness.

I noticed that they had noticed me, or were aware of my presence, when near the end of the second week, squads began scanning windows and rooftops before charging into an area. It could be I suppose that they had encountered snipers in other, different locations — that it had nothing to do with me, personally. But there they were, looking — seeking. And where soldiers look and seek, where they take precautions, one can be sure, there are other snipers lurking — Chechen or Russian.

***

My numbers fell — I had to change my standard operating procedure. I needed the break, anyway, my body had unlocked new ways of experiencing fatigue and pain. Now I wasn’t plinking soldiers or officers — I was in counter-sniper mode. By any reasonable measure my work in this department was exceptional; as soon as I started looking, I found the new or unseasoned or experienced but not battle-tested snipers in their usual spots, and was able to take them out using precisely the same trick that I’d used to shoot soldiers. The snipers I knew that I killed, as everyone was headshotted while they looked for me, or someone like me. One. Two. Six, I tallied them all.

It took me about a week to kill 10 snipers, and by then, I felt a kind of confidence that’s difficult to describe. I knew — the way one knows that a table is a table or a tree is a tree — that I was the best sniper in the city; something like a master of the place.  Nobody else in the city could do what I was doing. Furthermore, nobody could, now; the opportunity had come and gone, the low hanging fruit was almost all gathered, picked up from the grass with the minimum necessary effort.

The Russians moved in my area only with great caution, perhaps with something bordering on terror. Many people believe that the word terror is synonymous with horror, but this is not the case… horror is a type of extreme fear, whereas terror is spiritual or religious, the state one enters when confronted by the divine. People would peer and creep where before they had run. Snipers were rarely seen at all; more often, what would happen now was tanks or APCs would spray the windows of upper floors whether fire was coming from them or not. Artillery fire and rocket artillery fire was applied liberally on similar logic. The Russians and Chechens had encountered mortality — death, in the form of my steady hand — and they did what they could to destroy instead of fighting the war incompetently, as they had before. Rather than evolve as an army, they devolved — they were little better than heavily armed gangsters with artillery.

Even under these conditions I was still able to work. I tripled my precautions and began hunting, firing opportunistically and with as little rhyme or reason as I could muster, like a serial killer throwing detectives off his scent. In this way I was also able to replenish my ammunition somewhat, which was down to critical levels. One day I took the uniform from a Russian soldier and infiltrated far into the city, taking a terrible risk (I spoke no Russian or Ukrainian) until I found a headquarters, then crawled in the window of a former bank, walked and lifted myself up a set of stairs, my worn muscles afire with exertion, and (finally) set up in a room across from an emergency exit that fed out onto the roof of an adjacent building. I waited until someone important appeared, canoed him, then made good my escape as the HQ erupted in gunfire and confusion.

This audacious act (one of many) was, though I did not realize it at the time, to create the conditions by which I would encounter my greatest test of all. Jogging along my escape route, all I could think of was the surprised expression on the large, bulldog-faced man — colonel? General? ‑ who had until he met my bullet been under the mistaken impression that he commanded a unit, a group of men, a space in which his authority was absolute.

***

This very lesson was nearly imparted on me scarcely a day later. Our defensive perimeter was shrinking by the day, collapsing onto the massive Azovstal factory-fortress where Azov regiment and many Ukrainian marines would make a last stand. Almost as soon as Russia invaded again, Azov had begun preparing the factory as a redoubt of last hope, stockpiling food, water, ammunition, and everything necessary to withstand a siege.

Between the factory and the city was a fetid swamp, which as the ground rose to the north, turned into a ghetto or shantytown. Then, more substantial buildings emerged, and one could say that the city itself began, atop the ridge line. We held that, and about a half a kilometer further.

Ill omens had arrived as the sun rose; a murder of crows had flown overhead as I moved toward my sector, the zipper on my jacket got stuck halfway and I realized I’d need to discard it, and “Yankee sniper go home” had been spray painted overnight on the wall of a prominent building. With a start, I realized that it was the 15th; the Ides of March. When I reached the line of contact to set up a position, struggling to move a table into place quietly, one of the two magazines I had remaining slipped out of its pouch and onto the floor. My pouches were customized for my rifle’s magazines, and the narrower Soviet-era magazines used by the Russians and Chechens were an imperfect fit, which drove me crazy.

In this case the accident was serendipitous… the magazine slipped out of the pouch, and as I bent to retrieve it the concrete wall where my head had been an instant earlier sprouted a deep divot.

I’d been fired upon; a sniper — a talented sniper — had me zeroed in. I grabbed my rifle from the table and knocked the table over for concealment, pocketed the magazine, and made my retreat; another two bullets punched through table behind me as I left the room, scrambling on my hands and knees and barely avoiding an ass full of splinters or bullets.

I didn’t stop in the hall; I made for the staircase and engaged my evacuation route immediately. Just as I exited the building, it erupted — a tank had begun pummeling any room I could be in. I went through a couple buildings and paused, then moved to the first floor of an abandoned house to take stock and recuperate, gulping in air like a drowning man, ragged with adrenaline and vitality.

When I checked my gear, I saw that there was a bullet hole in the collar of my uniform’s jacket. That’s how close it had been. Sheer luck, and I’d made it out alive.

My first rational thought, examining the situation calmly, is that the sniper had been waiting for me. That was the only explanation. They’d set up to catch a sniper, and I was the sniper to catch. So they’d tried to kill me, personally.

It felt personal, anyway.

Three choices confronted me. One: chalk it up to coincidence and go back to work — work that still urgently needed to be done. Or two: go into emergency protocol, and hunt this specific sniper. Three involved telling Yura I was done, but I wasn’t ready for that. No, now something needed doing, and a head needed taking.

***

I’d been tracking snipers and taking them out for nearly a week, but this was different. A high-level sniper — elite, certainly. They’d laid a trap for me, and sheer chance had robbed them of the kill. I had to acknowledge that before anything else. By all rights I should have been dead. God had preserved me for some other purpose, though I had no idea what that purpose could be.

I made a quick survey of the area and calculated what would be necessary to spring my own trap. First I’d need this person to think that I was taking the first course of action. Leaving was leaving — staying was staying. I’d have to gamble that the sniper I was fighting — a Chechen? Had to be — would both feel cheated by fate, and suppose that I was the type of proud person who’d go out for revenge and/or ignore the incident as bad luck. Besides, we had to protect our territory. Just that day we’d lost an entire block to the Russian forces to our west.

This gave me a day, three streets or so, worth of houses to make my move. I’d have to get as high as I could without going onto a rooftop (where drones could spot me), but not so high that tanks would bring me under fire before I could find the sniper stalking me. I’d have to predict the rate of advance of the Russians, and also predict how the sniper would predict my own movements. There was a lot of guessing involved. I’ve never played chess, but this felt a lot like it. I felt like both a King. Or a Queen. Or both. You get the point.

Over the next several hours I scoured our territory looking for the perfect place to spring my plan. Nothing seemed adequate — where my room was good, there was no suitable place for an opposing sniper. Where my enemy had excellent fields of fire (like those he’d encountered in Iraq or Afghanistan or Syria, I assumed, trying to get into his head) there was no good place for me to establish my counter-position.

Just as I was ready to give up, I found the position that made perfect sense. It was 1500, and I had plenty of time to prepare a fake position using a mannequin, watching over a likely sniper location *but not* the location an expert would take — this was the bait.

I clothed my doppelgänger with my uniform and rifle — everything needed to be the same — and concealed them. Yura had brought up another sniper rifle (sadly there were more rifles, now, than people to use them), an old M14, one with which I was familiar owing to time spent deploying to assist the Army earlier in my career. As the fighting around us raged I zeroed the rifle and made sure that its optics worked. Actually, it felt great in my hands — brought back memories of a younger me, one who had their entire future ahead of them. A me who never could have imagined that one day I’d end up with Angela.

Yura also handed me a set of thermals, which I’d need to spot the sniper’s infil, though not to shoot. I’d make sure the rifle was already in position, so when he showed up that night to take up his position, I’d be ready to pay him back the favor he’d done me.

Wrapping myself in a Mylar poncho, I found my place in a room behind a shot-out window overlooking what had been a rich man’s balcony. The overwatch was itself concealed by a large and well-manicured pine bush. It was an improbable location, which made it perfect — the sniper wouldn’t, in the darkness, even know that it was there, and if somehow he did notice it, the angle was off from his perspective. I chuckled to myself. Once again, I felt in sync with the world and the city. As it breathed, I did. As I exhaled, it did. Then I waited.

***

It happened at 0200. The city was quiet — sleeping, mostly, with sporadic gunfire erupting between soldiers and APCs, or artillery booming nearby or in the distance. I felt it before I saw it. The sniper entered the room; tentatively at first — moving delicately and with care — and I recoiled within my thermal-dampening suit reflexively as the sniper scanned my room, presumably with some cheap (but sufficient) Chinese knockoff. He hesitated — something compelled him to look more deeply at my position — and I thought, did I leave a chink of warmth uncovered? Had I walked into a trap of my own? Was this the end of “The American Fapper?”

But then, the sniper continued scanning, until they found my dummy position. I’d placed an electric heater under the mannequin and concealed it, so while visible, barely, it was not conspicuous. When the sniper started setting up to shoot my double, I knew I had them.

Once they were settled on a table, I got ready to end things — no point in extending it, I thought, I’d had plenty of luck on my side and didn’t feel like testing God twice. Just before I lay the thermals down to site in the M14, though, a movement by the sniper startled me. They were undoing their pants and — was it possible? Were they about to do my move on me?

A wave of anger rolled over me, but before I had time to process the uncharacteristic emotion, I was struck by another, even greater shock; the sniper, as I could see from the means by which they were satisfying their vile urge, was a woman.

I’d heard of female snipers and knew the Ukrainian military fielded them (I saw none during my time in Mariupol but believe several were stationed there at that time), but for some reason it had never occurred to me that my own foe would be one — that the second greatest sniper in the city was, in fact, a woman. One who had by rights killed me, but for a trick of fate.

The thermal could tell me that much, but I did not know anything else about the target; whether she was old or young, pretty, or plain. One thing was certain: she was observing a version of me that I had placed to entrap her, and had, and was vigorously pleasing herself.

Here I encountered my third shock of the night. I went to leave the thermals, shrouding myself in darkness, to take the shot with the M14, and… I couldn’t. Suddenly, I was back in Iraq, paralyzed by an inability to take and therefore make the necessary shot. My target was writhing in ecstasy before me, helpless, and there was nothing I could do.

Should I retreat, I thought? No — I probably wouldn’t get another chance like this, certainly not after she realized the ruse. This was it. Do or die. I was trapped, paralyzed. There was nothing to be done.

Unless…

Then I realized. Of course. It had to be this way. I could explain to Angela later. Or maybe not. Maybe this would never come between us. Maybe, it was this one moment, this last target that the universe was offering me, some kind of redemption for my past, here in a fallen city.

Without touching the rifle, I did my thing, quickly and efficiently. I finished, then slowly felt for the M14’s cold wooden buttstock, laying my hands on its worn grains, bringing my cheek to the correct place, lining everything up. A flash in the sniper’s window briefly illuminated her in the scope, allowing me to move the crosshairs ever so slightly over her (as I could see it) short-cropped blond hair and yes, attractive face, and placed my last shot as a sniper square between her gray eyes.

The story of how I managed to escape Mariupol before its fall, and Yura and Azov’s brave stand alongside Ukrainian marines in the Azovstal fortress are stories known to all, and don’t bear repeating. For myself, I’ll always look back on those days as the pinnacle of my sniping career. Sometimes you get lucky. I did. Twice!

She came from the south, wearing a bright red dress and carrying a light blue backpack, weaving through the well-worn paths on the banks of the Euphrates that had been carved out by foot traffic and various other forces of erosion for millennia. The same ground carried her ancestors and bequeathed them their fertile crescent, upon which they birthed a cradle of civilization and set forth the foundations of human history and society, with all its triumph and suffering. For all that had changed in the sweeping conquest of ecological momentum and Westphalian geopolitics, the beauty of the Euphrates remained. Its flora flourished, hosting palm trees and wildflowers, poplar trees and different species of reed, camel thorn and prosopis, that all combined to a bright, magnificent green to the armed predator drone circling 25,000 feet above. She may have heard the slight hum of its engine as it watched over her with its hellfire missiles and multi-spectral targeting system that held several high-quality cameras to broadcast the feed of her image to SPC Yates’ screen, but it’s unlikely. Drones circled over her head everyday while she went to school and went on with her life, oblivious to SPC Yates’ existence as a set of eyes that was capable of seeing her every move and even ending her entire existence.

His real name was Brian. If it were not for the college loan forgiveness program that brought him into the Louisiana Army National Guard, that’s what he would have preferred to have been called. But it did, and the Army named him SPC Yates. He sat at his desk in the base defense operations center (BDOC) of Al Asad Air Base and watched his screen. Around him, other SPCs carried out similar tasks, monitoring drone feeds and security cameras littered throughout their area of operations in Al Anbar province. Together, they looked for things that could kill them, rockets or drones riding in the bed of a Toyota highlander or being loaded into the back of a trailer. SPC Yates was good at his job. He tasked drone pilots, far away in their air-conditioned trailers on an air force base somewhere in Nevada, to survey certain areas and strike certain targets depending on the needs of the day and the orders he received from the battle captain that sat at the back of the room. He stared at suspicious trucks and dangerous looking people. More often than not, they were nothing. A group of insurgents loading rockets into a pickup would end up being a family moving a mattress. An individual fitting the description of a known terrorist would be an old man herding goats. Through these laborious tasks and the daily monotony of his screen, SPC Yates came to know the village of Al Baghdadi, ten kilometers to their north, its winding roads and paths, and all its nooks and crannies. He immersed himself in the foliage of the river that cut between it, colorful and bright, and yearned to be around the green of his childhood, the marshes and swamps around New Orleans where his father taught him how to fish, instead of the bleak and barren landscape of sand and dust that waited for him outside the door of the BDOC. He came to recognize the people, the shopkeepers and merchants, schoolchildren and insurgents. But he had never seen anyone quite like this, the little girl in a red dress.

She walked with an ease and absolute lack of concern or awareness about the dangerous world around her. In the strikingly vivid and detailed quality of the drone’s cameras, SPC Yates could see the pattern of her dress, floral and white, as it blew with the breeze that swayed the green all around her. She skipped up and down, and bobbed her head from left to right, holding the straps of her backpack with both hands as it bounced gingerly with each leap. She had dark brown hair that she let flow past her shoulders, free of a bun or head scarf, which was uncommon. Brian thought he could see the sun reflecting off of it when she tilted her head in just the right direction. Every few steps, she would stop, and pick a rock up off the ground and skip it across the water to her right. He found her fascinating. She was unlike anything SPC Yates had seen in his eight long months sitting at his screen in Iraq. The simplicity with which she existed astounded him. He wondered what was in her backpack, books about the history of Mesopotamia, or perhaps mathematics, maybe even literature filled with pros of faraway lands. The joy he felt in her orbit was almost unrecognizable after being away from his true joy along the Mississippi for so long.

Along that magnificent and mighty body of water that cut through his small town in Louisiana all the way to Canada, SPC Yates was home. He was Brian. He remembered skipping rocks with his sister as a boy. When he was older, they would play hooky and sneak down to the banks where they watched the barges go by, as they drank cheap beer and cheaper cigarettes, speaking of days when they would leave their Louisiana outpost along the river. He thought of his sister, Laura. She wanted to be a makeup artist and work on movie sets in Los Angeles. After an unplanned pregnancy and an unreliable boyfriend, she ended up staying on those same banks and raising Brian’s nephew, Ben. Before he left for the deployment, Brian promised he would send him a picture of a camel, but he never did. He didn’t even call for his birthday last month. It’s not that he didn’t want to. He just didn’t have the energy to fake the smile and laugh he knew he would have to muster to reassure them he was okay. But, watching the little girl in the red dress prance along the Euphrates, Brian decided he would finally call Laura back and tell little Ben about the camels he saw in Kuwait to wish him a late happy birthday.

Then it happened. The alarm blared. He was no longer Brian.

“Incoming, incoming, incoming.”

SPC Yates’ heart stopped and jumped into his throat. Before he could think, he was on the ground where his heart raced again, beating like a drum into his chest that threatened to break through his sternum and spill onto the floor. He scrambled to reach for his kit, the Kevlar vest and helmet that lay next to his seat, reaching his left arm out to cling for the facade of protection. The explosions were distant at first. But as Brian pulled his vest across the plywood floor, they grew closer. The ground shook. The walls shuddered and the ceiling sagged with each thud that grew louder and louder. He couldn’t make his hands work. He flopped and flailed on the floor, trying to get on his vest and helmet, grappling with clasps and fighting with clips in his desperate attempt to live even though he knew it wouldn’t save him. Those around him did the same, completely disregarding their assigned duties and tasks as all semblance of order collapsed and everyone embarked on a journey of personal survival, no matter how in vain. The room filled with dust when a rocket impacted a T-wall outside, tearing a hole into their plywood fortress and filling it with smoke, soot, sawdust, and sand. Brian couldn’t hear. He inhaled the toxic mixture into his lungs and nostrils. He gave up on the vest and hugged the ground as tightly as he could. He made himself as flat as possible. He wished that he could dig through the earth and come out the other side. The ground around him continued to shake. The grains of sand in front of his face bounced with each additional thud and he felt that he was one of them, a victim of circumstance and location that left him completely at the whim of the explosions that rocked across Al Asad Air Base. He could hear again. People were screaming. Help! Get the fuck down.

They were anonymous screams that Brian could not identify. He was too paralyzed to try. His surroundings and all of his bodily senses collapsed onto him into a single mass of noise. The explosions. The screaming of orders. Get that gun up! The pleas for help. Holy Shit. Jesus Christ. The inaudible cries from friends. The beeps of the monitors and systems. The alarm. All of it, even the unheard, the smells and vibrations, combined into a terrible cacophony of noise that paralyzed Brian completely. Frozen and resigned to his own death, Brian thought of nothing. He did not think of God, or his sister Laura, or his nephew Ben, or even his friends who could be dying around him. Fear, fear, fear, was all his body could muster. The fear gave him no purpose or drive, nothing to combat or defend against. The fear simply was. It ate alive at his insides and propelled his heart harder and harder against his chest. Nothing in the biological array of his body, no organ, no frontal cortex, nothing, could sustain a thought or sensation other than absolutely paralyzing fear. And then it was over.

The explosions stopped first. And as the mass of noise evaporated, it created a vacuum that was filled with utter silence. The mosh pit of yells, and screams, and barking of orders was replaced by a tense quietude. It was as if anyone spoke or made a sound of any kind, it would all begin again. The dust in the air slowly settled back onto the ground as the earth no longer shook with fury, but instead lay there like the inanimate rock that it was before. The smoke began to clear from the room. And in that silence, they were brought back. The fear and panic dissipated, replaced by a slow, burning anxiety that sat like a tripwire. It could be activated at any time when chance would again return the chaos. The people around Brian became aware of their surroundings. He himself was no longer paralyzed. Instead, he felt hungover. He was stuck in a deep sludge, like a dream where your feet never move fast enough, and you can’t outrun the monster chasing you no matter how much you try to make your legs move. People checked themselves for wounds, feeling and looking for blood. They did so for their friends around them. Brian patted slowly around his torso and down his legs, praying that the adrenaline wasn’t so strong that he hadn’t noticed a chunk of flesh missing. He wasn’t hit. Aside from a couple superficial wounds, lacerations to faces and extremities from shards of plywood and other shrapnel, no one was seriously wounded. They were alive. Finally, someone spoke. It was the battle captain.

“We up?” he spurted out through his cracking voice. “Everybody good?”

The NCOs responded in the affirmative. After the brief shock of realizing they were alive, their duties and responsibilities sprang back into their collective mind. The base needed to be defended. There could be more attacks. Accountability of personnel needed to be collected and the wounded tended to. The chaos returned. This time, it was in the form of orders being barked and confusion running rampant as people sought answers for important questions. Is that gun up?! Where did it come from, I need a grid?! Where’s the mass cal?! Do we have a medevac en route to that location?! How long until the QRF is up?! Do we have air support on station yet?!

Brian sprang back up to his station and started directing all of his drones to various locations to find where the rockets had been shot from. He looked along the MSR that weapons were regularly transported on. He scanned abandoned lots in Al Baghdadi. He searched known firing areas and recognizable landmarks where previous attacks had been carried out. He tasked his drones to every location he could think of, changing their course intermittently as orders and the person giving them changed by the second. He searched frantically for the mysterious ghost that could begin shooting again at any second. Every truck was carrying rockets. Every house was hiding insurgents preparing the next wave. Every individual was a spotter who guided the rockets to their target.

“Point of Origin located, prepare to copy grid!”

Finally, someone found it. As Brian directed his drones to the location, he heard people shouting. So focused on his own task, the words blurted out around him were blurred out. Truck. Mosque. Burning. Civilians.

When Brian finally got a predator over the location, he put the pieces together. He made out the scene through a cloud of smoke. The vibrant and gorgeous green that he had fallen into earlier was replaced by utter devastation and sheer turmoil. A truck blazed with a powerful surge of bright red and orange. Twenty meters away, a trailer smoldered, disconnected from the burning cab, and emitting a large and continuous plume of black smoke through its twisted steel. Secondary, smaller explosions set off throughout the frame. To the right of his screen, Brian saw a building split in half. A wall was caved in by the blast. Cinder, concrete, and wooden shards were strewn across the ground. Through the smoke, he saw a crescent moon on the remaining part of the roof and realized it was a mosque. It was a Friday, the holiest day of the week, and people were certainly inside. Zooming in with one of the cameras, he saw a mass of red. Body parts, legs, arms, and the unrecognizable alike, combined to make a ghastly mural of blood, flesh, and bone. Brian quickly averted his eyes and began dry heaving off to his right.

“SPC Yates, get your eyes back on your fucking sector!” shouted his sergeant.

Covering his mouth with his fist, Brian continued to gag as he resumed his scan of the area. The drone pilot was in control of the flight path and the cameras, so Brian simply watched the carnage like a helpless onlooker of an interstate car wreck. The pilot continued circling above the site as it completed its battle damage assessment, until veering off to the Southeast. The camera slowly followed a blood trail that led out of the larger, unidentifiable mass of red. The size of the trail grew. It began with small dots that grew bigger as the drone flew Southeast. Then it turned to a steady stream of dark red that grew thicker and thicker the farther it went. The drone slowly followed the trail down the banks of the river until it reached a thick area of brush where the trail stopped. As the camera zoomed out and the pilot reoriented himself, Brian noticed a red figure at the top right of his screen right along the water. The camera zoomed in and Brian saw her.

The little girl’s red dress was still red, but there was a dark stain covering her right abdomen and the lower portion of her back. Her blue backpack was gone. She lay face down with her right foot caught in the root of a tall poplar tree. Her left knee was bent as if she was climbing up a steep cliff. Her left arm was curled under her torso and out view, while the right was sprawled out to her side as if she was reaching for something. Her hand was open and palm facing up towards the camera of the drone. In it, she carried something, but he couldn’t make out what it was. Her face rested in the mud, inches before the river, and her hair was sprawled out into the water in front of her, revealing the back of her neck. The current slowly drifted her dark brown locks back and forth. As she slowly crept out of the frame of the camera, Brian watched the water ripple off the top of her head and the bottom of her dress blow delicately in the wind. Then she was gone.

Brian finished the rest of his shift. He sat there in silence, staring at his screen until his replacement arrived a few hours later. He grabbed his rifle and his kit and walked out of the room, noticing the full scope of damage for the first time. He saw splinters all over the dust and sand covered floor. He saw the hole in the wall at the other end of the BDOC where the rocket’s blast had blown through. When he walked out, he saw T-walls blasted and Hesco barriers torn apart by the more immediate blasts. Further off, he saw smoke from small fires that continued to blaze throughout the base. He walked back to his chu and saw he had a text from Lauren. He ignored it. He laid down in his bed and rubbed a picture of him and Ben playing fetch with his parents’ dog in a creek bed that ran off the Mississippi. He took a bottle of NyQuil he had stored under his bed and drank the half bottle that was left. He opened the bottle of sleeping meds that the base doctor had prescribed and swallowed a handful. He fell asleep.

That is how Brian finished the last month of his deployment. When he wasn’t on shift, watching his sector, he’d go back to his room and take enough sleeping meds to fall asleep. He would direct drones over to where the little girl in the red dress had died every once in a while. There was nothing there. Just an empty patch of mud and a tall poplar tree. Sometimes Brian would stare at the empty space and dream of sneaking off the base and leaving a flower at the site, or maybe a book that she would have liked to have in her backpack. The rest of the deployment was uneventful. There were no more attacks. Their replacements eventually arrived, and Brian did his best to teach the new SPC that sat in his chair everything that he could. But the kid didn’t really listen. His name was Hanson and he talked about wanting to get into a fight. He wanted to get attacked. He wanted to transmit an order to a drone to conduct a strike. He wanted to see the blast and carnage. He wanted to feel the power of holding death in his hand. He talked about the Iraqis he saw on his drone feed like they were actually just little specs in a video game. Brian ignored him.

Just before he finally went home, Brian went down to the bomb yard where they kept blown up vehicles and trash. They had brought the truck that shot the rockets at them there the day after the attack. The insurgents hid all thirty of the rockets behind bags of flour to get through a checkpoint, causing them to ignite and cook off the rockets inside halfway through their launching. That’s why the truck blew up, the mosque was destroyed, and the little girl in the red dress slowly bled out alone on the banks of the Euphrates. It’s also probably why Brian survived. He stood there at the gate of the bomb yard and stared at the smoked out twisted steel that remained of the truck that tried to kill him and his friends. He wondered if it was a piece of shrapnel from the twisted mess that had pierced the little girl’s red dress and dug into her liver or another vital organ. He thought of flour and how a simple cooking ingredient had decided who would live and who would die. He considered how and why no combatants from either side were killed, only innocents. He thought of the fourteen innocent men, women, and children who had been torn to shreds in that mosque. He wondered how many more had been wounded. He thought about how he could find no mention of it in any US news sources. He thought of his friends and fellow soldiers he didn’t even know who were wounded. He remembered the little girl in the red dress.

Two weeks later, Brian was home. He moved in with Lauren because, after he gave up his lease for the deployment, he had nowhere else to go. He was remote and cut off. She would try to get him to come out for social occasions or family get-togethers, but she couldn’t even get him to come outside of his room for dinner. She left a plate outside his door every night. Eventually, the extra sleeping meds he stashed from Iraq were gone, and he had to come out. No longer able to sleep, he set himself out to fix Lauren’s crumbling porch. He used up about half of the money saved from the deployment on lumber, tools, and finishing, and got to work. It was August in Louisiana, and it was hot. Unlike Iraq, it was humid. He demoed and worked to put in a cinder block foundation so that it could ride out the hurricanes and flooding that had brought it to such a state of disrepair in the first place. Lauren would bring him out water and plead with him to get out of the heat and come inside to the air conditioning. Anything to get him to talk. But he just kept working.

Finally, in October, the work was done, and the deck was finished. Brian had done an outstanding job. The foundation was solid. From it, six solid posts of cedar rose up. A finished staircase led up to a deck of pressure treated tropical hardwood. Ben helped him build some Adirondacks out of fresh pine. Together, they sanded and treated the wood, so the chairs looked rustic and modern at the same time. Once the foundation was finished, Lauren planted a garden around it of beautiful hibiscus and phlox. With all the work done, Lauren was worried what Brian would do next. He hadn’t returned to school like he planned. He was going to study to be a marine biologist and move to Miami. After getting back, when he would answer her questions, he’d just say “eh, I’ll figure something out.” But she wasn’t so sure. She often thought she questioned him too much and should leave him alone, but she was genuinely worried and felt a responsibility as his big sister. She decided to take a family trip to Brian’s favorite spot on the river to celebrate the completion of the porch and Ben’s good grades from the fall term. She was surprised when Brian agreed.

When they got there, it was exactly as Brian remembered it, a small hideout in the River State Wildlife Refuge where the noisy barges couldn’t be heard, and the drunk New Orleans’ tourists wouldn’t be found. Sitting in the blue, still water, oak and cypress trees let their leaves sway back and forth in the wind while the wildflowers bloomed on the shore. Lauren set down a picnic blanket and took a couple of beers out of the cooler for her and Brian. There was a juice box for Ben. She prepared both of their favorites: fried shrimp po’boys. She looked over at Brian, who stood on the shore of the river delta, and thought she saw a slight smile. Ben ran alongside them chasing a dragon fly.

Brian looked out at the still water and smelt the air through his nostrils as he inhaled deeply. He looked down at his feet and saw the water slush up between his toes as it mixed with the mud and turned into a milky brown. He looked up at the sky and wondered what he and his family would look like to him from a camera on a predator at 25,000 feet. He knew the answer was specs among bright green. All around him was the beauty of the wildlife that he had yearned for in that desert where nothing lived. He looked back at Ben, who was now running around Lauren and playing with her hair and thought about how carefree his nephew was. He considered whether that was for the better or worse. Brian crouched down, placed his fingers in the water, and started making little circles in it. He bent down onto his knees and sunk his fingers in the mud. He dipped his hair, now long and curly, into the water and felt the ripples wash up against it. He felt himself in the river, in the mud, in all of it.

As he closed his eyes, he saw himself amidst the beauty of the Euphrates, surrounded by the same luscious green. He walked the well-worn paths he had watched on his monitor for countless hours during those 9 months. He followed a pair of footprints along the water that did not have a discernible pattern, zigzagging back and forth, stopping and starting, and leaving rocks unsettled from their natural place. He kept walking. He heard laughter. As he turned the corner around a tall poplar tree, he saw a little girl in a red dress dancing in a clearing of mud between the foliage. She laughed as she rocked her head from side to side and twirled in circles, amused by how her dress flowed up with her movement. Her innocent smile and sparkling eyes were oblivious to Brian’s presence until he took another step and snapped a branch. Surprised but not startled, she turned towards him and smiled, saying something in Arabic that Brian could not understand. She giggled again and reached her hand out towards Brian, gesturing him towards her. Unthinkingly, he followed, taking her hand and following her down to the water. They walked out into the river, as the water passed her ankles, then her knees, and eventually rose to her hips. She let go of Brian’s hand and leaned back, floating atop the water, and let the current take her downstream. Brian began to follow.

“Hey, you okay?” Lauren whispered into his ear. She was crouched beside him with her hand on his shoulder.

Brian pulled his head out of the water and sat up on his knees, turning towards her, tears bubbling in his eyes.

There was a long silence before he said, “there was this little girl.”

Lauren got down on her knees with him and nodded her head earnestly.

“Over there?” She asked.

Brian nodded, “she was just so little, not much bigger than Ben. And she was beautiful, Lauren.” A slight grin broke through his tears.

“You know, just this beautiful little girl skipping along the river. And she had on this red dress.”

He paused before exhaling sharply and looking out at all the green across the water. He gazed at the oaks and the cedars and the cyprus. He looked at the marsh land’s vegetation sticking out from the river’s surface. He looked up at the sky and thought he heard a slight humming sound.

“Would you look at all that green,” he said to Lauren.

“Yeah, it’s really something isn’t it?” She responded.

Brian took off his shirt and slowly waded out into the still water until it reached waist height. Lauren looked on from the shore. With his jeans still on, he leaned back and let himself float freely, completely at the whim of the light tide. He stared up at the sky around him and saw nothing but clear, blue air. He imagined himself riding the river all the way down to the Gulf, getting caught in the loop current and finding his way to the jet stream that would carry him across the Atlantic. From there, he’d latch onto the warm water flow around the horn of Africa and go up into the Indian Ocean, where he would have to find his own way to the waters of Oman and all the way up through the Persian Gulf. At the mouth of the Euphrates, he would travel north along its banks until he found that inconspicuous patch of mud on the shore just south of Al Baghdadi.

Justin Hudnall, the founder and director of the San Diego-based performative writing-and-reading collective So Say We All, asked me to lead a Zoom writing workshop for veterans and veteran-affiliated writers. (The event was co-sponsored by The Wrath-Bearing Tree.) I first met Hudnall many years ago at a writing conference and have long admired what he has achieved with So Say We All. Judging from their social media posts, their readings are very well-attended and lively and fun. They are not always centered on veterans writing, but many have been, and Hudnall has sponsored several writing series specifically for veterans and has published anthologies of vet-writing.

Hudnall asked nice, and I wasn’t about to say “no.” The thing is, though, I’m not much of a creative writer or a memoirist. I do teach writing, but it’s college composition and research papers, not imaginative literature. Nor have I have attended an MFA program. I didn’t feel completely unqualified, because I have participated and led vet-writing workshops before. But compared to vet-writers such as Ron Capps, Matt Gallagher, and Tracy Crow, authors with many published books who have led dozens and hundreds of writing classes, I knew I didn’t bring much experience or authority to the endeavor. But Hudnall believed in me, and I was intrigued.

One reason I was intrigued is that vet-writing workshops have been huge forces in contemporary war-writing. Organizations such as Warrior Writers, Veterans Writing Project, Words After War, The War Horse, and Voices from War have been instrumental in helping veterans discover their writing voices, find outlets for publication, and build audiences. Situated structurally midway between isolated amateurs in the hinterlands and professional publication in New York City or elsewhere, writing workshops, along with online vet-writing journals, form the material core of the vet-writing scene.

The evening of my workshop, I logged on to find ten participants waiting. The mix was evenly split between men and women. Two Vietnam vets were in attendance; the others were post-9/11. A few had not served in uniform, but had family members who were vets or had worked for the military. I knew a couple, and learned that several had published before, while others were just beginning their writing journeys. The sub-title of our workshop was “Finding Your Voice,” which suggests that it was aimed at beginning writers, but I had prepared writing prompts meant to engage both new and experienced writers, veterans and civilians alike. We had two hours, and so I had crafted four prompts, thinking we’d probably have time for three, with one in reserve.

The prompts were designed to preclude dark or graphic responses, which was somewhat disingenuous given that’s exactly what many vets want to explore in their writing. Still, good work could be done, I thought, helping participants connect physical detail with emotional resonance in regard to less sensational subjects. I allotted fifteen minutes for writing on each subject, with ten-to-fifteen minutes following to discuss and share.

The first prompt I borrowed from a Warrior Writers workshop I had attended: “Write about an article of uniform or piece of equipment that was important to you and still lingers in your memory.” I’ve seen this prompt used in other places, too, and there’s even been contests built around the theme. It’s also a staple subject of vet social-media threads, so I thought it would be a good one to start with.

I wrote to this prompt alongside the attendees. In truth, I had been thinking about the prompt all day and then wrote my passage an hour or so before the actual workshop. Be that as it may, I wrote about Leatherman utility knives:

When I first joined the Army I noticed that many soldiers more experienced than me carried on their belt not just a jackknife, but a particular kind of multi-purpose tool called a Leatherman. The Leatherman resembled a Swiss Army Knife, but without the elegance of design. Where a Swiss Army knife seems like, well, it was made by Swiss artisans, a Leatherman was dull black and seemed forged out of cheap or leftover tin. It wasn’t even all that functional. When I got my hands on one for the first time, I noticed right away that the blade was neither long nor sharp, the bottle and can openers marginally useful, and the scissors and saw functions pathetic. A saw? The only function that seemed like it could be useful were the pliers, but how often was that going to be necessary? Plus, when I priced a Leatherman in the local military gear store, it seemed very expensive for what you were getting.

But that’s the thing—the idea was not to buy a Leatherman with your own money, but to obtain one through your unit supply shop. Leathermans were cool; the soldiers who had them whipped them out with panache and were always all the time finding some little task to do that could only be performed with one of the multitools. And not only did all the cool guys have a Leatherman, they were able to obtain them for free, because they knew someone in supply with whom they had made a deal to get one off-the-books. To actually have to buy a Leatherman was evidence that you weren’t yet worthy enough to wield one. If you were a newbie in the unit, not having a Leatherman was a sign of exactly how new you were.

And so it was for the first twenty years of my military career. No Leatherman for me, just ordinary old pocket-knives of one brand or another. But then, in training at Fort Riley prior to deployment to Afghanistan, we drew a lot of personal gear. In fact, we drew gear three times at three different places, and there were individual issues as well. And every time we opened our bag to receive new equipment, the supply guy would drop in a Leatherman. Not once, not twice, not three times. By the time I packed my duffle bags to fly to Afghanistan I had four Leathermans.

I didn’t think I was now cool, but something had changed, and things were different.

I shared this vignette and we discussed it for a few minutes. A participant then volunteered to read his vignette, which against my expectations, turned out to be very graphic. I offered comments meant to be supportive while also returning things to a less intense place. Other participants either had not written anything or were not ready to share, so we talked generally about the prompt and writing process.

The second prompt invited participants to write on a trip they had made in the military, or just before or just after. This prompt was inspired by a University of California summer writing-intensive for veterans I had once co-taught. At the writing-intensive, a student-veteran of Chinese-Uighur descent had written about a trip he had made cross-country from Fort Benning, GA, to California after completing his service. His short essay, which described the places and people he had met on this long trip, with the residue of Army-service and his family in China on his mind, had many of us in tears when he read it at our final group event.

I hoped to capture some of this magic, and indeed this prompt was more of a hit than the first one. Most of the attendees either read their vignette or chimed in with comments about memorable military journeys. One vignette described a bus ride while on leave through the wilds of New Jersey and New York. Another described deploying into the Middle East at the beginning of Operation Iraqi Freedom on a military landing craft. I didn’t write on this prompt, but read a classic Brian Turner poem, “Night in Blue,” about flying home from war:

At seven thousand feet and looking back, running lights

blacked out under the wings and America waiting.

a year of my life disappears at midnight,

the sky a deep viridian, the houselights below

small as match heads burned down to embers….

We only had time for one more prompt, so I posted one that occurred to me from reading the veteran fiction and short-stories: I asked participants to describe a memorable character they had met while in the military. Like the second prompt, this one generated a vibrant response. Everyone either read or spoke about a larger-than-life person they had known in the military. In some cases the vignettes were light-hearted and affectionate. More seriously, one was about someone who had been important in the author’s life at one point but who had since drifted away or perhaps was no longer alive.

As a model for consideration, I deliberated between two vignettes from contemporary novels. One was from Nico Walker’s novel Cherry in which Walker describes the death of a platoon-mate named Jimenez:

The battle roster number was EAJ-0888, and we were trying to think of who that was. We knew it was a guy from First Platoon because Staff Sergeant White had called it in. We knew it wasn’t Specialist Jackson, First Platoon’s medic, since line medics weren’t attached to Bravo from HHC and if the dead guy were Jackson the battle roster number would have started with HHC and not E. The first initial A wasn’t much help was we weren’t in the habit of calling one another by our first name. It took us the better part of ten minutes to come up with a guy from Third Platoon whose last name started with the letter J….

 The last time I saw him was about eight hours before Haji killed him. He’d been boxing Staff Sergeant Castro in the weight room, sparring, and Castro had popped him on the nose pretty good so his nose was bleeding—not broken or anything, just bleeding….

 Jimenez was a cherry….

The other passage was from Stephen Markley’s novel Ohio. Markley’s not a veteran and Ohio’s not exactly about the military and war, but two soldiers who fought overseas are central characters. In one place, Markley describes a group of soldiers reminiscing about a deceased comrade named Greg Coyle who referred to everything as a “MacDougal,” as in “Bring that MacDougal over here” or “And then this MacDougal said….”:

When they stood for inspections, Dan, like everyone, would get ripped, maybe because he’d stored his compression bandages in the wrong place or always tried to get away with not wearing the side plates of his body armor (those heavy, awkward five-by-five bastards). Greg Coyle, no matter how goofy he was, never got ripped, was always on point. Coyle, who referred to everything as a “MacDougal.” A bore snake, pliers, a target at the range, military-age males, MREs, ops, battalion—they were all just MacDougals to him. To the dismay of the whole company, within weeks of their deployment everyone was saying it.

“We’re getting those up-armored MacDougals next month.”

“Those powdered MacDougals—goddamn! Better than Mom’s homemade MacDougal.”

“That other MacDougal was getting rocked by IEMacDougals.”

They landed in Iraq in 2006, when the country was no joke, but that joke worked right through rocket attacks and EFPs.

The second thing Dan did after he got out and visited Rudy in the hospital was attend Bren Della Terza’s wedding in Austin, Texas. A lot of his friends from Iraq were there, guys he hadn’t seen in a while because they’d gotten out after two tours. Badamier, Lieutenant Holt, Cleary, Wong, Doc Laymon, Drake in his wheelchair, “Other James” Streiss, now with two robot hands. They of course got drunk and began referring to everything as a “MacDougal,” annoying the hell out of those piqued Texas bridesmaids. Decent, churchgoing women who had never seen soldiers cut loose. How hilariously stupid they could be. In his buzz, Dan found himself wishing to return to 2006, to be back on patrol with his friends.

Ultimately, I chose the Ohio passage; the death of Jimenez passage from Cherry is fantastic but also both graphic and full of Army infantry jargon I was not sure everyone would get.

At this point, nearing the end, everyone except one participant had shared at least one vignette. This last participant now volunteered to read his passage in response to the first prompt, about a piece of military equipment. As he read, I could see why he had hesitated at first. The piece was brooding and complex; the piece of equipment was intimately connected with a serious family event, but widely separated by the passage of time. For such a short piece, it really packed a punch; it was both very moving and also very accomplished. I was glad the author shared it with us, and I hope he finds means to share it more widely in the future.

And with that our time was up. “You’re up, you’re moving, you’re down,” as we used to say in the Army to describe the quickness with which infantry soldiers must pop up-and-down when charging against enemy fire. I didn’t offer many pearls of writing wisdom, nor tips for professional success. The main thing was to make the event absorbing in the moment. Writing is an individualistic endeavor at heart, but I wanted to convey how meaningful writing can also be inspired by the company of sympathetic fellow authors.

As I reflected on the event in the days following, I realized I had not availed myself of two very worthy vet-writing handbooks: Ron Capps’ Writing War: A Guide to Telling Your Own Story (2011) and Tracy Crow’s On Point: A Guide to Writing the Military Story (2015). Both are full of sensible advice, inspiring examples, and creative writing prompts. Writing War includes many excerpts from classic and contemporary published war-writing, while On Point offers more personal modeling of how the events of one’s life might be transformed into memorable prose relatable to all. But each is highly recommended.

So, to end, thank you Justin Hudnall. Other workshops in the So Say We All/Wrath-Bearing Tree series have been led by Andria Williams, Abbey Murray, and Halle Shilling. I don’t know Shilling, but I can vouch that Williams and Murray are both authors and teachers with much to offer students and emerging writers.

Another author in the war-writing scene, Jesse Goolsby, once wrote, “There are blank pages in front of us all. If one wants a different war story then go write it, and I wish you well.” I like the spirit of that, and I hope that the So Say We All/Wrath-Bearing Tree collaboration continues. Here’s to all the leaders of vet-writing workshops and to all who participate in them.

Works mentioned in this article:

Ron Capps, Writing War: A Guide to Telling Your Own Story. CreateSpace, 2011.

Tracy Crow: On Point: A Guide to Writing the Military Story. Potomac, 2015.

Stephen Markley, Ohio. Simon and Schuster, 2019.

Brian Turner, “Night in Blue,” Here, Bullet. Alice James, 2005.

Nico Walker, Cherry. Knopf, 2018.

messages from below

the radio signals emanated from the depths
commuters puzzled over the whistles and squawks
that cut through their favorite programs
cryptologists went to work

but the waves soon turned to beams
tunnels of coded energy
aimed not at humans
but at a point somewhere near Wolf 359

first assumed to be a submarine human colony
but scans showed no excess carbon emissions
so dolphins were next guessed to be the cause
no one suspected the humpbacks

as the oceans acidified and the air warmed
the whales were busy
at last their solar ships rose from the sea
and the whales ascended

as if rungs laddered from deep to deep
born of the sea they swam among stars

Joy Damiani:  If You Ain’t Cheatin’, You Ain’t Tryin’ (and other lessons I learned in the Army)

Available on Amazon in Kindle and paperback versions

You will hate this book.  You will hate being compelled to finish Damiani’s story in one sitting (you’re excused if it takes two).  You will hate spewing coffee (or other beverage) onto your computer keys if you are reading the book on Kindle, or sopping a few pages of the paperback, because of Damiani’s humor and sarcasm.  And you will hate that the story she tells is, regrettably, true, not only about her personal experiences but also about her analysis of military culture in general and the Iraq War.

Formerly known as Emily Yates, the author now goes by Joy (her middle name) Damiani (her family name).  She “traded in” her “old name” to put closure on her divorce and to move ahead with new projects.  As a musician and songwriter she has released a number of albums and music videos; a recent music video, a lively romp, is entitled “Brains in Meat Suits.”  She is also a poet.  “I Am the Savage” relates to her time in Iraq, while “Yellow Ribbon” criticizes the empty patriotism of civilians who feel that a yellow ribbon on their car absolves them of complicity in war.  Damiani has published essays on veterans’ issues, especially the difficulties faced by women vets returning home.

She now turns to memoir. If You Ain’t Cheatin’, You Ain’t Tryin’ (Joy Damiani Words & Music, 2022), “Dedicated to every veteran who has lived these lessons and to every young person who learns them for the first time here,” is divided into thirteen chapters that describe Damiani’s teenage pre-military years, the reasons she joined the Army at age 19, her six years in the military, with two Iraq deployments writing “Army news” as a Public Affairs Specialist, and concluding chapters that assesses her experiences and offers a bit on her immediate post-deployment life.

The book begins with a brief mention of 9/11 and then a flashforward to 2004, where Damiani, as a nineteen-year old Public Affairs Specialist, has to revise the post newspaper to include a KIA report and a photograph.  She “mechanically considered” the change, “calculating the dead in terms of column inches.”  Then she learns that the KIA was actually a friend, Tuazon; he had only been in Iraq for two months.  She had learned to separate herself from any emotions about her stories, especially about those killed, but she realizes her well-crafted professionalism is starting to crack when she thinks of all the dead and that she is just repeating a script: “A wave of nausea washes over my body . . . I was so proud of my well-rehearsed presentation—showing no sorrow, always professional!  But now I seem to be playing the part without trying.” She smooths over the crack with Jim Beam.

Damiani’s journey to the Army is somewhat circuitous.  Her sarcastic bent and dislike of authority lead her parents to more or less spirit her away to the Family Foundation School in order to cure her of her sins of sarcasm and rebellion.  (The Family Foundation School, in Hancock, New York, closed in 2014 amid lawsuits and accusations of physical, psychological, and emotional abuse of its teenage students).  In the eighteen months plus she spends at the school the only bright spot is a class in folk music, where she develops an “affinity” for Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, and Kris Kristofferson, among others, and writers Jack Kerouac and Hunter S. Thompson.  Sure cures for rebellion!  Unfortunately, Damiani is not suitably cured of her sarcasm, and she faces another six months of “supervised rock-picking.”  Eventually, she decides to leave the school and hitchhikes back home to Syracuse, where her parents put her on a strict regimen in order to live at home.  She also enrolls in a local community college and after six months back home gets a call from an Army recruiter, offering her, for a five-year hitch, a journalism, or “Public Affairs Specialist,” opportunity.  It takes Damiani all of twelve seconds to answer in the affirmative.

She goes to Fort Jackson, South Carolina for basic training.  She stumbles through, with sprains, blisters, a broken nose, and two black eyes, but compared to her time at the Family Foundation School she writes that, “the Army’s attempts at indoctrination seem almost quaint.”  Her rebellious tendencies are still in evidence:  She does qualify in marksmanship but names her M16 A-2 rifle “Bungalow Bill” after the Beatles’ song.  She also pokes her finger in the eye of the Army in other ways:  “The drill sergeants ignore me when I hum ‘The Times, They Are A-Changin’’ while on guard duty, or when I use my turn calling marching cadences to lead the platoon in a rousing chorus of ‘War! What is it good for?’”

The next chapters detail Damiani’s first deployment to Kuwait for training and then to Iraq.  When she finally reaches Baghdad her job “is to put out a decent newspaper . . . I’ve come to take it seriously.”  Although she is still a rhombic peg in a triangular hole she does have the commitment to do her best; “the option of apathy has never even been on the table before.”  She has integrity about her work even as she remains cynical about the “big picture.”  At the same time her dream of being a real “war reporter” is evaporating:  “Now, I feel defeated, rotting away in a combat-zone cubicle, waiting—wishing—for one of those incessant mortar attacks to successfully explode the headquarters.”  After her complaints, bordering on insubordination, Damiani does get the opportunity to go out on joint U.S. and Iraqi patrols.  Unfortunately, that assignment is short-lived.  Because of her criticism of an incompetent co-worker on the journalism team, she is removed from her associate editor position and basically has to cut and paste articles from Google searches.  She still has seven months to go.

After a year in Iraq Damiani’s cynical side begins to emerge more and more. She writes: “I’ve already spent the better (or worse) part of twelve months in Iraq as part of what I have come to recognize as an illegally-invading force.”  She notes that Orwellian language needs to be used to present everything in a positive light.  “‘Interrogation’ becomes ‘intelligence-gathering’”; the “occupation” is “‘reconstruction’”; the “war” is a “‘peace-keeping mission’”; “suicides” become “‘non-combat-related deaths.’”  She feels herself to be a “foreign invader.”

Interspersed with her time in Iraq, Damiani uses flashbacks to chronicle her disastrous marriage.  She was married a few months before deployment and right before her return to the States after a year in Iraq she realizes that the relationship had devolved further, that she has become “expendable.”  As she sits alone in her trailer at Camp Liberty she reaches her nadir, writingthat she “eyed my assault rifle and let my mind wander . . . absentmindedly measuring the distance from the trigger to the barrel, the distance from my fingers to my head.”  Damiani does return home and the marriage hits bottom, involving her arrest for domestic violence and a stay in a psychiatric hospital after suicide threats.  She is released after seventy-two hours and returns to work at [what base?]:  “The information war must go on. The war inside my head will have to wait.”  Her resentment over assignments grows:  “I’ve come to accept that by the time a typical day is over, I will want to cut someone open and feed them their own intestines. I see this as a step forward in my quest for self-realization and inner peace.”

When there appears to be light at the end of the military tunnel the threat of stop-loss is the oncoming train, to paraphrase poet Robert Lowell.  Damiani believes that she will be out before stop-loss takes effect, and if she re-enlists she can choose her duty, but the Army comes up with a creative way to hold on to her.  They devise an Orwellian “do-not-retain,” but still deployable list, albeit a falsehood, which is a method to guarantee her second deployment to Iraq.  Damiani agrees (without really agreeing) to return, and it is worth a look at her reason:  “The thought crosses my mind that I would feel like a jackass if I tried to get out of the Army on time while everyone around me shipped out. Even if it was an option, could I bring myself to be that soldier?  I’m not deploying because I want to, or because I think it’s a good idea. I’m doing it because deep down, I believe that if I don’t do it—if I get out of it on a technicality—I will be making light of everyone else’s sacrifice. I’ll be saying that I am special, that I deserve to stay home when my fellow soldiers pack up and go to war, and that the contract I signed is negotiable . . . Without realizing it, despite every effort to resist the Army’s conditioning and retain control of at least my own mind, I have suddenly become the kind of soldier the Army has always wanted: even when given the choice, I can’t quit the team.”

She returns to Iraq for fifteen months, and the Public Affairs duties are not much better.  Damiani’s major project is photographing visiting morale-boosting cheerleaders.  She also details the secretive drinking and an attempted sexual assault by two soldiers she thought were friends.  Faced with an extended deployment, she decides on the (not so) subtle course of annoying her superiors (“Intimately aware of the drastic repercussions for out-and-out revolt, I’ve swiveled my sights in the familiar direction of subtle rebellion.  The delicate dance of expressing my displeasure while also staying out of trouble requires more finesse than I usually can claim”).  This entails including quotes from Hunter S. Thompson and lyrics from Bob Dylan in official emails, to the consternation of a major and a colonel, and creating a custom-made ID badge with a decidedly unserious face.

As the memoir winds down, Damiani becomes more critical and somber about the whole enterprise, seeing failure everywhere.  She writes:  “As far as I can tell, five years after the ‘surgical’ airstrikes flashily-nicknamed ‘Shock and Awe’ leveled the nation’s cities, government, and infrastructure, our presence in Iraq is a clear indicator that if an exit strategy ever existed here, it has to have gone horribly awry. Either that, or—I shudder at the thought that I don’t want to believe—this whole debacle could be intentional.”  As a kind of bookend to the death of Tuazon mentioned at the beginning of the book, she learns of the death of a friend from her first deployment, Mele, killed by an IED.  Choking back tears she is left with one thought:  “What is the fucking point of this? What. Is. The fucking. Point? Nobody is winning here.”

The book closes in 2011, three years after Damiani’s return to the States.  She is twenty-nine years old.  She spends some of her GI Bill at Cal Berkeley, where one of her courses includes study of the Iraq War.  Her fellow students are ten years younger.  To them, the war is an object of study; to her, it is still “present tense.”  She writes:  “My friends are still fighting it, after all. Sometimes I wonder if I am, too.”  She begins to second-guess herself with “what ifs?”  and “maybes.”  But after all is said and done, she ends with the recognition that “The Army didn’t make me blind. My sight is the clearest it’s ever been.”

Although she might protest my estimation, Damiani is the type of soldier the Army needs.  She refused to take the easy way out, to fall victim to simply “playing the game” to make her time more agreeable.  Even with the disappointments, the misery, the betrayals, and the lies that she endures, sometimes with humor, sometimes with rancor, she retains the integrity of her commitment.

For further reading:

“Joy Damiani, Writer, Podcaster, Musician, and Army Veteran,” Interview with Frank Morano, https://wabcradio.com/episode/joy-damiani-writer-podcaster-musician-and-army-veteran-11-11-2022/

A selection of music videos:  https://www.youtube.com/c/JoyDamiani

Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/joydamianimusic/

https://www.wrath-bearingtree.com/2020/09/artist-profile-musician-emily-yates/

There was a heavy snowfall that February night in 1946. A six-year-old boy watched from his bedroom window as the big snowflakes slowly covered everything. The  intrusive sounds of my Uncle Ray’s raspy cough and talking to himself sounded louder than usual.

When World War II ended, my father’s brother Ray, after serving 27 years in the Marine Corps, retired as a Master Gunnery Sargent and came to live with us. Ray saw action on Guadalcanal, Tarawa, Midway, and the Philippines. Hidden in his dresser drawer was a box of combat medals including several Purple Hearts, none of which he ever talked about.

Three weeks of every month Ray walked around the apartment like he had a ramrod up his back. Never talkative or loud, always clean-shaven and neatly dressed.    But the arrival of his monthly pension check was the start of a tough four days for the family. Ray kept just enough of that check to finance his monthly four-day bender. Surrounded by enough beer and cheap whisky, he stayed almost legless for those four days. Eating very little, he just sat at the kitchen table, drinking around the clock.

Usually a somber and quiet man, during the daylight hours our drunken uncle suddenly became a talkative, funny and entertaining guy. At night, not so much. Ray raved, sang and talked all night to his buddies who lost their lives on those South Pacific islands. Nights like that always seemed longer than usual. The mornings always smelled of stale beer and spilled whiskey. The family tried to somehow adjust.

Along came that pristine snowy night in February ‘46 when the snowflakes fell

like in one of those snow globes that people shake. That night Ray crossed over some mental bridge into a land where things were not what they seemed. At 2 AM he barged into Mom and Pop’s bedroom. Loudly he insisted they both needed to get up and come into his room where he had this guy Martin Block in the dresser drawer.

Dad worked three jobs; Mom worked one. They got little enough sleep, so I was surprised to see them follow Ray down the hallway to his bedroom.

Being six years old and by no means at the top of my class, I still knew a few things. One  was that this guy Martin Block was a radio personality who hosted a music show on WNEW called “Make Believe Ballroom.” I was also pretty sure this Block guy wasn’t anywhere to be found in my uncle’s bedroom, let alone a dresser drawer. I crept into the hallway where I could watch.

The voices grew louder and took on a harder tone. My hands began to sweat. Ray shook the dresser, yanked open drawers and pulled clothes out. He shouted, “Damn it, Block, they’re here. Where the hell are you?”

Pop turned to leave. Attempting to stop him, Ray slipped and knocked Mom down. Seeing she was OK, Pop flew into a rage. He slammed Ray against the wall and threw him on the bed. “That’s it. I’m finished with you. First thing in the morning, I want you the hell out of here.”

Ray tried to get back up on his feet and slipped down on the bed, “You want me

out of here, I’ll leave right now.”

“Good, and take your cheap whisky with you.” With that my father led Mom to their bedroom and closed the door.

Ray, using the dresser for support, slowly pulled himself to his feet. Still cursing Martin Block, he staggered over to his closet and pulled out a ratty old suitcase. He crammed in whatever he could grab. Struggling out of his undershirt, Ray stood there naked from the waist up.

His misshapen body was covered with scars. There were long lacerations, incisions, and signs of wounds that had been crudely stitched up. Having never seen him shirtless, I suddenly realized the price he paid for those Purple Hearts.

Ray slipped into a fresh undershirt and took a clean-pressed khaki Marine Corps shirt from the closet. After some trouble locating the armholes, he finally got it buttoned and tucked in. He pulled on an old coat and placed his Marine Corps hat on his head. Straightening up, he looked at himself in the mirror, and saluted.

When he shuffled down the hallway I stepped into view. Barely upright, Ray leaned against the wall. “Uncle Ray, don’t go,” I pleaded. “Wait until tomorrow. It’s snowing hard out there.”

“Sorry kid. Not staying where I’m not wanted.” He stumbled out the apartment door into the cold. Bare fingers pulled the coat collar around his neck in the blowing snow.

From my bedroom window, I watched Ray leaving tracks through the deep drifts. He stopped and turned, as out of nowhere in the deserted street someone came running up behind him.

Falling snow made it hard to see. The two figures grappled, and the man ripped the suitcase from Ray’s hand. Then he put his arm around Ray’s shoulders and steered him back towards the apartment.

That’s when I spotted the dark grey pajama cuffs sticking out from the bottom of my father’s coat as he led his brother back through the snow. Mom was waiting by the front door as Pop led Ray into his bedroom.

My father never cried — never. But the snow must have left some dampness on his face as Mom reached up with her ever-present Kleenex and wiped away the moisture. Pop stammered as he tried to tell her not to worry. He would do something about Ray; he’d take care of it. Mom cupped both her hands on his face. “It’s OK, Frank. Come to bed.”

Still at my bedroom window, I watched those large, soft snowflakes slowly fill up the tracks on the sidewalk. Soon they’d be no sign that anything had ever happened out there. It’d all be gone. Except for the memories — those memories remain.

Sadie was a do-gooder, someone who was aware of the deeply rooted systematic injustices that perpetuated oppression throughout the world, and who wanted to do something meaningful about it. She was a liberal cliché and she knew it. Sadie found it interesting how drugs caused the woman who lived behind the grocery store to give an outward physical representation to the inner processes of her mind. Which is to say, while most of us carted around incorrectly remembered personal histories, useless grievances, and unhelpful fantasies, this woman had found a way to bring her mental garbage into the physical realm; she filled shopping carts full of non-redeemable waste, trash which was result of overproduction which was caused by capitalism. Sadie could admit that she did not want the transient woman in her own apartment, and she didn’t believe handing money to the woman would be helpful, but almost involuntarily, Sadie cultivated empathy for the woman. Sadie’s mental garden of empathy was bathed daily in love, and attention, but it was admittedly hard for Sadie to share the fruits of this garden with anyone. Sadie strived to pass out her excess empathy at her workplace, as though her empathetic thoughts were lemons that grew in unneeded quantities in her front yard and could be left up for grabs in a plastic bag by the cash register. Sadie worked for Saint-Loup, a high-end clothing boutique.

A stocky woman, wearing expensive boots and a fashionable top entered the store. The woman maintained a powerful-yet-clumsy gait, as though she were important but unsure of herself.

“Villeparisis dress, size forty,” the woman said.

It took Sadie a moment to realize the woman was requesting a garment. Sadie fetched the dress from the back and brought it to the sale’s floor.  The shade of the dress channeled a rosé targeted at hip young women. The dress had a sash in front which, if asked, Sadie would describe as sexy-Michelle-Obama chic. Had the designer not added a few almost imperceptible qualities, the piece would resemble something a punk girl could wear to prom to both sincerely celebrate and ironically comment on the occasion. The Villeparisis’ touch ensured the garment was worthy of a stylish and well-mannered rich woman. The outfit was cliché, original, traditional, and new, all at once. Though, in Sadie’s opinion, the garb was a few years out of style. The woman tried it on and nodded.  Some women, who were spending upwards of four thousand dollars on a dress, wanted Sadie to spend the better part of an hour engaging in flattery. Sadie sensed that this woman wanted as little human emotion as feasible to seep into the interaction. The woman paid with a card, and Sadie learned her name was Rachel. When Sadie handed Rachel the bag containing the dress, Rachel grabbed it without a word and walked out.

Sadie, who was thirty years old, lived with her mother and younger brother in Napa. For a time, she had paid sixteen hundred dollars a month to rent a detached in-law unit, which consisted of four hundred square feet of livable space.  That space had been cramped with her mattress and boxes containing psychology text books, much loved novels of her childhood and books she had not yet had the chance to read.  Most nights, her seventy-year-old female landlord invited her into the main house to watch TV. Sadie accepted. After a year and half of watching murder shows on the couch of her landlord, she figured that if she was going to spend her nights watching TV with an older lady, she might as well save sixteen hundred dollars a month and live with her mom.

At dinner that night, a pizza her brother brought home from his job at King’s Pizza, Sadie recounted her interaction with Rachel. Though their exchange with Rachel was wordles, Sadie believed she had allowed her acceptance of Rachel to shine through her eyes.

“It’s possible she just didn’t want to talk,” her brother, said. “Like, maybe she was holding in a fart.”

When Sadie was twenty-one, she had graduated from the University of Irvine with a Bachelors in Psychology. She knew that to utilize her degree and training, she would need either a masters or a doctorate. Instead of immediately applying to graduate school, Sadie increased her hours at Target. She had no illusions about the American health care system. She knew that an individual’s insurance might cover a year of therapy sessions, but by the time a provider had an opening, six months of that year had passed, and then the individual might be seen less than once a month. Sadie daydreamed about opening her own clinic where financially strapped people could walk in and receive free therapeutic attention, but she also knew that earning a doctorate would put her in six figures in debt. As a woman in her early twenties, she had believed she was using everything she had learned from the university when she helped Target customers, some of whom could clearly benefit from mental health services.  She gave them as much validation and encouragement as she could. For Sadie, the logical next step was to work for a high-end clothing boutique that paid its employees more, and had fewer customers. That way, Sadie could shower the relatively small number of shoppers with meaningful attention. Sadie had recently begun working for Saint-Loup. She had embarked on her dream job. She was beginning to understand that her brother and mother viewed her life choices differently.

Two weeks later, Rachel returned to Saint-Loup. She said was wanted a conservative cocktail dress, something that would be appropriate for her son’s birthday party. Rachel had offered a detail about her personal life and Sadie would not shirk from the opportunity to support her.

“I couldn’t imagine being a mother. The cooking, cleaning, waking the kids up, being a chauffeur, it’s like you work twelve jobs,” Sadie said.

“My son is twenty-four,” Rachel said.

Sadie nodded empathetically.

Sadie wanted to be absolutely present. With her facial expression, she yearned to say that even if Rachel was addicted to pain pills, even if she interacted with her child as little as possible, even if she spent every day burning through her husband’s money, and had never had a job of her own, Sadie would give the woman something that she lacked-something that she needed. She smiled as though she would give her soul to Rachel, as though, if she had her druthers, she would run away with Rachel to a concert, a night club, or a cabin in the woods, where the two friends would share with each other, from the infinite patience dwelling inside of them, except, it wouldn’t really be patience, because patience wasn’t needed with friends who cared so deeply about each other.

Rachel found a dress, tried it on, and decided not to buy it.

Sadie’s mom made turkey chili for dinner that night. Her brother Evan ate quickly, putting away more than his two female family members combined.

“At work today, this old boomer was screaming, you make people eat out of a box at this restaurant? Cause I accidentally entered his order in as to-go. I put his pizza on a pan and he was fine. Anyway, it’s too bad you weren’t there Sadie. You could’ve given him your phone number, and told him that when he woke up in the middle of the night, weeks later, upset that his pizza was in a box, he could’ve called you, and received comfort and support,” Evan said.

His smile indicated that he had thought up this joke hours ago and had waited all day to deliver it at the world.

“And it’s too bad you’re not a stand-up comedian, because humanity would benefit immensely from your witty observations on life,” Sadie said.

After dinner, Sadie went to her bedroom and browsed Tinder. The first profile she saw belonged to Tony, a man she knew in high school. Sadie acknowledged the significant drawbacks involved with online dating in her hometown. She swiped left on Tony and blocked his profile. Almost immediately, her phone rang. She cursed herself for maintaining the same phone number since she was fourteen years old.

“Yes?” Sadie said.

“It’s nice to hear your voice,” Tony said.

Sadie said nothing.

“I’m wondering if you told people… about our thing… because, I’m an important person in tech now. … I want to know you’re not disparaging my reputation,” Tony said.

“Oh,” Sadie said.

“If you told anyone, you should tell them you forgive me.”

“I don’t forgive you,” Sadie said.

She hung up her phone and blocked the number. Once, when Sadie was in high school, she had found Tony attractive. He invited her to his house when his parents were out of town. She drank the whiskey and cokes he handed her. She had been able to keep her clothes on, but he had forced himself on top of her, grabbed parts of her body, penetrated her with his fingers, and brought himself to completion. At the time, she told no adults of the incident.

At the store the next morning, Sadie noticed a short man in a starched, tucked in, checkered dress shirt, and grey slacks. Sadie asked a number of times if he needed help, but he always demurred. He was content to watch the store while writing things on his phone. The other employee on the sale’s floor ignored the man completely.

A couple in their sixties walked in. The woman wore heels, faux leather pants, and a flowy grey cashmere sweater over a white top.  The man, who was shorter than his wife, dressed in worn blue jeans and an old Kirkland flannel, as though proudly flaunting his wife’s fashionable inclinations. The woman admired a long, Verdurin scarf. Sadie stood by eagerly. The man locked eyes with her.

“This would make a great addition to my rape kit,” the man said.

“He’s so wild,” the woman said, and patted his arm.

“I’m looking at woman’s clothes, I just want my life back,” the man said.

“We admire your sacrifice,” Sadie said.

After the couple left, Rachel entered the store. There were customers who called out to Sadie because of their obvious need, a need that perhaps only Sadie could perceive. Sadie wanted a valid connection with Rachel’s core.  Rachel exited the fitting room wearing a twelve-hundred-dollar sweater.

“It looks fine,” Sadie said.

Rachel reentered the dressing room.  As Rachel changed, Sadie thought about a time when she was a child, when she viewed her friends as a natural resource that enabled her to live, no less necessary to her existence than clean drinking water.  Sadie saw her current life as relatively empty. She had excess energy to devote to Rachel, but had absconded from her duty.

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said you looked fine. You looked absolutely incredible in the sweater. It was stunning,” Sadie said.

“It’s okay,” Rachel said.

“No, you’re an incredible woman, and the sweater brought out your incredible nature. I should’ve told you that you’re incredible. I’m just off today,” Sadie said.

Rachel said nothing.

Sadie took a deep breath.

“I’m off today because this boy sexually assaulted me in high school and last night he called me on the phone,” Sadie said.

“Oh, I hope the rest of your day goes better,” Rachel said.

Rachel looked like there was more she wanted to say, but whether her unspoken words contained support or an admonishment, Sadie could not tell. She left the store. Sadie had not noticed, but the man in the starched shirt was typing furiously on his phone during this interaction.

The next customer Sadie helped was a blond hipster woman who wore tight blue jeans, black chunk heels, and a grey V-neck shirt. The woman was beautiful and she had expertly applied her makeup, but compared to the other customers, her clothes were heavily used. The woman was younger than Sadie. She tried on a number of La Petite Bande tops. Finally, she approached Sadie, holding a La Petite Bande garment.

“Do you ever have sales, or offer discounts?” the hipster woman asked.

Sadie held the blouse in her hand. She looked at the woman and understood how badly she wanted it.

“Would a seventy-dollar discount work?” Sadie asked.

“Yeah,” the woman said.

“Some of our clothes get stained with lipstick, when people try them on. The lipstick comes out easy, with just a little bit of vinegar. If this top had a stain on it, I would have to give you the discount,” Sadie said.

The woman brought the top to her mouth and kissed it.

“That works,” Sadie said.

She rung up the blouse, subtracting seventy dollars from the total.

On Tuesday, Sadie had the day off. She went for a run and was back in her apartment, covered in sweat, getting ready to take a shower, when her phone rang.

“Sadie, this is Celine Diaz.”

Celine was the owner of Saint-Loup. Sadie had met her only once before, during her job interview. A woman named Ashely worked as the store manager, handling all of the day-to-day operations. Sadie had heard rumors that Celine was a multi-millionaire, if not a billionaire, who had purchased Saint-Loup during a period of brief-but-intense interest in clothing retail. According to the rumors, Celine had recently become interested in learning how to fly a helicopter, opening sustainable sushi restaurants, and making wine. Saint-Loupe was receiving less attention.

“I want to thank you for your hard work and attention to detail when arranging clothes,” Celine said.

“You’re welcome,” Sadie.

“Do you know who Marcus is?” Celine asked.

“No,” Sadie said.

“That does explain some things. Marcus oversees a lot of my business ventures. He acts as my eyes-on-the-ground when I’m otherwise occupied. He informed me that you had told a customer about a sexual assault you experienced.  He mentioned the customer was Rachel Feldman. She’s been a loyal patron for years. He took the liberty of calling her and she agrees that we should let you go. Marcus also said, that you advised a customer to damage a top in order to receive a discount,” Celine said.

“Yes, I did those things,” Sadie said.

“We’re going to discontinue your employment, but the problem is, we don’t have anyone to replace you at this moment. If you’re willing to stay on for a few weeks, I’ll give you a good reference. You can quit right now, but then you wouldn’t be able to apply for unemployment,” Celine said.

“I can stay,” Sadie said.

Sadie wasn’t in a position to turn down any income.

Sadie put on a holey pair of jeans and a Lou Reed t-shirt. For a moment, she fantasied about wearing the outfit to her remaining shifts. She imagined the conversations the outfit would spark. Sadie loved an ice cream sundae that was available at a popular fast-food restaurant, but she found it difficult to justify the treats’ plastic cup, which would outlive her. Being fired was a good justification. She bought the sundae and began walking around downtown.

She passed a number of restaurants that had only a few, if any guests, which made sense, as it was a dead time between late lunch and early dinner. The outside patio of Baddiel’s was completely packed. A sign indicated that the space was reserved for a private event. Sadie sat on stone bench in front of the patio and surveyed the scene. Many of the men gathered were guys in their twenties, who wore dress shirts, and gave arrogant looks to the other people present, as though every man thought they were the next Mark Zuckerberg. Within five years, the most interesting aspect of the other people present would be the stories they would tell about the future tech celebrity, the man they were now sitting across from. Sadie guessed correctly that she was looking at tech workers. A few of the men were in their fifties, but they had hip haircuts and were in good shape.  A youthful and industrious energy permeated the group.  A few women were present but Sadie was able to get a good look at only one lady, a redhead with colorful Ed Hardy style tattoos. She wore lipstick and kept a cocky smile, as though she was more than used to holding her own in a roomful of men.  Despite her loneliness, Sadie was not in the habit of openly gawking at groups of strangers. She assumed some men noticed her, in her terrible jeans and questionable t-shirt, but something about the scene had piqued her curiosity. She wouldn’t stop staring until she determined what it was. Most of the men sat at one of five giant tables, conversations were conducted across several tables at once.  At the far end of the patio, away from the loud men, a pair of women sat at a two-seater. One of the women appeared to be in her late fifties or early sixties, the other in her thirties. The ladies looked at one another with a laser focus, but it didn’t seem as though they were particularly enjoying each other’s company. Sadie assumed they were afraid to look at the guys. The older woman was Rachel.

Two men wearing dress shirts exited the patio and walked in front of Sadie.

“Excuse me. Sorry, I have an awkward question. Like a really awkward question. Why are those two women over their sitting by themselves?” Sadie asked.

“That’s our boss, Rachel, and her secretary,” one of the men said.

“And why are they sitting alone?” Sadie asked.

The men exchanged looks. Their facial expressions indicated had had a few drinks each.

“Rachel is a little girl who took on a man’s job. We make predictions about the specific demand for medical equipment over the next sixteen quarters. Our work impacts a billion-dollar industry, but Rachel doesn’t even know what an algorithm is. She can’t spell it,” the man said.

“I got my first job when was I seventeen working for Jack in the Box.  My boss there was better than Rachel,” the second man said.

One of the men on the patio caught the eye of the guys talking to Sadie. With a happy drunk grin, he pointed to Rachel. He had inferred who they were talking about.

“Our boss has Downs syndrome. That’s why she’s alone,” the man on the patio said.

He spoke loudly. It was likely Rachel heard him and possible Rachel saw Sadie, though she tried to hide behind the men she was talking to. Not a single person spoke in Rachel’s defense.

During Sadie’s last shift, Rachel walked in. She surveyed the clothing, and refused to look at Sadie. Ashely, the only other employee present, was helping a customer. After Ashely finished, she ran to the back to complete her managerial tasks. Rachel finally approached Sadie.

“Sachar skirt, red, size forty,” Rachel said.

She went to the back to fetch the skirt.

He remembered that day. God, did he remember it! His worst day in a year of worst days, a day he’d spent the last six months trying to bury. A day he’d regret for a lifetime, even though he himself had done nothing to regret.

Roger White sat on the unscreened porch of sister’s house in North Carolina, watching the morning fog creep up the hillside like a ghost without feet. He held a can of beer and a cigarette.

At first, he told himself that his guilt over the dead girl was karma for everything else he’d done, for the ones he’d killed. And maybe it was.

In Vietnam, they’d all been soldiers, good soldiers, and except for a little luck, his own bones might be there now, rotting in some jungle stream or skewered in a pit of punji stakes on an overgrown trail.

Why feel guilty about one girl? Wasn’t her death a blip? A one-off sin. Who punishes that, an aberration in the chaos of war? Can there even be an aberration in chaos anyway? Isn’t chaos, by definition, well, chaos?

But emotions were indefinite things, not measured like spoons of sugar.

Who was answerable for her death? Al Pfeiffer? For sure. The war, the Goddamn American Army? Probably. But only Al was a real person, and he had no conscience. So, the onus fell to Roger, as the stand-in, as the designated conscience for her death. Somebody, surely, owed her memory some measure of contrition.

“A little early to start drinking, isn’t it?” said Judy. His sister was a small, dark-haired woman, and she peered at him through a screen door off to the right.

“Oh, you mean this?” said Roger, smirking. He raised the beer can and winked. “I found it on the porch when I got up. Didn’t want it going to waste.”

“Don’t be stupid,” she said.

Above, a slight, chilled breeze rattled though the reddish leaves of the Black Oak that stretched across the eastern edge of the roof. Roger wore shorts and a shirt he wore before going into the Army. His feet were bare. There was an ugly red scar on his right thigh.

After going a year without getting shot, he’d been wounded three days before the end of his tour. Shot by a newbie who’d been in country two days, a kid from Maine who’d fired into the latrine, thinking he’d heard a VC sapper sneaking around in the dark.

“I can’t believe you’re wearing shorts. Aren’t you cold?” said Judy.

“I’ve had enough hot weather to last me,” he said.

“I thought you wanted to go back to Florida.”

“Eventually,” he said. “But it takes money, you know.”

“Well, you could get a job…”

“I’ve been looking,” he snapped.

She frowned. “I know it’s hard to adjust. But drinking’s not going to help.”

“Not going to help what?”

“You’ll feel better if you get out and see people. Find something to keep you busy. Have you given up on finding a job?”

“I said I’m looking.”

Through the screen, Judy’s face looked waxy, like a marble bust in a frame of dark hair. “I know I don’t understand everything you’ve been through. But you can’t just give up.”

“Everything I’ve been through? What does that mean?”

“You know. Vietnam.”

“You sound more like Mom every day,” he said, wedging the beer between his thighs. He felt the frosty nip of the can, but he didn’t flinch. Perhaps his fear of weakness died harder than his fear of pain.

Was that something he’d learned in Vietnam, he could have wondered. But didn’t.

“You never listened to her either,” she said.

Ever since he’d moved in with Judy, he’d tried to stay out of sight. The less anyone knew about him, the better. After all, hadn’t Al warned him to be on the lookout for trouble?

Still, he wondered if he’d already listened to Al too much. But loyalty in a combat team was rock hard.

Five months ago, Roger had been lying on a stretcher, his leg wrapped in bloody bandages, waiting for a medevac chopper. Despite his pain, the whomp-whomp of the approaching chopper was sweeter than the Christmas morning he’d gotten his first bike.

“They’re getting close,” Al whispered, bending over him.

Roger grinned. “I hear them.”

“Not the chopper. That whore in Saigon. They’re asking about her.”

Roger froze. “What?”

“Next month, I’m outta here. Three tours are it for me. I’m done. I’m going to find me a cabin somewhere in Idaho.”

“Who’s asking about her?” Roger said, not expecting an answer.

“You better watch out. Remember, they can’t prove a Goddamn thing, no matter what they say.”

Roger waited motionless as two men arrived to lift his stretcher.

Al whispered something unintelligible, but Roger didn’t look at him. Above, white clouds covered the eastern line of trees. The morning sun was already bright and hot. Too hot. Sweat beaded on his naked skin, under his fatigues.

A medic approached, grinning. He tapped Roger’s good foot.

“Doc,” said Roger.

“You’re going to be fine, Rog. You’ll be eating stateside chow in a week.”

“Hey,” said a stretcher bearer. “Stateside? Wanna trade?”

Roger felt himself hoisted.

“Remember,” said Al. “When they come…”

Roger’s trip back to the States was long and tiring. On the way, he tried to imagine himself shedding Vietnam like a snake molting unwanted skin. It didn’t work.

He wanted to go back to Florida. But that would come later, in a few years. Right now, he couldn’t bring himself to do it.

Instead, he moved in with Judy. Later, he’d move to Charlotte or Atlanta. You can get lost in big cities. And lost is what he wanted.

“I’m going to town, if you want to come,” said Judy. “But I’m not going to take you if you’re drunk.”

“I can use a haircut,” he said, running his hand over his head.

“Get ready then,” said Judy, reminding him of the way their mother used to sound when she was irritated.

Roger finished the beer and set the empty can on the porch. Rising, he walked to the rail, showing a slight limp. Judy didn’t want him to smoke in the house, so he took a long drag on the cigarette and flicked it into the upper tendrils of fog.

He changed into a pair of old jeans, unwilling to explain the scar.

“You wearing those?” said Judy, standing beside her Ford Falcon.

“Wearing what?” he said, scrunching across the pebbled path.

“Those sneakers,” she said, pointing. “The soles are coming off.”

“Nothing wrong with them.”

She stared. “Is that how you looked on job interviews?”

He smirked. “You want me to interview the barber for a haircut?”

“Roger, they look awful.”

“They’re supposed to look awful. They were old when I went in the Army.”

“Why don’t you buy a new pair?”

“If I had money for shoes, I wouldn’t be running low on beer and cigarettes.”

She shook her head, climbed into the car, slammed the door.

On the way to town, they rode in silence, descending the narrow asphalt road that cut through the trees and waterless creek beds. Judy drove with slow precision, the way she’d done everything since she was a little girl.

Nothing like the way he did things. As kids, she’d always complained that he didn’t think things through. That he let his friends get him into trouble.

If she only knew.

After he went into the Army, Judy kept him updated on hometown news until she moved to North Carolina with her boyfriend. Regularly, she complained that he didn’t write.

She got a part-time job as a cashier at Greene’s Grocery and invited him to stay with her when he was discharged. By then her boyfriend was in Vietnam too, somewhere in the Delta, and she was having a hard time making ends meet.

At first, Roger thought he’d be able to hide, to jump start a new life. Instead, he felt isolated and alone. The world he grew up in no longer existed. Perhaps never had.

It wouldn’t be long, he realized, before Judy would need more money than he could give her. Yet he didn’t know what to do about it. He hadn’t found a job, even when he’d looked.

He’d been having a hard time adjusting to civilian life. After two years of hating the Army, of wishing himself home, he’d been strangely confused and angry when he got out, as if he’d landed on a distant planet, unable to cope with the new language and customs.

How could he explain that to Judy without sounding paranoid and petty? And crazy.

In Vietnam, he’d saved some money, because he didn’t have many places to spend it. Although he gave her something every week to help with expenses, he expected to be broke in a month. And then…? He didn’t know.

She couldn’t afford to support him.

“I’m going to get my hair done and pick up a few groceries,” said Judy, stopping the car in front of the barber shop. “You want anything?” She stared at him, as if hoping to ferret out his intentions.

“I could use some beer,” he said, glancing at her sideways.

“If you want beer, buy it yourself.”

“I’ve still got a few bucks left,” he said, fishing several bills from his pocket, handing them to her. “And get me some cigarettes too.”

At end of the street, the sun was breaking through a notch in the rippled, gray clouds, panning across the rooftop of an abandoned hardware store and the three dangling balls of a pawn shop. Fog was beginning to stir in the street, warming toward oblivion.

“Pick me up when you’re through,” he said. “I’ll be here somewhere.”

He lit a cigarette before he opened the door of the barber shop. The barber and several customers stopped talking and glanced up in unison. The barber nodded and said “Howdy”. The others stared at him.

By the time Roger stepped outside, sunlight had shredded the vestiges of fog. He lit his last cigarette and stood at the curb, breathing the warming air. He glanced up and down the street. An old Hudson cruised past, burning oil.

Moving slowly to keep the loose soles of his shoes from tripping him, he shuffled along the curb, inspecting the gutter for lost coins.

His leg was hurting, so he stopped at the pawn shop. In the window was a guitar, a set of wrenches splayed like a fan, an old eggbeater drill, somewhat rusted, and a stack of green army fatigue pants.

He entered. A bell tinkled above the door. The room smelled of oiled machinery. Along the back wall was a line of lawn mowers and large pieces of equipment Roger didn’t recognize. Farm gear of some kind, he guessed.

Behind the counter sat a man with a scruffy beard. His left sleeve hung empty. His right hand was large and meaty. He raised it in greeting. “Morning,” he said, smiling.

“Morning,” said Roger, glancing around.

Behind the man was a rack of shotguns and rifles. Under the glass counter were several rows of pistols and knives.

“Looking for anything in particular?” said the man.

Roger stopped at a bookcase, filled with old magazines. “Just looking,” he said, scanning the titles.

“Been back long?” asked the man.

Roger turned. “Back?”

“’Nam. You were there, right?”

“What?”

“You’re Judy White’s brother, aren’t you?”

“Yeah…”

The man laughed, waving his huge hand. “This is a small town. My cousin stocks shelves at Greene’s.” He reached across his body and flipped his empty sleeve. “You get any souvenirs? This is mine.”

“We’ve all got souvenirs,” said Roger, after hesitating.

The man nodded. “I guess that’s right.”

Then Roger grinned. “I got mine sitting on the shitter.”

The man’s laugh was spontaneous, deep and hearty. “You what?”

“Some idiot thought he heard something and fired through the wall. Hit me in the leg.”

Still laughing, the man said: “Well, I never heard that before.”

“I never told it before,” said Roger, moving to the counter so he could see under the glass.

“Next time, say you were surrounded by an NVA division.”

“No use. It’ll come out. Always does,” said Roger.

“Ain’t that the truth,” said the man, extending his hand. “My name’s Joe.”

Roger took the huge hand. In it, he was surprised at how small his own hand seemed. “Roger,” he said.

A door behind the counter scraped open and a Vietnamese woman appeared, carrying a Coke. She wore the dress of her country, an Ao Dai, with a red tunic and black, silk trousers. She had a narrow face, high cheekbones, and long black hair. Glancing at Roger, she looked away.

Roger blinked. Seeing someone from Vietnam was unexpected. But seeing her dressed like that gave him a start. For a moment he thought she had a white scar above her left eye.

But of course, she didn’t.

“This is Thuy,” said Joe, watching Roger carefully. “My wife.”

Roger nodded. She set the Coke on the counter.

“Cảm ơn bạn,” said Joe, smiling at her.

Her eyes lit up. “You well come,” she said slowly.

Roger shrugged and moved toward the door, trying not to limp. “Guess I need to be going,” he said. He didn’t know when Judy would return, but he was sure she wouldn’t find him here.

“Come again, if you need anything,” said Joe, raising his hand. “Or have something to trade or sell.”

Roger stopped and turned. Thuy was sitting on a stool, flipping through the pages of a movie magazine. Her small fingers moved with nimble grace.

“What do you buy?” asked Roger.

“Anything I can sell. If you have something, bring it in and let me look.”

That night Roger sorted through his belongings. The only thing he could find was the Montagnard knife he’d gotten in a trade for two packs of cigarettes and three cans of turkey loaf c-ration cans.

But looking at the knife brought back the image of the girl lying in that filthy Saigon alley, her throat slit and bloody, her head canted sideways, as if unzipped. Above her left eye a tiny, whitened scar. The scar he couldn’t forget.

Al had killed her. Tried to steal his wallet, he’d said. But Roger’s own silence, didn’t that make him complicit? Blemished with guilt?

At the time, Roger convinced himself that he couldn’t say anything. He denied his instincts, buried them deep. During his tour, he’d become cauterized to violence. Death was everywhere. Why shouldn’t it come to a bar girl in Saigon, too?

Still, she wasn’t a soldier. She was a young girl, her life ended before it took good root.

Later, he told himself that rules were different in a war zone, that even sins were different. He balked at judging others, particularly Al, who’d saved his life more than once.

Why did the girl’s memory send out so many ripples? Become so bothersome. Once they’d returned to their unit, Roger never discussed the murder. He covered for Al the way they always covered for each other. He was silent.

The next morning, Judy hollered him awake. Rising, he smelled bacon frying. She was ready for work.

“When are you getting home?” he asked. “I’ve got something to sell at the pawnshop. I should get a few bucks for it.”

“What is it?” she said, as she opened the front door.

“A Montagnard knife.”

“A what?” Outside, heavy rain pelted the porch. “Damn,” she said, distracted.

Later, after eating, Roger heard someone at the front door, knocking rapidly.

On the porch were two soldiers, one wearing dress greens, the other stiff-starched fatigues. The one wearing greens was a Captain with JAG insignia, the other an MP with boots spit-shined to a sparkle. He wore a .45 pistol strapped to his side.

“Goddamn,” was all Roger could think to say.

The rain had stopped, but their uniforms were still damp.

The captain was a small man with one green eye and one blue. He was a foot shorter than the MP. “Corporal White?” he said.

“I’m not in the Goddamn Army,” said Roger.

The captain’s eyes narrowed. “Are you Roger White, recently discharged?”

“What do you want?” asked Roger. He flashed back to Al’s words, before he was loaded into the medevac chopper. They can’t prove a Goddamn thing…

“Please answer my question,” said the captain.

“Yeah. So what?”

“Mind if we come in?” said the captain. The MP stood off to the side, looking large and solid. Beyond them, Roger could see the shadow of the emerging sun against the roof line.

“Yeah, I do mind.”

Pause. “I have some questions. You can make it easy and answer them, or…”

“Why don’t you just tell me what you want?” said Roger.

The MP shifted slightly, glancing along the porch, both ways.

“You served with Corporal Pfeiffer didn’t you?” said the Captain.

“Al? Yeah.”

“And you had passes to Saigon…”

“What’s wrong,” said Roger. “Didn’t we sign out?”

The captain leaned forward, squinted. The MP tensed. “Look, White. We can get the sheriff up here. Your choice.”

Roger felt the need for a cigarette. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a crumpled pack. He opened the screen door. “My sister doesn’t want me smoking inside,” he said, stepping out.

The captain moved to the right, the MP to the left. Roger went to the railing and turned to face them.

“Did you and Pfeiffer go to Saigon?” asked the captain.

“Is that illegal?”

“Did you…”

“Yeah, we went. You know that or you wouldn’t be here.”

The captain nodded. “Did you meet Phan Thi Binh?”

“Huh? Who the hell is that?”

The captain’s face tightened. “She was murdered while you and Corporal Pfeiffer were in Saigon.”

“You think it’s strange for somebody to be killed in Vietnam?”

The captain exchanged a quick look with the MP. “She was murdered. She wasn’t a soldier.”

“What was she then?”

“A civilian.”

Roger pushed himself away from the railing and glanced down the hill, where a breeze rushed through the trees like an invisible train. From somewhere came the odor of cooking food.

“You’ve come a long way to ask me about a… civilian.”

“I assume you’ve heard about Lieutenant Calley,” said the captain. “The Army is concerned about civilians in wartime. They aren’t combatants.”

Roger finished his cigarette while he tried to put his thoughts in order. “So why are you talking to me? Did you ask Al?”

The captain pursed his lips. “Corporal Pfeiffer is dead,” he said.

“Dead?”

The captain nodded.

“What happened?”

“I’m not at liberty to say. That’s not why I’m here.”

“Then why are you here?”

“To find out about Phan Thi Binh.”

“Well, I don’t know who that is,” said Roger, trying to keep his voice steady.

“Look,” said the captain. “I think you know something.”

“I don’t know a damn thing.”

“White, if we wanted to arrest you, we’d have done it already,” said the captain.

“Then what do you want?”

“Information.”

“Information? Well, here’s some information for you: go to Hell.”

For a moment they stared at each other, then the captain stepped back. “We’ll be at the Mountain Arms Motel tonight. Think about it.” He hesitated. “Otherwise, we’ll be back tomorrow. With the sheriff.”

Roger brushed past them and went inside, slamming the door. “Al? Dead?” he muttered, feeling light-headed. “Jesus H Christ.”

When Judy returned, Roger slipped the Montagnard knife into a paper bag.

“I need to borrow your car,” he said.

“Okay, but remember, supper’s at six. I’m fixing pork chops.”

On the ride into town, he drove through sunlight that flickered between the trees like a picket fence.

In the pawn shop, Thuy sat alone at the counter wearing a yellow, western style blouse.

Without thinking, he checked her left eye for the scar that wasn’t there. She smiled.

Joe entered through the rear door and raised his hand. “Good to see you,” he said.

“Ever see one of these?” asked Roger, pushing the bag across the counter.

“Sure,” said Joe, hoisting the knife. “What do you want for it?”

“What about trading for one of those pistols?”

Joe frowned. “Not much market for things like this around here. Nice, but… in Charlotte, maybe.” He edged the knife back toward Roger.

“It ought to be worth something,” said Roger.

“It is. Sure. But most of these pistols…”

“What about that one?” said Roger, pointing to a small derringer with a cracked handle held together by tape.

“That one?” Joe looked from the derringer to the knife, then back again.

“Does it fire?” said Roger.

“Sure. Already shot it. I picked it up in an estate sale. Couldn’t get that clock over there unless I took everything else.” He pointed at a grandfather clock that stood in the corner, tall and elegant, the wood recently polished.

“What about it?” said Roger.

Joe looked at the knife again. “For the derringer?”

Roger nodded.

Joe studied him. He reached under the counter. “Well, we’re vets. We’ve got to stick together, right?”

“Right.”

“Why do you want this one?”

“The derringer? Judy wants something small, to carry in her purse.”

“In her purse?”

Roger shrugged. “Women… you know. By the way, can you throw in a couple of bullets?”

“Sure.”

“There’s been a bear hanging around the house lately,” said Roger, laughing.

As he reached the door, Roger turned. “Say, you ever heard of Lieutenant Calley?”

“Isn’t he the one who massacred those civilians in Vietnam last year? Why?”

“Oh nothing. Somebody mentioned him, that’s all.”

“Well, come back when you get a chance. Thuy and I want to have you over for supper one night, you and Judy.”

It was almost sundown when Roger reached the lake. He’d driven there several times when he’d told Judy he was interviewing for jobs. He stopped the car and pushed back the seat. His leg hurt and he rubbed his thigh.

A cool cross-breeze wafted through the open car windows, carrying the menthol scent of pines needles and the tilting afternoon sunlight that trickled toward winter like inevitable grains in some universal hourglass. As a boy, he’d been calmed by pines like these, growing along the edge of the lake near his house in Florida.

He’d loved to lie on that bank, looking into the branches. Dreaming… of what he couldn’t recall.

Raising up, he peered outside, half expecting to see Judy crossing the field, carrying sandwiches they’d eat together in the autumn twilight, while she listened to his stories of adventure and the distance he’d someday run from home.

A distance he now wished away.

Al, he thought. You bastard. You fucking bastard…

But Roger didn’t know quite how to complete the thought. Had Al been killed on patrol? Was that how it happened? Perhaps, but Al was the savviest soldier in the platoon. Still, luck was always the high card. You didn’t spend a year in ‘Nam without coming to that truth. Or maybe the compound was shelled. That happened on a regular basis.

Another thought crossed his mind, but he put it away, almost in fear. Impossible, he thought. Things like that didn’t happen to Al Pfeiffer.

Not that it mattered anymore. Al’s death left Roger as the only witness to a murder he hadn’t witnessed. Was Roger being convicted by his own silence?

Truly, Al had been right. They were on his trail.

In the end, guilt was a tar baby, beyond the ken of law, of everything, and he didn’t know how to parse it into smaller pieces, ones he could manage.

In this case, a young girl was dead and he… what exactly did he do?

Nothing. But he also knew that nothing could be something. Together, he and Al were guilty. Together…

Looking back, he saw a patchwork of emotions, all pulled to the breaking point, each a failure.

He picked up the derringer and loaded a bullet. Getting out of the car, he went to the edge of the lake. A breeze blew a column of wavelets into the muddy shoreline, making a tiny, lapping sound.

Lifting the derringer, he took a deep breath. Sunlight struck the side of the small barrel, like a spark. His world narrowed to a pinpoint.

Then, on impulse, he heaved the derringer far into the lake where it splashed and disappeared into the dark water.

Damn, he thought. What have I done?

By the time he reached Judy’s house, a quarter moon was hanging over the trees, coloring the tight noose of clouds a faint gray.

“Roger?” she hollered.

“Sorry,” said Roger, coming inside. “I’m late.”

Judy came into the living room and stood arms akimbo.

“I said supper was at six,” she said, her voice strident with irritation. “I already ate, so yours…” She stopped and stared at the front door.

Behind Roger stood two soldiers, a captain in dress greens, and an MP wearing a holstered .45.

“Sorry,” said Roger again.

“What…?” she said.

“I have to leave for a day or two, so I brought back your car.” Saying this, he didn’t feel as bad as he thought he would, rehearsing the explanation all the way from town. Still, he felt queasy.

“What’s going on?” she asked.

“A misunderstanding. It’s okay.”

“Who are…?”

“A girl was killed in Saigon while I was there. The man who killed her…” He hesitated. “He’s dead.”

Her eyes flicked to the soldiers and back to Roger. “Who’s dead? I don’t understand. Who are these men?”

“Ma’am, my name is Captain Tolbert. This is Sergeant Solis. Sorry to barge in like this.”

Judy stared as if they were foreclosing on the house, throwing her into the street.

“Your brother is helping with an investigation,” said the captain.

“An investigation?”

“He’s not under arrest,” said the captain.

“Why should he be under arrest?”

Roger turned toward the captain. “I told you everything I know.”

“I understand,” said the captain. “You’ll be back by Friday. We need to complete some paperwork.”

“Roger,” said Judy. “What’s this about?”

“Nothing. It’s nothing.”

“What did you do?” she asked.

“I fell in with somebody who… well, couldn’t control his temper.”

“Where are you going?” she asked.

Roger hesitated, looking at the captain. “Can’t we finish this here, tonight?”

When the captain spoke, his voice was barely audible. “The Army doesn’t want another front-page story, like Lieutenant Calley. Corporal Pfeiffer’s dead. We need your testimony, properly documented.”

“To cover your asses,” said Roger.

The captain stared at him, silent, stony.

“And if I do what you want?” said Roger.

“Then you’re done. You can get on with your life.”

“I’m done?” said Roger, snorting.

“Absolutely,” said the captain.

“What life is it you think I’m getting on with?”

The captain gave him a puzzled look.

“No, the Army will be done. This is only a job to you. I’ll never be done.”

Roger moved toward Judy and gave her a hug. “When I get back,” he said. “I’m going home.”

“Florida?” she asked, cocking her head. “That’s… wow… You’re ready?”

“Yeah,” he said. “I am.” He wondered which home he would find when he got there, the one he remembered, or someplace new, where he’d have to forge a fresh set of rules for himself,  just to survive.

Either way, he’d have to make room for the young girl he’d found in a Saigon alley.  That wouldn’t change.  He’d made that choice long ago.  She’d live with him forever.

Finally, though, he felt unhitched from Al, from the bond tethering them together.  Sure, he’d made his own mistakes, plenty of them.  And he’d live with them. But Al’s mistakes were not his. Not anymore. He didn’t have to justify them.

“When you get there,” said Judy, looking at him as if she wondered whether he was listening to her. “Remember to write. More than you did from Vietnam.”

What did you do if you were deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan and believed the wars you volunteered to fight were unethical or badly managed? Keep quiet and perform your duties as best you could? Take your concerns to the chain-of-command? Express your reservations privately to friends and family? Protest publicly by writing a congressman or news outlet? Or, wait until you were out of service to tell the world about your misgivings?

In Paths of Dissent: Soldiers Speak Out Against America’s Misguided Wars (2022), editors Andrew Bacevich and Daniel A. Sjursen invite fourteen veterans of the Global War on Terror to describe acts of public protest they made while still serving or in the years afterward. The contributors describe the events that led them to protest and explore the consequences of their actions. They also reflect on the shape dissent has taken in the post-9/11 contemporary political and cultural climate. 

Contributors include field-grade officers, junior officers, and enlisted service members; former non-commissioned officers are notably absent. Army and Marine voices dominate, with only Jonathan Hutto representing the Navy and no former Air Force or Coast Guard personnel featured. Hutto is the lone African-American voice, and Joy Damiani’s the sole woman, while Buddhika Jayamaha’s contribution illustrates the multi-cultural make-up of America’s post-9/11 military. Arguably the most-well known contributors are National Football League star and Army Ranger Pat Tillman’s brother Kevin and Army veteran-author Roy Scranton. In many cases, the contributors’ acts-of-protest were letters written to influential decision-makers in Washington or opinion-pieces published in the New York Times or other high-brow journalistic outlets. Others were published in military venues such as the Armed Forces Journal, or in book form. Contributors often describe brief moments of mainstream news notoriety, but curiously, the Internet as an outlet for protest or as a possible galvanizer of public outrage is rarely mentioned. Only a few authors report actively participating in public protests or anti-war organizations. 

The lack of a vibrant antiwar movement is foregrounded in Andrew Bacevich’s introduction, as Bacevich, a retired colonel, came-of-age in the Vietnam era. That war’s glaring sins and mistakes, as well as the ensuing public demonstrations, are on his mind: “In fact, from its very earliest stages until its mortifying conclusion, America’s war in Vietnam was a crime.” The implication, then, is that Iraq and Afghanistan were also crimes, with the additional message being that we have ignorantly repeated Vietnam’s mistakes. “…of this we can be certain,” Bacevich writes, “rarely has such an excruciating experience yielded such a paltry harvest of learning.”

The dismal historical record drives Bacevich to ask contemporary contributors to examine the disconnect between their isolated protests and popular tolerance of the long wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, marked as they were by torture, wanton killing, disrespect for our allies, helplessness in the face of Improvised Explosive Devices, unresolved debates about policy and strategy, and, most of all, lack of success. The personal narratives that follow Bacevich’s introduction are varied and compelling. 

For the field grade officers represented, such as Jason Dempsey, Paul Yingling, and Gian Gentile, speaking out against failed policies and tactics came not in the guise of impassioned outcries, but as reasoned analyses in books and thought-pieces aimed at military decision-makers. To a man, they report their ideas and objections fell on deaf ears. Gentile, an Army colonel who served in Baghdad at the height of the surge and subsequently took issue with COIN strategy and its primary proponent General David Petraeus, states it most bluntly: “From what I can tell, [my] seven years of professional military dissent had no impact on the actual US strategy and the conduct of operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.” Instead, the failure to conform to repeat the party line brought upon their authors ostracization leading to early-retirement. No one’s going to feel too sorry for colonels forced to live on a colonel’s retirement pay-and-benefits, but taken together, the essays by this group of authors are savvy about military institutional politics and culture, particularly within the officer corps and especially in regard to its capacity for intellectual honesty and rigor.   

The essays by junior officers typically begin by describing the youthful idealism that led the authors to the military, followed by accounts of how their idealism was crushed first in training (or in their educations at West Point or Annapolis), and culminating in scornful howls fomented by battlefield events in Iraq and Afghanistan. Army infantry officer Dan Bershinski describes how losing his legs to a mine in Afghanistan made him a pariah within the infantry corps. Rather than treated as a hero who might speak the truth of combat to officers in training, he was isolated from the junior officers whom he wanted to help become better leaders for fear his words and injuries might bum them out. For Marine Gil Barndollar, two desultory tours in Afghanistan drove home the point that the war was unwinnable, in equal parts due to failed American overarching strategy, the incompetence of the Afghan military, and his own units’ risk-averse and uninspired tactics. For Marine Matthew P. Hoh, experiences in Iraq similar to Barndollar’s in Afghanistan soured him. For these former officers, the gaping chasm between stated goals and ideals and actual experience of the war was intolerable. The sentiment expressed by Hoh that after leaving the military he vowed “to live a life according to how my mind, soul, and spirit dictate—to be intellectually and morally honest for the remainder of my days”—unites their accounts.   

The contributions by junior enlisted service members are the most varied and in many ways the most interesting reflections in Paths of Dissent. Often, they recount dutiful performance of duty while in uniform, even by left-leaning and artistically-minded soldiers such as Joy Damiani and Roy Scranton. Airborne paratrooper Buddika Jayamaha reports with almost chagrin and regret an act-of-protest—an article he and squad members composed for the New York Times—he undertook while serving in the ranks while in Iraq. Frankly, the sense that the military was a reasonably tolerable institution for young men and women just starting out in life seems to predominate. Only Jonathan W. Hutto’s essay describes a sustained and contentious wrangle with his chain-of-command and the big Navy while in uniform born of miserable terms-of-service. For most of the enlisted authors in Paths of Dissent, the real drama takes place after leaving the military. Several accounts report flirtation with anti-war movements. A more common experience is a period of drift and dysfunction as they sorted out their past lives as soldiers with efforts to build meaningful lives afterward. Jayamaha writes, “I had too many choices, and every choice seemed hollow. I had survived the war relatively unscathed, thankful to my colleagues, leaders, and God for saving my dumb ass… But what would be the most meaningful way to spend the rest of my life? How could I be of service again?” Similarly, Roy Scranton writes that “…dissent may need to take form not in words but in deeds: not as yet another public performance of critique but as the solid accomplishment of repair.”

The principled literary objections to small-unit practices or big-military policies recorded in Paths of Dissent differ from more overt forms of protest, such as refusal to obey orders or demonstration outside the halls of power. There are, however, other ways veterans manifested dissent than by writing letters, disobeying orders, and marching in the streets, which Bacevich and Sjursen seem not inclined to foreground. We might think of the low-boil burn virtually every deployed soldier felt about the wars. It was evident to almost everyone that that victory was far-off as the wars were being imagined and fought. As someone who has read dozens of Global War on Terror soldier memoirs and fictional portrayals, I’m surprised that the truculent dissatisfaction of lower-enlisted soldiers and junior officers surfaces in only a few Paths of Dissent accounts. Damiani’s essay points to it, as does former-Marine’s Vincent Emanuel’s; general readers might know this spirit of unruly disobedience best from the sarcastic Terminal Lance cartoon strip. 

We might also consider how the national conversations around Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and veteran suicides represented if not direct dissent, then touchstones by which the ill-begotten wars were often measured. In other words, the cries for help broadcast by troubled veterans might be understood as a dissent that had not found the right words for what those cries signified. Only Jonathan W. Hutto’s contribution directly references racism as a rationale for dissent; Hutto’s unfortunate experience illustrates how large could be the gap between the military’s stated ideals and the reality of life in the ranks for people-of-color. Even in Joy Damiani’s essay, which wonderfully documents what might be described as an early case of “quiet quitting” to silently register protest, gender inequity and sexual assault and abuse are not explored for the rottenness they all too often exposed at the core of military culture and the war effort. Finally, the idea that alienation generated by disgust with military hypocrisy and incompetence might lead to anti-establishment fervor for President Trump and radical conservative outrage is not considered in Paths of Dissent. What might Ashli Babbitt, the Air Force veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan who died storming the Capitol on January 6, 2021 have to say on the matter? Or active-duty Marine Lieutenant Colonel Stuart Scheller, Jr., whose tirade against President Biden for his perceived mishandling of the evacuation of American allies at Hamid Karzai International Airport in August 2021 effectively ended his military career?  

So, Paths of Dissent leans heavily toward mannered outcries-from-the-left against the American war machine, inspired by conscience, principle, and duty. I like that fine, but the mannered approach also hints at reasons why protest never caught hold with the populace as it did in the Vietnam era. Bacevich and many contributors view the tepid indifference of the American public as structurally facilitated by the all-volunteer military that allowed the populace to safely avoid thinking about the war. Considered from the populace’s perspective, the Global War on Terrorism did not exact much of a cost, and was hazily connected with the fact that there were no more major terrorist attacks on American soil. “Thank You for Your Service” and “Support the Troops” rhetoric was enough to demonstrate care and assuage guilty consciences about not personally doing more to fight “terrorism.” Left mostly unspoken was a less-flattering corollary in regard to veteran protest: “Well, what did you expect? You volunteered for it.” Even more: “You volunteered for it and were well-compensated for your service.” Vets themselves were subject to the force of these sentiments. It’s also hard not to think that a significant portion of the American public rationalized that there were plenty of Al Qaeda in Iraq and Taliban in Afghanistan who hated America and wanted to kill American soldiers. To continue to fight them—to not admit defeat—registered as legitimate, whatever the problems that accrued in the process. 

Thus civilians, deferring to the military itself to shape and win the wars, did not demand accountability from political leaders, who in turn did not demand accountability from senior military leaders. In the absence of oversight, the military in the field floundered. Units did what they could, which often wasn’t much. Soldiers, murky about the big picture, understood missions in terms of tactical proficiency, loyalty to their squads, and body counts of dead Al Qaeda and Taliban fighters. Without clear orders and a winning strategy, soldiers made up their own minds and often took matters into their own hands. Some fought more brutally than policy and circumstance called for, while others turned in lackadaisical efforts that focused on staying safe and doing as little as possible. 

While demanding that civilians and civilian leaders listen more carefully to the voices of soldiers, Paths of Dissent zeroes in on the military’s own culpability for creating the specific conditions that caused soldiers to dissent, as well as its inability to correct those conditions. An overarching message repeated often is that the military was and is incapable of critiquing or reforming itself. The accounts by field grade officers illustrate that perpetuating the status quo is the imperative that most governs military culture, not winning wars or taking care of soldiers. Even relatively sustained efforts at internal change, such as the pivot to a counterinsurgency strategy in Iraq, or application of manpower “surges” in Iraq and Afghanistan, have been poorly conceptualized and wracked by group-think and “flavor-of-the-day” thought-processes. A political sphere and populace that either refused to exercise oversight or just didn’t care made the situation even worse. That the whole war enterprise might have been a disgraceful crime, as Bacevich suggests, tugged at the mind of all participants, thus adding layers of denial and self-deception. Given such inadequacy, is it any wonder that junior officers and junior enlisted felt unsupported and unheard? 

*****

Paths of Dissent is dedicated to Ian Fishback, the Army special forces officer who took his grievances about the lack of guidance regarding the use of torture while interrogating prisoners in Iraq to the Washington political establishment and media mainstream in 2005. Bacevich reports that he asked Fishback to contribute, but Fishback was too overtaken by the madness that consumed him at the end of his life to author a publishable essay. Bacevich himself is no stranger to dissent; a retired Army colonel himself, he has written books whose titles illustrate his own objections to America’s modern wars: The New American Militarism: How Americans Are Seduced by War (2005), Washington Rules: America’s Path to Permanent War (2010), and The Age of Illusions: How America Squandered Its Cold War Victory (2020). Co-editor Daniel A. Sjursen is not as well-known, but he’s a retired Army officer who served in Iraq and Afghanistan and is now associated with the website Antiwar.com.

Paths of Dissent: Soldiers Speak Out Against America’s Misguided Wars. Edited by Andrew  Bacevich and Daniel A. Sjursen. Metropolitan-Holt, New York. 2022.

Poem for the Reader Who Said My Poems Were Sentimental and Should Engage in a More Complex Moral Reckoning with U.S. Military Actions

Today I didn’t say divorce
PUT_because I was sickened by
PUT_CAAAAAAAAAAAAAAthe news
from Afghanistan, translators and their families
PUT_CAAAAleft waiting at the gates,
while American personnel
PUT_CAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAlifted off
in the wide indifference of their transport planes.
I said divorce because
PUT_I hadn’t made room
PUT_AAAAAAAAAin the cabinet for my husband’s things,
and he was angry
PUT_CAAAAAAAAAAAAAAI did not leave
a vacancy for what he carried home from war.
I was tired of him
PUT_stacking bowls
PUT_AAAAAAAAAon the top rack of the dishwasher,
a policy
PUT_CAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAI can’t abide
when the lower rack is an open country
PUT_waiting to be washed clean.
PUT_CAAAAAAAAAAAAAAForgive me, reader,
for the weakness
PUT_AAAAAAAAAof my marriage.
I didn’t say divorce
PUT_because my husband would rather a drone
PUT_CAAAAAAAAAAAAAAhover above
a wedding procession,
PUT_CAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAthe party far below,
embroidered dresses glinting, small mirrors sewn into the hems.
He prefers the drone
PUT_fire from a distant, unendangered screen.
PUT_CAAAAAnd I believe
killing should come
PUT_CAAAAAAAAAAAAAAwith a risk of dying for the killers.
But that’s not why I said divorce.
PUT_CAAAAAAAAAForgive me, reader, for the poems
of shelf space and kitchens.
PUT_CAAAAAAAAAAAAAAMarriage is not
two ideologies fighting at a table,
PUT_CAAAAwhile the soup goes cold
on the spoon.
PUT_CAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAMarriage is two people
PUT_CAAAAAAAAAshouting about spices,
the ordering of jars—by alphabet or continent—
PUT_CAAAAAAAAAas if everything depends
on an ounce of turmeric fading
PUT_CAAAAAAAAAAAAAAunder glass.
Perhaps, I said divorce
PUT_for all the wrong reasons.
PUT_CAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAForgive me
for scrubbing the pot with a bristled brush.
PUT_CAAAAAAAAAAAAAAMy fury
at the gold-stained enamel
is almost the same size as my rage
PUT_CAAAAAAAAAthat somewhere a helicopter
strikes on civilians in the dark.
PUT_Forgive my sentiment.
PUT_CAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAll I can do is keep scraping
the dried burning from the pan.

Epic War Poem

What else but a soldier raging
by his shield. What else but the dutiful.
What else but a battle muralled on a wall,
and Troy a piece of artifice to gaze upon.
What else but the voice a garment
shredded in its grief. What else but ash.
What else but men on wooden ships for centuries.
Their keening is an arrow to the throat.
What else but kings. What else but
the trebuchet of years. What else
but sawbuck fences leaning near a field.
What else but America. What else but
daguerreotypes, a line of corpses posed
within the frame. What else but the guns.
What else but the trenches stuck with mud.
What else but modernity and the long
parade of after. What else but cinders
mixed with milk while the gone are drifting,
processed into smoke. What else
but the skirmishes of scholars,
that language is too little and too much.
What else but brief eras of indifference
when the dead are left alone. What else
but the forged and hammered thing
of poetry, all the failures of our making.
What else but the litany of bombs.

Tyrian Purple

Please, understand: to heave Hector
through the dirt, Achilles must first
cut holes in his enemy’s heels,
Hector threaded like a needle
with leather cord and tied to a chariot
that will pull him around the walls.
Imagine a body strong enough
to be strung like this. Imagine such
stitching is an art, and we call it battle.
Andromache deep in the palace
is weaving a cloak on a wide loom,
wool like the amethyst shadows
beneath her eyes, that vivid sleeplessness.
She’s tacking flowers to the fabric
when she hears the weeping everywhere in Troy.
The bobbin unspools from her fingers
because the warp is a place of order,
and death the cutting shears.
It’s understandable why Andromache
would sit at the loom for hours,
rectangular world where nothing extends
beyond the cloth’s perimeter.
At this point in the war, everyone has lost
the thread of narrative, any reason
beyond armor and the carrion birds
with their beaks like sharpened secateurs.
Who wouldn’t want to take up some craft,
pottery, perhaps, or painted scenes
on funerary stones. Don’t hands need
occupation when the city is besieged.
Probably, a reader believes it frivolous—
these fibers dyed the plum of galaxies,
all that great, oppressive sky
and the murdered looking down
from their fixed constellations.
Even Andromache finds a pastime.
It’s late in our history to condemn
the ways people spin out a war,
how they twist the days like fibers
on a spindle. Imperial purple.
Purple of bruised loyalties. Unfadable
purple that stains the maker’s skin.

SOME FINAL NOTES ON ODYSSEUS

                                                Ithacans!
Stop this destructive war; shed no more blood
and go your separate ways, at once!
            – The Odyssey, 24.531-533

When the goddess cries out,
her voice is a mountain against
the fighting. But the old soldier
keeps running—war like weather
in his ears, a summer storm,
in his pulse the tossing waves.
At such a time it is difficult to see
Odysseus was a child once.
He learned from his father
the names of trees, the orchard
full of gleaming suns called apples,
the private ripeness of figs, grapes
clustered like families on the vine.
He touched their dusty skins.
Yes, even he had been a boy
who held a wooden sword,
the shadows creeping on, and
they lengthened with the night.
There are decades of water,
islands and islands between
that child and the man.
The body is said to harden,
the heart of course as well.
For someone like Odysseus anger
is an unrestricted flame.
When the goddess cries out
she is saying, worship reason
instead. But it takes her own father—
a god and his thunderbolt
—to cut through the battle.
Stop this war, he says.
According to the story, Odysseus
lays down his weapons then.
And what then? What then?
Poems always end before the peace,
the orchard overgrown now.
No one wants to read a scene
of the old soldier pulling weeds,
pruning the wildness back, his arms
still strong but not with violence,
and the air no longer stings
like lightning touching down.
No one wants the old soldier slicing
a plum the way he used to take
his dagger to the belly of a rival,
the war that fed him once a taste
he barely can recall. Most nights
his chin is red and syrupy with juice.

They sent us home from school early because of the snow, just hard little flakes at first.

I didn’t look in the garage for Dave’s car because it was the time when he’d be at work. I went into the room he shares with my mother, took a five from the pile of change and bills on his dresser. When he said my name, I turned, smiled a dopey smile, took my hand out of my back pocket.

He watched as I put the five back. I told him I’d been looking for his miniature handcuffs tie tack.

Dave’s a detective, wears suits. The cuffs on his tie tack work. When I was little and got bored in restaurants, he’d let me play with them. I’d snap them shut and he’d look down, say, “I see Seth has apprehended a napkin.”

He unpinned it from his tie. “Here you go.”

I jumped when he reached his hand out, said I was sorry.

“How ‘bout that.” He sat on the edge of their bed looking at me. “Not the first time you did it.”

I wished it would turn out to be the way it usually does with Dave. Nothing.

I guess I’m not cut out to be a hardened criminal, I’d say.

Nope, Dave would agree. Amateur night.

“I won’t do it again.”

“I hope not.” He leaned back, as if intending to lie all the way down, take a little nap before dinner.

I took a step toward the door. “If that’s all…”

He sprawled back, looked bored. “I’m good.”

I stayed.

He pulled himself up. “Is there something I can do for you, Seth?”

“I’m sorry.”

“So you said.”

I couldn’t think what to say. “You’re an awesome stepdad.”

The way he looked at me then was scarier than when he caught me.

In my room I googled what you should do if your kid steals.

Talk to them about how they’ve lost your trust and what they’ll need to do to get it back, serve cheaper food to recoup the financial loss, take them to jail and have the police lock them in a cell so they know what it feels like, post a video of them wearing a sign that says Thief.

I didn’t go when my mother called me for dinner.

Dave knocked on my door the way I’d told him to.

“I’m not hungry.”

I got up when he opened the door because I didn’t want him to see me lying on my stomach, my butt in the air.

He waited for me so I had to walk in front of him.

We watched the snow from the dining room.

My mother said it made her cold, looking at it.

They’re predicting 12 to 14 inches, Dave said. The big dump, he called it.

A major transaction, I agreed.

My mother asked what was wrong.

Dave stood, said he was going to shovel. When he walked by me he reached over and tousled my hair. “Seth can fill you in.”

He was the one who was mad. Why couldn’t he tell her?

He was still in the hall, putting on his boots, when I said what I’d done.

“Why would you even do something like that?”

“I don’t know.” I thought of his hand on my head, my hair lifted from one place,

dropped to another.

“Oh, honey. You hurt his feelings.”

He gives you anything you want, was what I thought she’d say.

“Am I supposed to be grateful?”

“Yes,” she said. “Tell him you’re sorry.”

“I already did.”

“Mean it.”

Dave had taken my dog Bonnie with him, was showing her a good time, throwing one of her toys for her, still making quick work of the driveway.

He didn’t look like someone you could hurt.

I started on the sidewalk away from him. Where I cleared was messy, not clean the way Dave did it.

He doesn’t usually have me shovel, tells me to stay inside, keep warm, he needs the exercise.

“You’re putting too much pressure on your back,” he said. He’d finished the driveway, was working down the sidewalk toward me. “Bend your knees when you lift.”

After we went inside I stayed in the laundry room with Bonnie as long as I could, rubbing her down. She’s a beagle, short-haired, can’t shake the snow off the way a longhaired dog can. When I walked by the kitchen Dave told me to bring him the money I’d taken. “If you have it. If you don’t we’ll work something out.”

I had it. Also two hundred dollars of Christmas money and eighty dollars left from my report card money in November.

I scuttled to my room to get the money, thirty dollars.

He put it in his pocket without looking at it.

“I’m sorry.”

“Go to bed now.”

School had already been cancelled for tomorrow, Friday. I was hoping he’d want to watch a movie with me.

It was 8:30, an hour before my school night bedtime. I felt sorry for myself, lying alone in the dark. Dave’s mean, I told myself. My real father wouldn’t be this way.

My friend Carl would say I got off easy. When we talked about stealing, Carl said you won’t believe what you can get away with. I’d said if Dave catches me it’s the end of the world as we know it.

Bonnie stayed downstairs because Dave was eating. I could hear the microwave ding, got up and opened my door a crack, heard Dave telling my mom I’d just been feeling my oats, whatever that meant. “Kids do stupid stuff sometimes. Don’t worry about it.”

When they came up Bonnie jumped into bed with me, settled on my chest.

I woke at the usual time the next morning, couldn’t get back to sleep.

Dave was at the stove, asked how I wanted my eggs, said he’d appreciate it if he could take me and Bonnie over to his folks today. Give his dad a hand with the shoveling, keep them company. He asked politely, like I had a choice.

I shoveled our snow after I ate. It was easier today.

“Looks good,” Dave said, when he and my mom came out.

He could have said sucking up to him didn’t change anything.

I don’t mind going to my grandparents, Dave’s parents. They’re nice and they stuff Bonnie and me like Strasbourg geese, Dave says. I shoveled with my grandpa in the morning, was in the kitchen doing homework, drinking Coke, and eating the muddy buddies my grandma makes for me, when she called me to come quick, my dad was on TV.

She meant Dave. My real father is in California, I think.

Dave and the chief of police, looking serious, were standing behind a woman named Mandy Schott. “Help me,” she cried. “Help me find my baby.”

They TV station showed a picture of the baby, Ciara, fourteen months old, in a fancy red dress, sitting on Santa’s lap.

“Precious,” my grandma said. “See how she’s looking around like she just doesn’t know what to think.”

Mandy said she’d taken Ciara to the mall, had finished shopping, was walking across the parking lot to her car, carrying Ciara because she was fussy. “It was past time for her nap.” She smiled sadly. She’d opened her car door, Mandy said, leaned in to put Ciara in her car seat, when a man, a big Black man, pulled her back, ripped a screaming Ciara from her arms and tossed her, Ciara, like a sack of potatoes, into his SUV, also black, and took off.

Mandy was wearing one of the orange T-shirts Trucktown passed out at the fair this year. I could have gotten one but they weren’t great and I didn’t want to stand in line.

She was large and the shirt was too small.

She cried. “Please help me.”

The chief said they’d welcome any information from the public.

Dave’s the head detective and the other detectives hang out in his office. “How big is that big Black man?” one of them would ask.

As big as Quinton Lamar Spain, someone would say, bigger, and they’d laugh.

“I’ll bet it was her,” I said. “Mandy.”

My grandma got mad. “How can you say that? Her own mother hurting that sweet little girl.”

My grandpa winked at me. “Seth, do you think we should tell your grandma what your dad does for a living?”

“Surely you don’t think she’s lying?”

“A Black man with a white baby would attract attention.”

“You’re terrible,” my grandma said. “Just terrible.”

“Yes, dear,” my grandfather said, fake meek. My grandma laughed when we did, said she was ashamed of herself.

Dave came to get me early.

My grandpa gave me a twenty for shoveling. I felt funny, because of what I’d done, tried to hand it back. Dave said I’d probably already eaten my pay in cookies, “but you can take it, Seth.”

That was nice of you, he said, when we were outside with Bonnie.

We walked home. Dave said he’d be sitting on a hard chair all night working on hemorrhoid development, needed a break. I imagined him talking to his parents about me stealing. “I hate it,” he’d say, “but we have to face facts. Let me know if anything goes missing.”

“Are you going to tell Grandma and Grandpa what I did?”

He looked surprised. “Of course not.”

I wondered if I’d hurt his feelings again. “I’m sorry.”

“That was my line.”

Bonnie stopped to take a whiz. I bent down to pet her.

“You get any closer she’ll splash your face. Give the little lady her privacy and stand up and listen to me.”

That’s why he’d come home early, he said, to talk. He hadn’t handled it right, should have put a stop to it as soon as he knew I was stealing. “I was wrong to trick you.”

I was embarrassed.

“Shouldn’t you be telling me it’s wrong to steal and it doesn’t matter if I’m sorry, all matters is if I steal again?”

He looked at me the way he did yesterday afternoon. I don’t know why I didn’t take what he was offering, let things go back to the way they were.

“I think you knew that all along, Seth.”

Bonnie finished, kicked a little snow over the yellow spot. Good girl, I told her, though it was snowing again, covering everything up.

“Yes sir.” Dave doesn’t like being called sir. I told him I was sorry again.

“I got that part.”

We went a block without saying anything.

When we were in our yard he stuck a foot in front of me, an old trick of his I never see coming, caught me when I lost my balance, lowered me to the ground, said I was a dirty bird but he’d take care of that, rubbed my face with snow. Cold, but the new snow was soft, didn’t hurt the way the dirt-crusted old snow would. I grabbed his arms, donkey kicked. He slid backwards, letting me get to my feet.

Bonnie barked, ran in circles around us. We were hiding behind trees, throwing snowballs, yelling ‘you’re going down,’ at each other, when my mother came home from work, told Dave, smiling, he was getting me too wound up, what she used to say when I was little.

“Not my fault, Honey Gal. I wanted to build a snowman.” Then he went back to work.

Because of the extra day off, maybe, the weekend seemed long. Dave came home late Saturday night after I was in bed, went to bed himself. I heard his phone ring as it was getting light.

Before he left he came into my room to take Bonnie out, told me to go back to sleep.

He came home Sunday smelling of dirt and pine. My mom and I were eating supper and he looked at the spaghetti on our plates, said it was too slippery for him, trying to joke. I’m too tired to swallow, he said, when my mom offered to make him whatever he wanted. She helped him to bed, but he was up before I was Monday morning, frying bacon.

“I made plenty,” he said, loading my plate.

During Biology, I turned on my phone, wanted to know if they’d found Ciara. Dave was on again, getting out of his car. Mandy Schott was in the passenger’s seat.

“You’re going to jail, Piggly Wiggly Woman,” Carl said, looking over my shoulder.

Dave spoke into the camera, before he walked around to open the door for her, said Ms. Schott was cooperating with the police investigation, needed a break.

They didn’t look like a couple on a date because Dave is too old, forty-seven.

My mother is thirty-six. I’d thought Mandy Schott was her age or a little older, but on TV they said she was nineteen.

I recognized the restaurant. Dave takes us there.

He’d put his hand on what was probably the small of Mandy’s back when they were walking across the parking lot but he’s that way with all women. Stands up when they come into a room, opens doors, helps them with their coats.

Mandy would like the way Dave looks at you when you talk, interested.

He’d have a salad because he likes the bleu cheese dressing there. But the soup is good too, he’d tell Mandy. The Firehouse chili, maybe. He wanted the Reuben with homemade potato chips but the Monte Cristo is also excellent.

They’d have the sugar cream pie, a second cup of coffee. Or, if Mandy wasn’t used to drinking coffee, Dave would tell her to have another Coke.

At the counter where you paid they had candy like Twin Bings and Malty Meltys, stuff you don’t see much, and he’d take his time helping her figure out what she wanted. After they left the restaurant, when they were in his car, he’d asked her to tell him, please, where Ciara was, and then he and Mandy Schott drove around the lake long enough for her to eat her Charleston Chews before he took her to the police station.

My mother asked him if he’d put the lunch in his expense report. He said no, he didn’t need to buy Mandy lunch for her to tell him what he needed to know. “I just felt sorry for her.”

My mother said Dave was the one she felt sorry for. All that work and nothing to show for it but a dead child.

“You’re not making sense,” I told him. A nice meal wouldn’t make up for prison.

“You’re right. I hope I didn’t make things worse for her.”

You couldn’t, my mother said. “Her life can’t get any worse.”

I’d looked at my phone again on the way home from school, saw the cadaver dog, Dagwood. I know him. His handler, Sergeant Mays, brings him to the Super Bowl Party we have at our house every year. The first time he came, when I was seven, I’d asked Dave if he could live with us after he retired from police work. “Did you see how much he liked me? He can sleep in my bed. I’ll take good care of him.”

“I know you would,” he’d said, “but he’s young, won’t retire for a long time. Anyway, Ken Mays, and his wife, and his kids, are crazy for him. They’ll want to keep him.”

He brought Bonnie home the next weekend. Eight weeks old and, like Dagwood, a beagle.

On TV Dagwood was excited, jumping high as he could on his short legs. When he sat down, which is how he signals he’s found something, the police moved around him to block the cameras so you couldn’t see what it was.

The next time I saw him, Sergeant Mays was kneeling in front of him, giving him a treat, smiling and making over him, so Daggie Dog would know he’d done something good. If Sergeant Mays were to cry Dagwood would think he’d disappointed him.

Dave said the cops could see the outline of Ciara’s body under the mud as soon as Dagwood headed there.

I thought Mandy hadn’t made the grave deep because she didn’t want to let Ciara go. I know it sounded stupid, but Dave said he thought so too. “She loves that little girl.”

“Is that what you talked about at lunch?”

“No. We talked about high school and all the fun she had getting high with her stoner friends, shitting on toilet seats in the girls’ room, banging the lids down on top to smear it, skipping class to go shoplifting at Dilliard’s, spray painting gym lockers with the N-word, harassing the Korean shop owners on Townes Street, trashing the teachers’ cars.”

“Really?”

“Best years of her life.”

My mom sighed. She felt sorry for Mandy too.

Dave said it was going to storm. “I’m glad we found Ciara when we did. Dag can work through snow but they’re expecting eight inches tonight and we might not have been able to find the landmarks Mandy gave us.”

I wondered how Mandy was doing. She’d be on suicide watch, I knew, because Dave had told me that’s what they do at the jail for at least the first 24 hours, if someone’s charged with a high profile crime. One of the jail officers would check on her every fifteen minutes, maybe sit in front of her cell talking to her, trying to keep her spirits up.

I asked Dave if blunt force trauma, which was listed on the arrest warrant as the probable cause of death, would hurt, or if Ciara would have passed out right away.

“Passed out,” he said. “At her age, the skull isn’t fully developed, so she couldn’t take much, but her injuries occurred over time and she’d have periods of consciousness when she hurt.” He stood, knelt by my chair, held my right foot, still in my shoe, prodded it. “Tight in the box.”

“They feel okay.”

“They won’t for long.” He said he’d take me to the Nike store Saturday.

“You just bought him those.”

“When his little tootsies are sore he can’t concentrate on his school work.”

Once my mother had said when she was in foster care it was a treat to go to Walmart for school clothes, instead of Goodwill.

“I hope you realize how lucky you are,” she said tonight.

“What’s for dessert?”

Dave laughed, my mother too. But nobody likes a smart aleck, she said.

“I like this one.” I didn’t hear anything sour in Dave’s voice. “I like him a lot.”

“You shouldn’t swear in front of him. If he copies you he’ll get in trouble at school.”

“Seth’s too smart for that.”

He’d said shit, I remembered. Maddy spread shit, wanting someone to sit in it.

It started snowing for real after dinner. Dave said we might as well wait till morning before we shoveled. “You want to watch Justice League?”

Dave fell asleep on the couch as soon as he’d finished his lemon drizzle cake, his head back, his mouth open.

“He’s tired, poor sweetie,” my mother said, spreading the afghan over him, though we were warm, before she sat down on Dave’s other side.

I slumped against him. Bonnie got in my lap and I scratched her head the way she likes. There’s a velvet pillow on the couch I used to pat when I was little. Bonnie’s coat is better. Soft, thick, sweet.

Dave snored a little, singsong.

I saw I was holding onto Dave’s hand, the way I did before I was allowed to cross the street by myself.

He woke, kissed the side of my mother’s face, looked down at my hand, smiled before he went back to sleep.

To some people outside our circle, Charles Rist was seen as a saintly hero. Charles Rist, our grandfather, was a famous economist, and vice-governor at La Banque de France. He was among the first to sign Zola’s “J’Accuse,” in a public letter defending Alfred Dreyfus. It was a courageous act for a man of the establishment. For this gesture, he was condemned by some as a nefarious sinner.

My most vivid memory of my paternal grandfather is that he ran away from the Villa Amiel in Versailles—where he lived with his wife and mother-in-law, Olga Herzen—early on January 1, 1950. The Rist home had been designed and built for Olga Herzen at the time of her marriage.

Grand-Papa’s chauffeur-driven Hotchkiss rushed him to Paris, while at the same time, the Russian Embassy delegation sped away from the capital toward his home, to honor our great-grandmother, the surviving daughter of Alexander Herzen. Her aristocratic father had written eloquently at the turn of the century, being the first to advocate the abolishment of serfdom and the distribution of land to peasants. In exile, he published his famous newspaper The Bell outside Russia. His writings had sparked the Russian Revolution. If Karl Marx was the Revolution’s father, Herzen could be credited with being its grandfather.

The Soviets manning the Russian embassy in 1950 demonstrated their undying admiration for Herzen by delivering to Herzen’s only surviving child, Olga, the gift of one hundred roses on New Year’s Day. She became a hundred years old that year.

Each magnificent rose was an intense, brash red, trumpeting a total allegiance to Stalin. By contrast, the White Russian Community sent Olga a magnificent white azalea that stood at a place of honor in her salon. Delighted to speak Russian that day with native speakers, Olga sat in the sitting room, thanked the men, and nodded during the usual speeches, though she held her brass hearing horn well away from her ear. Then she spoke of her famous father, wished everyone a happy New Year, and told a few jokes. We children had been sent upstairs, but at least one of us managed to creep to the landing, to eavesdrop and peer through the railing.

Olga at a hundred was much prettier, more expressive and shapely than Queen Victoria in her widowhood. Like her, Olga wore black dresses down to her feet and high-laced boots. Her sparse white hair was parted in the middle, pinned over her head in a tiny bun. She had a pronounced Bourbon nose. Her forehead was as wide as Herzen’s, above blue eyes clouded by inoperable cataracts.

That day, we heard Olga speak a few sentences in a language we didn’t understand, followed by the exuberant laughter of several men. Our grandmother, Olga’s daughter, came out of her bedroom several times, wringing her hands, terrified that neighbors might have guessed who was visiting her solidly bourgeois French home, weighed down by the anticipated burden of disposing of a profusion of bloodred roses.

Our urbane, conservative grand-papa felt forced to spend the day at the Banque de France, since he refused any contact with the despised Communists. Grand-Papa had been born old, which meant he was unchanging in our eyes. He was about five feet ten, with a square face and rich gray mustache. The chain and fob resting on his vest added to his dignity. He wore immaculate, stiff-collared white shirts of fine linen, and three-piece suits made by his tailor, with discreet ties imported from England. A semicircle of gray hair ran from one ear to the other. To us, told biblical stories by our Jewish mother, he was a bald Moses dressed up as a judge.

He came home from Paris that evening well after dark. Before walking in, he checked that no black Volga cars with opaque windows and well-armed drivers had parked by the gate. Once inside his home, as a further precaution, he hid in the darkened hall, to make sure no foreign conversations were taking place in the sitting room. Silence confirmed that the enemy was again ensconced inside its fortified Russian embassy, since no fur-lined overcoats hung on the rack. At last he could take off his coat, hat, and gloves.

Grand-Papa’s birthday, coincidentally, happened to take place on New Year’s Day and was, by necessity, celebrated a few days later with many relatives. He never mentioned the crimson roses flooding his home on his special day. Twelve of the loveliest had found their way into Olga’s room, where he never set foot. The rest were apologetically given away, many to service people, so that within days, all trace of the embarrassing visit had vanished.

Germaine Monod, our grandmother, and her husband, Charles Rist, came to live at the Villa Amiel in Versailles in 1912, when Olga became a widow. It was in Olga’s welcoming home that my grandparents raised their five sons. Perhaps because he looked like a slender, younger version of Alexander Herzen, my father, with his wit and generosity, was Olga’s favorite grandchild.

My two sisters, and myself the middle child, started visiting the Villa Amiel as toddlers. In 1936, when we were in grade school, my older sister and I began to spend weekends and vacations there.

At the Villa Amiel, the day started for me when Rousseli, the spaniel, scratched at my bedroom door. I dressed and hurried to breakfast in the dining room, where my grandmother presided over a solid silver tea tray, teapot, and cream pitcher—gifts from a grateful Alfred Dreyfus and his wife to Grand-Papa on the occasion of his marriage.

Sometimes Olga, our great-grandmother, was talkative. I loved hearing stories about her devoted German governess Malwida, who’d swept her away from the Herzen household when she was twelve to live with her in Italy, or stories about her cruel stepmother, or the man with the strange look in his eyes who’d offered marriage when she was only sixteen, a man named Friedrich Nietzsche.

We children were too young to fully understand, but we’d heard whispers and had guessed there were secrets and scandals in the family. Only as adults, when biographers wrote about Herzen’s life, did we learn about our great-great-grandfather’s reluctant acceptance, twice, of a ménage a trois, as recently depicted in Tom Stoppard’s brilliant play trilogy, The Coast of Utopia.

It must have been in 1938, when Hitler marched into Austria and extreme persecutions of Jews started in Germany, that the adults began talking about pogroms and held alarming discussions about insufficient war preparations and my mother being Jewish.

“France will fall, that’s inevitable, considering…” I imagined a lady looking like our mother falling headfirst down a long flight of stairs. It was terrifying. Better to sneak upstairs and visit Olga in her room.

Having lost most of her sight, Olga managed well by feel. When she pulled out family albums filled with postcards and brown photos, she knew which page showed my father in a sailor suit, or my father and his older brother on wooden bicycles without pedals; where to turn for the photo Dostoevsky had send of himself to her father, Alexander Herzen, whom he met several times in London.

Constance Garnett, translator of Russian novels, stated in a footnote to The Brothers Karamazov that the father in that novel was modeled on Herzen’s own father, Ivan Yakovlev.

During my visits, Olga spoke not of our nebulously grim future, as did the family downstairs, but of the past, so vivid to her. Olga had shaken Garibaldi’s hand and enjoyed Wagner’s operas in his loge at Bayreuth as a friend and guest of Cosima Wagner. She knew Turgenev and had read his letters to her father and to her sister, Tata. She had met Kossuth, the Hungarian writer, and many others. All these people with ringing, mysterious names were fascinating characters in an endless story to me. I never tired of hearing about them.

Near blindness didn’t keep Olga from her favorite occupation: attending to her vast correspondence. Over her writing pad she placed a metal frame of horizontal bars enabling her to write line after even line down the page. She wrote in a slanting script in the five languages she spoke equally well: Russian, German, Italian, English, French, and Russian, to send out her own invitations.

Afternoon tea was a grand event, and the best meal of the day at the Villa Amiel. Our grandmother’s Russian grandfather Herzen and her mother Olga’s home had swarmed with guests. Olga, like her father, would have been ashamed had not two extra place settings been included daily for unexpected, last-minute guests. At tea, the adults talked among themselves and ignored the children. We kicked each other under the table. I took advantage of the situation by eating more than my share of quince paste squares and wolf-teeth anise seed cookies with impunity.

At the time, I had no idea what an illustrious group of people sat around the table. They’d come in response to invitations, jumping at the chance to talk to Olga, daughter of the famous Alexander Herzen. There was Baron Eugene de Vogue, author of a study of Russian novels, and grandmother’s nephew Wilfried De Glehn and his wife, Jane, both artists and friends of Sargent, among others. At age five, in 1936, I posed for Jane. That portrait hangs on my wall.

On our grandmother’s side, Germaine née Monod, Philippe Monod was a government minister. His brother was Jacques Lucien Monod, whose DNA studies won him a Nobel Prize. Another cousin, Jacques Louis Monod, became a well-known composer. Trocmé cousins also came to call, as well as Grand-Papa’s brother Edouard, a tuberculosis specialist. My father and his brothers were frequent visitors, with wives and children. Scientists, engineers, educators, and politicians were also drawn to the Villa Amiel because of Grand-Papa. The lawyer Alexandre Parodi broke bread with us. It was Parodi, right-hand man to De Gaulle, who, at the end of the war, influenced Von Choltitz’s decision not to destroy Paris. Several guests were intimates of Charles Rist, our grandfather. Some guests belonged to both the Olga and the Charles Rist coteries: Marguerite Bonnet, founder of the first La Maison des Etudiantes in Paris; my father’s friend Jean Milhaud, a nephew of Darius Milhaud; and a promising young novelist, friend of our uncle Noel, who recuperated from TB at my grandparents’ house in the Alps. This was Albert Camus.

Often on Saturdays before the war, Grand-Papa whistled for Rousseli, and took us with the retriever for a walk to the nearby woods of Glatigny, where we roamed beneath European oaks, beeches, and leafy ashes. On Sundays, we sometimes took a favorite morning walk on the grounds of the palace, to the delightful Hameau du Le Petit Trianon, a protected, idyllic enclave of thatched cottages with a tiny pond, a dairy, a lighthouse, and a mill, set among lilacs, tulips, and forget-me-nots. It had been created for fourteen-year-old Marie-Antoinette, whom we believed played hide-and-seek around the corner with her ladies in period costumes.

One warm afternoon, shortly before the exodus of May 1940, Grand-Papa, frowning, strode along with us for a change in the geometric gardens of the Palais de Versailles. He gave talks to elevate our minds. Yet it seems to me now that as much as he wanted to teach us French history, our grandfather was in serious need of a respite from the worries of the fast-approaching catastrophe. It was years before I understood his talk, and learned that he’d just returned from Washington, where he was received by President Roosevelt before the US entered the war. Charles Rist had gone to Washington to ask the United States and Canada to stop exporting their nickel and molybdenum to Germany, essential to the manufacture of weapons. The meeting was successful.

Rousseli yapped an accompanying chorus as Grand-Papa poked his cane straight ahead of him as in a fencing move. “Louis XIV was a wiser ruler than he’s given credit for. Look at his choice of admirable ministers, devoted to king and country, indefatigable.” He stopped in his tracks. “You’ve heard of Colbert and Vauban, haven’t you?” We nodded, afraid to interrupt. “Vauban was an exceptional architect responsible for splendid fortifications on France’s borders. Remember, to fortify means to make strong, or stronger.” After a pause, he added, “As war minister, the king chose Louvois, who introduced the musket, uniforms, regular pay, and the use of barracks for the army. Great innovations. These ministers’ work greatly increased the influence and prestige of France. Thanks to them, France was a great nation. France had power.”

Grand-Papa poked the ground with the tip of his cane, before leading us back to the Villa Amiel, and repeated with conviction, “France was a great nation. France had power,” like a spell that could keep us, and all the beauty around us, forever safe.

The following is an excerpt from Patrick Hick’s upcoming novel, Across the Lake, due out in 2024.

Ravensbrück did not fall from the sky. It was planned. It was built. It was managed. The only all-female concentration camp in the Third Reich was so large and complex that no single person—whether they were a prisoner or a guard—could possibly know it all. By the end of the war it sprawled deep into the woods, but it all began one day with a simple architectural drawing on a draftsman’s desk. It started with a ruler, a T-square, and a pencil.

In November 1938, boundary markers were staked out next to Lake Schwedt, an idyllic body of water ringed by spruce, pine, and oak trees. The nearby church bells of Fürstenberg echoed across the water and it was common to see storks soaring across the sky. Soon, a massive courtyard was built by prisoners and this was surrounded by a rising wall of concrete. An enormous iron gate was fitted onto hinges. Lime trees were planted to create the Lagerstrasse—the wide avenue that cut through the camp—and this would become the main thoroughfare which funneled women to work. Hammers and crosscut saws were brought out to create barracks. Electrified fencing was fitted into place and a generator hummed to life. Architects stood around, smoking. They consulted blueprints and pointed at what still needed to rise up from imagination. Roads were graded smooth by prisoners, stone stairways were fitted into hills, and homes for the SS were constructed. A large plaza was laid out before the Administration building and a flagpole was sunk into the soil. A Nazi flag was tied onto snap hooks and it was slowly raised. It fluttered and flapped in crisp wind.

Ravensbrück officially opened in 1939—the same year the war started—and when the Soviets finally liberated the camp on April 30, 1945, it had grown to monstrous size. It had expanded far beyond its original blueprint and it had become a center of gravity for a number of subcamps. Rail lines were laid out in the woods. Huge wooden warehouses with wide platforms were assembled near the tracks and goods were stacked high. These were things the prisoners had been forced to make in the camp—things like socks, blankets, electrical components, shirts, fuses, mats, and servomotors. During its ruthless years of operation, some 132,000 women passed through the gates of Ravensbrück. At least a third of them perished.

Those parts of camp that were most used by the SS and the Aufseherin (the female Nazi guards), were made functional and attractive. There was an art deco gas station near the Administration building along with a row of fine garages that kept a fleet of Mercedes safe during thunderstorms. As for the Administration building itself, it had a large foyer with a huge painted swastika and eagle on the wall. Beyond that were two wide wooden staircases; they rose to mid-floor and then merged to become one set of stairs that lifted up to the second floor. A stained-glass window was on the landing and, when the sun hit it just right, pools of color shimmered on the oak parquet floor. The upstairs corridor was long and clean. Flags stood at attention and plaques were bolted onto the walls. The Commandant’s office was in the corner of the upper floor and his desk was positioned so that he sat with the windows at his back. There was the sound of typewriters and the occasional flare of a telephone ringing. There was the frequent smell of cigarettes, brandy, and aftershave. Boots clicked quickly off the wood floor—silenced now and then by carpets—only to click off wood again. There was a small room for tea and biscuits, as well as a larger room for dinners that required fine china and silverware.

It wasn’t just the working spaces of Ravensbrück that had an air of wealth and gentility to them because the men who ran the camp also had luxury at home. The SS had family houses built on a low hill near the Administration building. Stone stairways climbed up to these mountain chalets and, in each one, was a wide fireplace, handsomely carved wooden ceilings, a kitchen, a dining area, and a bathroom with a toilet. A set of stairs curved up to the second floor, which had three bedrooms. Wives and children lived here and made their way into town for shopping and school. At night, as they climbed into their beds, an orange glow came from the chimney of the crematorium. There was the constant smell of burning kielbasa and grapefruit in the air. No one needed to ask what was being put into the ovens.

As for the Aufseherin—the female guards—they had barracks that could hardly be called “barracks” at all. These buildings looked like something out of a mountain scene in Switzerland. White walls. Carved wood. Pretty flower boxes. There was a front porch with seats to enjoy a view of the lake and, inside, was a cozy front room. Down the hall was a kitchen and individual bedrooms. Each room had a fitted cupboard, a wash basin, and a radiator. Newspapers like Völkischer Beobachter and Das Schwarze Korps were delivered each morning along with the milk. A mirror was next to the front door so that the Aufseherin could check to see if her coifed hair was properly arranged under her cap. They could make sure their capes were neatly arranged and that their truncheons hung just so off their hips.

Construction at Ravensbrück was relentless. Ever since the first boundary marker was hammered into the sandy ground, there was a need for more buildings, more roads, more housing, more rail tracks, more barracks. Just a few years after opening, Ravensbrück had factories full of sewing machines, it had villas, gardens, kitchens, huge laundry facilities, kennels, storage depots, a shoe repair shop, a furniture repair shop, a painters’ shed, and a water treatment plant. It had potato cellars, a mat weaving factory, a thread spinning workshop, huge hutches full of Angora rabbits, a telephone exchange, an electrical substation, and a furrier shop that made winter hats out of Angora wool. It had gasoline tanks, a massive sand pit, a coal bunker, chicken coops, and medical facilities that killed more women than it ever cured. There was an SS canteen that served gourmet food, a two-story prison known as the Bunker for those women who required special punishment, and there was a crematorium that had three coal-fired ovens.

After only a few years, Ravensbrück was so big that it began to gather subcamps around it like a planet collecting moons. Soon the subcamp of Uckermark was created on the southeast perimeter and teenage girls were forced into it where they had to sew and stitch. If they spoke, they were beaten, and when they turned eighteen they were sent up the sandy path to the main camp. To the south was a subcamp run by the Siemens Corporation. It was here that women were forced to build electronic components for secret wonder weapons that might change the course of the war. As with other camps like Auschwitz, Buchenwald, and Sachsenhausen, the SS at Ravensbrück rented out their prisoners to corporations for a fee. When it was suggested that the Siemens Corporation could build a factory to their exact specifications outside of the main camp—and that they could have labor at an unspeakably cheap rate—it wasn’t long before high technology came to Ravensbrück. These facilities were kept sanitary in order to protect the electronic parts that had to be built. Prisoners assigned to the Siemens Camp felt as if they had entered a different world because they were rarely beaten as long as they kept up with their daily quotas. Here, they were reasonably well fed. Here, they got their own bed and a blanket. Here, they worked long hours in clean clothes and, although the work was fast-paced, the Siemens Corporation had a vested interest in taking better care of their prisoners. All these women had to do was put electronic parts together quickly and efficiently. It was precision work. They built servomotors that were then transported to the secret underground concentration camp of Dora-Mittelbau where prisoners fitted them into V-2 rockets. The women who built these rocket parts had little idea what they were creating, but it hardly mattered because these bits of technology—whatever they were—gave them a better life. Perhaps not surprisingly, when word got out about the Siemens Camp, those in the sock factory and mat weaving factory began to look upon it with envy. To build rocket parts was to find yourself in the aristocracy of the camp. To build weapons of death meant that you might live.

*            *

Because Germany was supposed to win the war and make a colony of the Soviet Union, the realities of Ravensbrück were never supposed to appear in history books. After victory, the camp was meant to be repurposed, buried, forgotten. But the past often has an unexpected future. We know that Ravensbrück was a training ground for violence and we know that over 4,000 Aufseherin passed through its gates and went on to terrorize other camps, including Stutthof, Majdanek, Vaivara, Mauthausen, Bergen-Belsen, and Auschwitz. In many ways, Ravensbrück was a finishing school of brutality. And when the time was right, female guards would pack their suitcases, hug their friends, and get onto a train that would take them elsewhere in the Reich.

The women who wore the dark grey uniform of the Aufseherin had little use for school and most of them had dropped out early. They believed in the bold future that Hitler had mapped out for Germany and they signed up knowing they would be working in a concentration camp. Most of these young women were nervous and fidgety at first, but when they were given truncheons, and when they were allowed to beat others, they quickly warmed to violence. Many of them grew to like it, especially the power. Yet the idea of women enjoying violence is taboo in most societies. We like to assume that violence is a male trait and that any woman who embraces savagery has somehow crossed a border. Women who act with fury and spill blood are often seen as entering a land that does not belong to them, that they have somehow trespassed onto foreign soil and entered territory that is instinctively alien. And because of this, violent women seem far more monstrous than men who commit the very same crimes. We want to imagine that women are nurturing, caring, and motherly. We want to believe that bloodshed does not come naturally to women, and we do not want to imagine our mothers, daughters, or wives as being agents of destruction. And yet, all across the world, mythology is full of women who are at home in the dark landscape of butchery. The Furies. Medusa. Circe. The Sirens. Amazons. Banshees. Soucouyants. Manananggals. Kumiho. Succubus. Lamia. Our stories say much about our fears.

While the Aufseherin may have controlled the barracks and factories of Ravensbrück, they existed in a society that saw their gender as a limitation. The Third Reich was a thoroughly patriarchal nation and it was believed that women should stay home in order to raise children. And yet, during the war, women were allowed into male spaces that would normally be shut off to them. The Aufseherin did their hair and they used perfume. They were also given heavy boots and truncheons. Notably, they wore a culotte-style skirt, which is both a dress and also a type of short trousers, depending upon how one moves. When standing around and chatting, a culotte looks like a dress, but when marching across a factory floor to beat a prisoner, it looks more like baggy pants. Put another way, a culotte is sometimes a skirt and sometimes wide-flared trousers. These uniformed women in culottes were at peace with what they were doing in the concentration camps because it was legal and acceptable. The state, after all, had hired them to commit acts of violence. At Ravensbrück, killing became normal, beating became normal, sexual abuse and prostitution and infanticide—they all became normal. What was once forbidden was now permitted. And of course, although Ravensbrück was a place for women, it is good to remember that it was run by men. The freedom to commit violence like a man did not mean that women were trusted with governing themselves. That power rested solely with the men in the Administration building. It was only the men of Ravensbrück, the SS, that were allowed to carry a gun. Pistols were for men. Truncheons and whips were for women.

Ravensbrück was a place not just of forced labor, disease, and hunger, it was also home to unrelenting executions. Women were shot near the crematorium. Medical experiments also happened at Ravensbrück. Between July 1942 and September 1943, Professor Karl Gebhardt, a leading orthopedic surgeon who taught at the University of Berlin, had wood shavings, dirt, cloth, and bits of glass inserted into prisoners’ legs to mimic battlefield conditions. Often, anesthesia was not used. Some victims were given sulfanilamides to see if this might slow down rates of infection. In later experiments, bones were transplanted, muscles were severed, and nerves were resected to see if they might regenerate and grow back. More than eighty women were experimented upon in this way. They called themselves “Rabbits” because they felt like laboratory animals and the wounds in their legs made it very difficult to walk—many of them had to hop.

Also around this time—between February and April 1942—approximately 1,500 prisoners were taken to nearby Bernberg and murdered in a euthanasia center that masqueraded as a sanatorium. This was done under a secret program called 14f13. Nearly half of these victims were Jewish. By the early months of 1942, at least 1,500 Jewish prisoners were rounded up and sent to Auschwitz. This was an attempt to clear all Jews from Ravensbrück and make the camp Judenrein—cleansed of Jews—but within a matter of weeks new prisoners were standing for morning roll call and new prisoners were marching into the sock factory.

At least one gas chamber was at Ravensbrück and the guards called it the “New Laundry”. Built in early 1945, it was given its euphemistic name, of course, to hide its lethal purpose. This secret concrete room could hold 150 women and, according to camp survivors, it was dynamited by the SS on April 23, 1945 in order to pretend that it had never been built in the first place. There are rumors that several rail cars were hidden in the woods near Ravensbrück and that they were used as mobile gas chambers. While this is certainly within the realm of possibility, there is no definitive proof beyond the adamant testimony of camp survivors. This, however, is the nature of mobile gas chambers. They are meant to be moved and, in that moving, the reality of their existence is taken with them—they disappear into fog, dragging facts with them.

As the decades have moved on, the facts about Ravensbrück are dissolving away in memory. We may live in a post-Holocaust world, but that doesn’t mean we have come to understand the Holocaust. Not really. It is easier to look away. It is easier to let the facts disappear into the woods of places like Ravensbrück. It is easier to tell ourselves that it all happened so very long ago. But as Auschwitz survivor and memoirist, Primo Levi, warns us, “It happened, therefore it can happen again.”

It’s a commonplace that America largely ignored the long war in Afghanistan while it was being fought. Now, after a brief flurry of heightened interest in the 2021 evacuation of Afghan allies from Hamid Karzai International Airport (HKIA) in Kabul, Afghanistan has again receded from national interest. But another truism has held that a proper accounting of America’s post-9/11 wars, either in fiction or non-fiction, couldn’t usefully happen until the wars concluded. “Tell me how this ends,” is a quote ascribed to General David Petraeus in regard to Iraq. The imperative now is timely in regard to Afghanistan.

And so, the first drafts of history, in the form of online articles and podcasts by veterans who fought in Afghanistan and in particular those who were involved in the HKIA evacuation, have begun to appear. In summer 2022 came former-Marine Elliot Ackerman’s The Fifth Act: America’s End in Afghanistan, among the first of book-length appraisals. 

Ackerman has always been quick into print. His previous books—some fiction, some non-fiction—have appeared with yearly regularity and have consistently zeroed in on hot-button issues: refugees, disabled vets, Syria, China, and now the Afghanistan end-game. More a novelist, essayist, and memoirist than a scholar, historian, or journalist, Ackerman’s primary subjects in The Fifth Act are his own life and thoughts, which he portrays in vignettes heavily reliant on narrative and physical description, which he then connects to large-scale events in which he played parts. Though The Fifth Act is not a work of focused, deep analysis, Ackerman definitely has ideas born from his experience fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan and, more recently, circulation at high-levels among military and national powerbrokers. Judging from The Fifth Act, Ackerman has an eye-opening number of well-placed contacts in the nation’s military and security apparatus, as well as in government. An invitation to lunch with Afghanistan’s ambassador to America in the summer of 2021 is described; so too is an invitation to speak privately with the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Similarly, many of the officers with whom Ackerman formerly served with in the Marines and as a CIA paramilitary officer are still in service, and a surprising number were stationed in Kabul in 2021 and involved in the evacuation effort. 

These connections come into play in one of The Fifth Act’s two main narrative thrusts: description of the part that Ackerman played, from afar in Italy, and operating mainly via text messages, helping busloads of Afghans evacuate in 2021. Ackerman at the time was on vacation in Italy with his wife and kids, and vignettes of tourist-life are interspersed with recaps of text exchanges with his network of fellow veterans in Kabul and around the world fighting to evacuate Afghan allies. These scenes, to my mind, are vivid and dramatic. Even more compelling are passages depicting scenes of combat in Afghanistan leading small American advisor teams and Afghan militias in battle. Ackerman has seen an extensive amount of combat, and a previous book, Places and Names: On War, Revolution, and Returning (2019), recounts actions in Fallujah that led to him being awarded a Silver Star. The Afghan accounts in The Fifth Act, however, are far from triumphant. Instead, they are haunted by Ackerman’s sense that he has failed in certain respects and disappointed people who were counting on him. Two long passages describe combat missions recovering bodies of American fighting men; another describes a wrenching conversation with a mentor whom he must tell that he is leaving a CIA career in which he was being groomed for success. The connection between the two narrative arcs, mostly juxtaposed, but sometimes asserted explicitly, is clear: Failure experienced on the personal level in Afghanistan reflects the American failure at large, with both arcs culminating in the ad hoc evacuation effort in 2021. Underlying Ackerman and his network’s desperate desire to rescue endangered Afghans is the battlefield ethos of “leaving no man behind.”

Speaking personally, and also on behalf of at least some veterans, these passages resonated strongly. My own tour in Afghanistan was marked by events remembered remorsefully, even painfully, and my own efforts to help Afghans evacuate in August 2021 (and since) were all-consuming, though without the successes Ackerman and his network achieve. (Earlier I have helped three of my interpreters emigrate to America, and remain in periodic contact with two of them, who are doing well. I am also still trying to assist allies still in Afghanistan who are stuck in the infernal Special Immigrant Visa purgatory.) GWOT memoirs by officers are fewer than those by enlisted soldiers, and the enlisted memoirs tend to portray officers harshly—incompetent and self-serving, often out-of-touch and even delusional, not to be trusted. Be that as it may, The Fifth Act excels at tracing the deep tugs of responsibility and duty that motivated at least some officers to do their best in tough circumstances. Responsibility and duty are embedded in military codes-of-honor, but The Fifth Act documents how they are experienced personally as desire to please, desire to not disappoint, desire to measure up, and desire to form allegiances with fellow officers of perceived merit. Early on, Ackerman describes how Marine officers are judged as either “a piece of shit or a good dude.” Something of the same emphasis on personal reputation and honor animates Army officer social dynamics, and I’m sure the other services as well.

Intermixed with the passages about evacuation efforts and combat missions in The Fifth Act are ruminations on the collapse of Afghanistan in the wake of the American withdrawal and Taliban takeover. Some of Ackerman’s ideas are widely shared, but given interesting new formulations. The tendency of Americans to fight a twenty-year war “one year at a time” is brought home to Ackerman by his observation that buildings on American bases were built out of plywood rather than concrete. Afghan military ineptitude is touched on, but the real issue, he asserts, was the doomed structuring of Afghan forces that had ethnic minorities fighting outside of their regional homelands. To send, say, Uzbeks, to fight in Pashtun regions such as Paktika and Kandahar de facto deprived the Afghan National Army of local legitimacy and cultural competence. Glossed over are American military tactics and operations, either those that didn’t work or which might have worked, to include consideration of indiscriminate night raids to kill or capture high-value targets that many critics suggest destroyed Afghan trust and confidence in the American war effort.   

Instead, Ackerman holds Presidents Obama, Trump, and Biden accountable on-high for decisions that led to military and government failure in Afghanistan. According to Ackerman, Obama’s declaration that his 2009 surge would be short-lived was an open invitation to the Taliban to wait out the influx of forces. He judges President Trump’s Doha Accords a craven notice to the Taliban that the country would soon be theirs, while messaging the Ashraf Ghani government that they were effectively out of the picture. Regarding Biden, Ackerman maintains that the final collapse that led to the impromptu evacuation was an extreme failure of leadership. He asks why, given the US military presence in so many countries around the world, it was so impossible to conceive of leaving a force of some (unspecified) size and capability in Afghanistan to protect American interests and facilitate working relationships. Finally, Ackerman suggests that the American public’s failure to care much at all about anything in Afghanistan represents an egregious manifestation of a civil-military divide that left many military members and veterans (such as Marine lieutenant colonel Stuart Schiller, Jr. and former airman Ashli Babbitt) seething with resentment and contempt.   

In a review of The Fifth Act by Laurel Miller published in Foreign Affairs, the author, an Obama-era diplomat who served in Afghanistan and Pakistan, refutes Ackerman’s big-picture analysis while expressing scant regard for the human narratives that constitute most of Ackerman’s story. Miller accuses Ackerman of basing his claims on opinion rather than scholarly analysis of facts and events : “When the book comments on policy and politics, it offers no basis for its reasoning besides Ackerman’s personal experience.” This is a reasonable charge, I guess, given the highly-literate Foreign Affairs readership. I don’t think Ackerman would disagree and general readers might not expect otherwise. But Miller makes a further claim that bears heavily on what will follow in this review. That The Fifth Act is so “me-centric” is actually congruent with the biggest problem with the American war effort in Miller’s diagnosis: from beginning-to-end it paid short-shrift to the cultural and structural aspects that defined the Afghanistan operating environment while remaining fixated on American goals, policies, and actions, as well as the personal experiences and opinions of participants. “Looking at the conduct of the war through a narrow aperture,” Miller writes, [Ackerman] focuses, as Washington did, largely on U.S. forces and U.S. policy; the politics, motivations, and experiences of Afghans are pushed offstage.” Books such as The Fifth Act illustrate, then, how Americans measured the war primarily in relation to American perspectives, while marginalizing Afghan (and Pakistani) actors.

Bad reviews suck, and valorizing the experience and opinions of like-minded individuals over those of racially different “others” and structural aspects can be a problem. In regard to Afghanistan, this line of critique also appears in a Los Angeles Review of Books review of Afghan-American author Jamil Jan Kochai’s 2022 collection of short-stories titled “War Is a Structure: On Jamil Jan Kochai’s “The Haunting of Hajji Hotak and Other Stories.” Author Najwa Mayer praises Kochai’s stories about Afghans both in America and in Afghanistan for “[i]ndicting a transnational structure of war that conscripts everyone” as opposed to war literature that “glosses over the geopolitical structures that produce unequal suffering.” Continuing, Mayer writes, “War’s structure includes its diffuse militarisms, profit economies, reforged borders, and cultural marketplaces, as well as its displacements and wounds, which leave indelible marks and absences long after the bombs have dropped.” Ultimately, Mayer praises the stories in The Haunting of Hajji Hotak for finding fresh literary-thematic means of not “narrating the harsh trials of war and displacement through the interior life of a character.” So, according to Mayer, down with stories that emphasize the “interior life of a character” and up with literary portraits of the “transnational structure of war.” That sounds dry, but literary efforts to alter the template of things-that-happened-to-me-and-what-I-thought-about-them are welcome. Mayer’s review elsewhere highlights how Kochai’s stories are imaginatively and poignantly crafted, a sentiment I share. 

But Mayer’s review really begins to crackle when she turns her attention to Ackerman’s own review of The Haunting of Hajji Hotak published in the New York Times. Ackerman is not totally critical, but over-all the review is luke-warm. Ackerman is not especially impressed by Kochai’s literary verve and innovation, and outright rankles at Kochai’s failure to get military details right. Most of all, he is irritated by what he perceives as Kochai’s portraits of white American soldiers as evil and Kochai’s overall “fixation on whiteness.” Ackerman writes, “When Kochai wants to signal characters are generically bad, he describes them as white; all the characters from the U.S. military — a remarkably diverse institution in reality — are described as ‘a small clan of white boys.’” In response, Mayer states, “Yet, very few white characters appear in the collection; indeed, a narrative decentering of whiteness in a collection about the US empire’s racialized wars is, perhaps, the point. Kochai does, of course, intimate the well-documented history of white supremacy that is foundational to the enterprise of US imperialism— a history never lost on the colonized themselves.”

Mayer’s concern expressed here is measured compared to numerous other denunciations of Ackerman (and the New York Times) following publication of his review. Played out in Tweets and blog posts, one of the charges was that in a short review Ackerman focused obsessively on trivial aspects of The Haunting of Hajji Hotak—getting military detail right–at the expense of more considered evaluation of its virtues. The larger charge was that the review was racist and so per force was the New York Times for commissioning a former Marine officer and CIA operative to write a review of a book that illustrated the ravages of war on Afghans in their home country and displaced throughout the world. Ackerman’s review is curious in respects (The Haunting of Hajji Hotak has otherwise been universally acclaimed), but Ackerman upon reading the social media firestorm that followed his review must have been thinking about his own endeavors on behalf of Afghanistan. To have lived and fought side-by-side for some 500 days-and-nights with Afghans and to have successfully engineered the evacuation of hundreds of endangered Afghans, to say of nothing of having written a novel—Green on Blue (2015)—that is focalized through the eyes of a Pashtun, only to be reductively categorized as a member of a “small clan of white boys” by Kochai and “a former Marine and CIA officer” by Kochai’s supporters must have grated. The closing words of The Fifth Act quote a video-message from an Afghan who with his family squeaked through the HKIA gates and is now on to a new life:

For such a help, for such a mercy, for such a service, I have no idea how to thank. But I’m thankful of everyone, of every single person of US America, because we never dreamed of such a thing. Their love. Their mercy. Thank you. Thank you for everything. 

Jamil Jan Kochai’s family emigrated to America from Afghanistan in the early 1980s; they might have had similar high hopes and equally copious amounts of gratitude. The stories in The Haunting of Hajji Hotak, heavily autobiographical (though enlivened with flights of magical-realism fantasy), trace the subsequent decades of transiency, menial jobs and poverty, sickness and injury, constant cultural clash (both within the family and up-against the larger strictures of American life), and ultimate disillusionment and remorse bordering on regret that the family had attempted such an audacious transplantation. Roughly half the stories are set in contemporary Afghanistan as characters travel back to their home province of Logar or the capital of Kabul. War has ruined the lives of the Afghan characters in the novel, and to the Afghan-American characters it’s a matter of chagrin that it is the Americans, not the Taliban, who are responsible for blowing apart Afghanistan culture and society and making so many people miserable. And yet, as fractured as modern Afghanistan is portrayed in The Haunting of Hajji Hotak, the Afghan-American characters, given a choice, commit to life, on whatever terms, in contemporary Afghanistan as preferable to continued second-class citizenship and cultural alienation in America. 

All in all, a grim vision, but making the tension and anxiety compelling as stories are the characters that (perhaps) most resemble Kochai himself—immigrant sons imbued with American habits and attitudes who carry the weight of their family and cultural expectations. These characters for the most part come to detest how thoroughly Westernized they have become, though they also struggle with their parents’ old-fashioned ways and outlooks. It is these characters’ often sulky and sometimes irreverent voices that spice up the stories in The Haunting of Hajji Hotak. To my ears, they are in the great tradition of young male adult American fictional characters—think Huck Finn, think Holden Caulfield—struggling with the circumstances of their lives and who wield scorn as a weapon to protect the shreds of their idealism while desperately searching for place and purpose in adult life. The opening paragraph of the first story, “Playing Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain” illustrates:

First, you have to gather the cash to preorder the game at the local GameStop where your cousin works, and even through he hooks it up with the employee discount, the game is still a bit out of your price range because you’ve been using your Taco Bell paychecks to help your pops, who’s been out of work since you were ten and who makes you feel unbearably guilty about spending money on useless hobbies while kids in Kabul are destroying their bodies to build compounds for white businessmen and warlords–but, shit, it’s Kojima, it’s Metal Gear, so, after scrimping and saving (like literal dimes you’re picking up off the street), you’ve got the cash, which you give to your cousin, who purchases the game on your behalf, and then, on the day it’s released, you just have to find a way to get to the store.

That’s a bravura opening, to be sure, inflected throughout with vivid detail and signifying resonances. Not to make too much of it, but the wildly undisciplined melange of sentiments expressed by the young male narrator also resembles that of disgruntled Iraq and Afghanistan military veterans flailing against the limits of their own lives, as expressed in many GWOT stories and memoirs. 

It’s doubtful anyone will be inviting Jamil Jan Kochai and Elliot Ackerman to the same dinner party anytime soon, nor ask them to share a conference stage. The war-of-words surrounding their recent works reveals that the civil-military divide still gapes, and efforts to speak across it can easily exacerbate mistrust and miscommunication. However, it’s not impossible to like both authors’ books. Readers interested in Afghanistan-American relations and the Afghan diaspora in particular can read them in tandem for insight into how the population flows linking the two countries are often experienced individually as confusing and disappointing. 

Elliot Ackerman, The Fifth Act: America’s End in Afghanistan. Penguin, 2022.

Jamil Jan Kochai, The Haunting of Hajji Hotak and Other Stories. Viking, 2022.

Elliot Ackerman, NYTimes review of The Haunting of Hajji Hotak:

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/19/books/the-haunting-of-hajji-hotak-jamil-jan-kochai.html?smtyp=cur&smid=tw-nytbooks

Laurel Miller, Foreign Affairs review of The Fifth Act:

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/reviews/unwinnable-war-america-blind-spots-afghanistan

Najwa Mayer, LARB review of The Haunting of Hajji Hotak:

https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/war-is-a-structure-on-jamil-jan-kochais-the-haunting-of-hajji-hotak-and-other-stories/

I swore I would never become a soldier like my mother.

She called it a blip, a few months out of an otherwise enjoyable career with the Army. No one saw the blip coming. Both of my grandfathers served in the military, but their wars stayed cold. My mom’s reserve unit, Seattle’s Fiftieth General Hospital, with 750 personnel, was too big, too expensive deploy, the very reason she’d chosen the unit. Aft er three years as an active-duty Army nurse, she wanted to start a family. The Fiftieth promised stability; for them to deploy, it would take World War III.

On Thanksgiving weekend of 1990, my mom got a phone call. She had been receiving practice calls ever since Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait, drills to make sure the phone tree was accurate, to keep everyone prepared. This time, the call wasn’t a drill. The unit was put on alert for deployment orders. My sister, brother, and I were asleep, so we didn’t see the white-faced shock when Mom answered the phone. We didn’t watch her crumple into Dad’s arms when she told him or see the shock mirrored in his own face as questions of her safety, the family’s well-being, single parenthood flooded his mind.

Mom and her hospital unit wouldn’t receive orders right away. They would spend Thanksgiving with their families, worrying and hoping—hoping World War III would dissipate with the holiday weekend; hoping their orders would leave them as local backfill for active-duty soldiers who deployed or send them to Germany, the unit’s assigned overseas operating location based on the Cold War model; hoping their orders would be short.

None of these hopes materialized. Mom’s orders were for Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, for an undetermined length of up to two years.

I hardly recall the Army’s presence in our family before Desert Storm. The Army slipped in and out one weekend a month and two weeks a year when Mom put on green clothes and went “camping.” Sometimes we ate hotdogs and pretended to camp too. With that Thanksgiving phone call, though, the Army consumed us. I had just turned seven, my sister, Shavonne, was eight, and my brother, Matt, barely two. Suddenly, we were no longer a regular young family. Mom had always been the center mass around which we all orbited, and now our gravity fi eld had shift ed. In preparation for the deployment, she took frequent trips to the local Army base, sometimes for days at a time. Big green Army bags piled up in the living room where we used to build puzzles and pillow forts. Instead of driving to school with Mom, Shavonne and I went to daycare with Matt early in the morning when Dad left for work. Neighbors stopped by our house to drop off funny-tasting casseroles. They said nice things like, “We’re praying for you,” and “Let us know if you need anything.” I just needed my mom. I was restless in school and gymnastics practice, anxious to get home and hug Mom and hold onto her forever.

Before she left for Saudi Arabia, I told my mom I hated the Army. “Oh sweetie,” she said, “I know it feels like the Army is being mean, but it’s the Army’s job to go help people. A bad man invaded another country, and we need to go help the people there and get him out.” With that, she redirected my hatred to Saddam Hussein. The Army wasn’t taking Mom away; a bad man was making her leave. Shavonne and I even learned a song about that man and how much we all hated him. We sang the song over and over, and Mom laughed the hardest: 

Joy to the world, Saddam is dead!

We barbequed his head!

Don’t worry ‘bout the body

We flushed it down the potty,

And round and round it goes . . .

I don’t remember this, but my parents tell me that before she deployed, I asked Mom if she could die. I imagine myself climbing into her lap. In my mind she’s wearing the soft blue bathrobe she had when I was growing up. I’m clutching it, nuzzling into her brown permed curls. Mom wraps her fuzzy blue arms around me, and I can feel her heartbeat, strong and serious. She gazes out through her thick-framed glasses, her eyes light like mine above the long, sharp nose and freckles inherited by Shavonne. Mom purses her lips. She’s thinking about my question, about my life—all our lives—without her. She’s thinking about the briefings the hospital unit received, the expectations of chemical weapons and massive casualties, the potential for an attack on Israel and an ensuing holy war of nuclear proportions. She’s thinking this might be a suicide mission. Mom pulls me closer and strokes the top of my head, trying to memorize the feel of me. She’s weighing her need to protect her child with a desire for honesty.

She answered my question: “I’m going to do the best I can to come back to you as soon as I can.”

“Don’t tell her that!” my dad said. “Tell her no!” But my mom couldn’t lie.

Just before she left, Mom wove Shavonne’s and my hair into double French braids, like she did when we had soccer or T-ball games, the only thing that would keep my thin hair and Shavonne’s unruly curls in place under helmets and through trips up and down the fi eld. These braids were special, though. They held the memory of Mom’s touch: her gentle fingers brushing across my scalp, the nail of her little finger drawing a part down each side, her soft breath on the back of my neck. I wanted to keep the braids forever. I promised Mom I would. It would be our connection while she was gone, and every time I looked in the mirror I would think of her.

Mom deployed right after Christmas. Christmas has always been my favorite holiday, and the occasion carried extra weight in 1990 because we had Mom with us. The Christmas morning snowfall seemed magical to us kids but made a treacherous drive for our relatives, who commuted several hours for everyone to be together. I don’t know if our house has ever been so full; it’s funny how war brings people together. We had an epic snowball fight with my cousins, opened presents, ate roast beef and mashed potatoes and gravy, and took pictures around the Christmas tree, just like every year.

A few days later, we watched Mom board an Army transport bus. She waved to us through a grimy window until her pale face was lost to camouflage and dust and distance. On the bus she was surrounded by other moms and dads, sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, and a single twenty-something medic. The medic had no family to wave to through the grimy window, but he saw us: a man with red-rimmed eyes standing next to two girls with double French braids. Both girls clung to the man and cried. In the man’s arms was a small boy. The young soldier couldn’t hear it, but the boy repeated, “Where’s Mommy going?” over and over, long after the bus rolled out of sight.

“Looking at your family when we left was my war moment,” the medic later told my mom. “Seeing how heartbroken they were.”

My memories of Mom’s deployment blur into a fuzzy background, punctuated by snapshot images of clarity. I remember cheese quesadillas, “cheese pies” I called them, cooked in the microwave. A neighborhood mom who watched us aft er school served them to us while we waited at her house for Dad to pick us up. One day while there, I got the stomach flu. The neighbor tucked me into a nest of blankets on the couch with Gatorade and a bucket, but I kept getting up. I walked to the hallway and threw up. I threw up in the living room. I kept walking, looking for my mom.

As the days passed, oil slickened my hair and my precious braids started to unwind. I remember an angry fit of protest, and an ultimate compromise. Every few days the gracious neighbor cleaned and re-braided my hair. It looked exactly the same. But it wasn’t.

I cried every night in bed aft er Mom’s tape-recorded voice finished reading a bedtime story. I saw the school counselor for a few weeks. I don’t recall her name or what she looked like or even what we talked about, but I remember staring out her window at the snow-crusted ground. My classmates were at recess, throwing snowballs, having fun. For the first time I did not feel normal.

We were the only local kids who had a parent deployed. Neighbors took turns babysitting and delivering meals. A yellow ribbon hugged the big maple tree in front of our elementary school. When she returned, my mom would cut the ribbon off to a whooping chorus of cheers from our classmates. But while she was gone it hung there, through rain and wind and snow. I saw the ribbon every day, and I hated it.

We lived for weekly calls from Mom, letters, occasional pictures, anything to let us know she was safe. Each trip to the mailbox was its own tiny Christmas, marked by expectation and, too often, when no letters came, disappointment. At one point, Mom sent Shavonne and me matching T-shirts with pictures of camels wearing combat boots and gas masks. I still have that shirt, a child’s size small, buried in the back of a drawer. Dad pointed out Saudi Arabia on our office globe. Mom was there, inside the little star that represented the capital of Riyadh. It didn’t look very far away.

We watched news reports every evening on TV. Headlines that spring covered topics that interest me now as an adult: an escalation of violence in Sudan following the imposition of nationwide Islamic law, an historic meeting between Nelson Mandela and Zulu Chief Mangosuthu Buthelezi, Haiti’s appointment of its first elected president, the controversy over Dr. Jack Kevorkian’s assisted suicides, the Exxon Valdez oil spill. In 1991, I could focus only on the war. My world expanded exponentially when Mom deployed; I wasn’t yet ready to stretch beyond the Middle East. Besides, the Middle East was everywhere, dominating TV, radio, and newspaper reports. In a letter home Mom noted that we were probably getting more news of the war than she was; TV was censored in Saudi Arabia, and she didn’t have free time to watch anyway.

In the States, we witnessed a new era in broadcasting, the first time war received real-time coverage from reporters on the ground. They showed awesome footage of planes taking off from aircraft carriers and terrifying shots of exploding missiles. All around were people in camouflage, but not the green and black my mom wore on Reserve duty. These uniforms were brown like dirt. There was a lot of dirt on the news when they talked about the war. I thought it must be hard for Mom to stay clean. I had never watched the news before. Sitting on the couch, my legs curled beneath me, I got my first exposure to the industry of which one day I would be a part. As a public affairs officer I would be there, against the dusty brown backdrop of war, ushering reporters, directing camera angles, providing talking points to the people in camouflage, filtering conflict for the families back home.

Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm represented a new era in warfare too. Mom was part of the largest reserve component ever activated in support of an armed conflict, and the first involuntary call requiring reservists to report to active duty since the dissolution of the draft. In total, the government activated more than 227,000 reservists. The Army provided the bulk of personnel, nearly 140,000, with around fourteen percent in medical specialties like Mom’s hospital unit. Mom was also part of the largest contingent of U.S. military women ever to deploy. By war’s end, 40,000 women had served overseas, almost as many as had been on active duty during the height of America’s last large-scale conflict, the Vietnam War. Desert Storm saw two American women held as Prisoners of War, and thirteen killed in action.

Sometimes on the news they talked about people dying. At recess one day I was by myself, as I often was during that time, wandering along the edge of the concrete basketball court, when my class bully sauntered up to me. “Hey, I heard about a lady that got killed in the war,” he chided, “Do you think it was your mom?”

I hadn’t heard about the lady. Had she been on the news the night before? No one had called to tell us something bad had happened. Wouldn’t they call? But what if they had called; what if Dad answered and didn’t want to tell us before school? What if they knocked on our door but no one was home? Maybe the bully had seen a news report that I’d missed? The thought of never seeing my mom again overwhelmed me, and I sat down on the concrete and cried for a long time.

While Mom was gone, we made up games to make time and distance not seem so massive, to trick ourselves into feeling like we might have some sort of control. For “When will Mom come home?” the whole family—my dad, sister, brother, grandparents, and I—scribbled our return date guesses across the calendar. My sister’s prediction, March 12, 1991, was the earliest, three and a half months aft er Mom’s departure. The rest of us hoped but doubted she was close.

As March arrived, we only got a couple days’ notice that Shavonne’s guess was exactly right. As suddenly as war had swooped into our lives, it ended. We let ourselves be consumed by frenzied preparations for Mom’s homecoming, spending hours tracing letters and gluing glitter onto bright sheets of poster board. There were trips to Party City to buy trunk-loads of yellow ribbons and American flags. We must have alerted the relatives the elementary school, my Girl Scout troop, the whole neighborhood, and Mom’s college roommate, because hordes of them showed up at McChord Air Force Base outside Seattle on the morning of March 12.

Together we stood behind a chain link fence, a crowd of hundreds, watching the empty runway. Shavonne and I held signs and chattered with our classmates. Matt, too young to understand where Mommy had been or why, just knew that this was the day she was coming home. He coiled his tiny hands around the fence and rocked back and forth, back and forth, eyes glued to the tarmac. His expectant little face, framed by a puff y black and red jacket, became a popular clip on local news segments.

I don’t know how long we waited before we heard the drone of an approaching aircraft . The crowd hushed. We twisted our heads frantically and shielded our eyes from the sun. A dark speck emerged on the horizon, and we erupted into a cacophony of cheers. The dark speck got bigger and turned into a place that drift ed slowly across the landscape. As it inched closer, the crowd grew wild. We screamed and shook the fence. My dad scooped up my brother. Someone, a grandparent maybe, grabbed my hand. Reporters yelled into their microphones. We were supposed to stay behind the fence, but when the plane landed and the first camouflaged figure emerged, we stampeded the runway. All I could see was legs: jeans and khakis and sweats, then a trickle of camouflage moving upstream, and then a pair of legs that stopped and dropped a bag and bent and hugged and cried, and then I was in her arms and nuzzling my face into her hair and the world was whole again.

For a while after her deployment, I screamed every time Mom put on her uniform. Then, gradually, the Army faded into the background again, one weekend a month, two weeks a year. The blip, Desert Storm, followed us all like a shadow, not unpleasant, but always there.

We were extra thankful on Thanksgiving when the phone didn’t ring. We got teary-eyed whenever Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the U.S.A.” came on the radio, an anthem for Mom’s unit. For years, our schools asked Mom to give Veterans’ Day speeches, and Shavonne and I modeled Saudi Arabian clothes she’d brought back as souvenirs: black draping capes and veils that covered everything except a square around our eyes, similar to the burqas I’d see eighteen years later in Afghanistan. I loved being a part of Mom’s experience, if only from under the veil. I liked to twirl and see the fabric billow around me. Mostly I liked watching my mom.

She talked about how difficult life was for women in Saudi Arabia. “They have to cover all their skin, even when it’s really hot outside,” she said. “If they don’t, the police can arrest them! And they aren’t allowed to drive!” Even as an American, Mom said, she couldn’t go certain places because she was a woman. She told our classmates about the armed guards on the hospital buses and around the compound to help keep the doctors and nurses safe. Mom shared that she was afraid at first to take care of Iraqi prisoners, but she learned that they only fought because their families were threatened by Saddam Hussein. I thought how brave she was and how lucky I was to have a mom who was more than just a mom, but also a soldier, a healer, and a hero who helped save people from that mean man. After Mom finished speaking everyone clapped for her, and I beamed under my veil.

I didn’t know how painful those events were for my mom. I didn’t realize she struggled diving back into her roles as wife and mother and everything else we heaped on her. She didn’t discuss her terror at nightly air raids, or her aching loneliness, or her doubts about her ability to handle combat. I didn’t know she carried trauma with her every day, even aft er she returned home. I didn’t understand her earnestness when we made a family pact that no one else would join the military, because one deployment was enough.

NAUGHT

There is naught to be done for it:
We are over
As the ocean is over its attraction
And is now crawling
Back from the shore,
Having fucked it thoroughly.

We are done
Like steak on a grill,
Sizzling and aromatic,
Waiting to be devoured.

We are finished
As a wood floor sanded to undeniable
Smoothness and shine,
A surface of beauty concealing
The pitted underbelly of it all.

Or like promising to explain to others
What happened to us.
Over, done, finished,
Is all we need to say
Or want

While the gifted interpreter
Turns a pirouette of words
And keeps you safe
With her basket of naughts.

He was always a very sharp dresser. Firstborn child, he toddled around in a merino wool coat from Lord&Taylor and a short pants suit from B Altman that would be handed down to his younger brothers. At seventeen he looked “collegiate” in madras plaid shorts and a pastel button-down shirt. He hated to be called “preppy”, but he was. Handsome and preppy.

Years later, after the war, when he worked his way into an office in a high rise down in Boston’s Post Office Square he wore gorgeous suits he’d purchased at a men’s store called Zara. 

But for two years of the time between the madras shorts and Zara suits, he wore jungle camouflage, just like all the other draftees. And when he finally flew back home, exactly 365 days from when he’d landed in Vietnam, he wore the requisite Dress Greens with combat patch and overseas bars on his right sleeve. 

He asked that no one meet him at Oakland Air Force base when he landed, didn’t want to be seen in uniform.  He stashed the gabardine greens and the cotton camouflage in the attic, gave his little brothers his medals to play with, and created a new narrative, one in which the combat never happened. He didn’t speak of what he endured on the commercial flight cross country either. 

Back in the states he tried hard to resume a life in civilian clothes. He married, started a family, bought a boat. On weekends in his khaki shorts, polo shirts with embroidered alligators on the chest, and topsiders, he was surrounded by those who dressed the same and colluded in his denial. It wasn’t hard. Most of America had little to say about Vietnam beyond the horrors of Kent State, and then the tragic beauty of the memorial in DC. When he applied for jobs, there were no Veteran boxes to check, or if there were, nobody smart would check them. 

During the week he sat at a desk wearing button-down shirts and Brooks Brothers suits, until he discovered even better suits at Zaras. There he chose ties that were silk and dreamy, even his socks soft and stylish, and Italian wingtip shoes. He bought his underwear, boxer shorts, for full price at Mr. Sid’s, the men’s store in Newton Centre.

It was thirty years in these lovely suits before the force he’d used to push it all away gave out, before memories from the days of jungle fatigues blindsided him, kept him awake, immobile, defeated. It’s always hard to know for sure what is really the  precipitant for a powerful change. For him was it his sons becoming the age he was when the draft found him? Or the TV flooded with news of a new war, young kids like he was, but in desert not jungle cammo? Maybe simply the loss of the intense and rigid structure of his job that had held him together. But once he left that job, moved abroad for a family adventure overseas, an elective plan to live differently for a while,there were no more desks in a high rise piled high with work to do, no more suits, no more daily conversations with engaging colleagues, or pressing deadlines. But there was plenty of late night TV coverage of men at war. Is that what made his wall crumble?

When he finally went for help at the Vet Center, he dressed down in khakis and loafers, a sweater, and a windbreaker for his intake appointment.  Bearded men in bandana headbands, fellow Vets ahead of him on their journeys, sat in the waiting room. They wore jeans and work boots. Tattoos peeked out from their open leather jackets, flannel shirts. 

“I’m not like them,” he said when he got back home.  “They’re alcoholics or recovered druggies.  They’re on maybe their third wives. They smoke like chimneys. They seem like good guys, but I can’t relate to them. I’m just not one of them.”

“Welcome soldier. You know, you’re one of us, bro,” they repeated, patiently, gently when he joined them in the group. “It’s okay. We get you. You’re one of us.”

He kept showing up to the appointments. He swallowed the meds. There was a six-week rehabilitation program at White River Junction; another two weeks up at North Hampton.  Then weekends. A weekend on grief. Another on guilt. He met one guy who wore tassel loafers and worked on Cape Cod in real estate. “Mark seems more like me,” he said, but Mark didn’t stay with the program. 

He brought out those Zara suits for family events, celebrations, or funerals where he had to show up. He looked dreadfully handsome in them, handsome, calm and in control. Being in a crowd demanded a new kind of courage, especially that one crowded wedding reception in that arts gallery with the low ceilings and unmarked exits.  “I can’t stay” he said, quietly. It was impossible to hang out in a building with no clear way out. It was too much like a clusterfuck, an ambush ready to happen. He waited two hours in the safety of the parking lot until the rest of his family was ready to go.  That’s the kind of guy he was.

He wasn’t working in a high rise anymore, so he worked in the driveway. In work boots, flannel shirts and jeans, he scraped and painted the shutters for the house. On Thursdays he showed up at those group meetings in his boots and jeans, sat and shared thoughts, feelings even with the tattooed men in leather jackets. 

On one of those Thursdays in May, a man dressed up in aviator sunglasses and a flight suit landed on an aircraft carrier for a nationally televised press conference. Surrounded by Secret Service, he stood before a banner that said “Mission Accomplished.” As if some sanitary business deal was completed. As if a photo shoot reinforcing a stylized image of warfare would tie things up neatly. In fact most of the casualties in Iraq came after that speech by a president who, though dressed for the part, had never flown a combat mission.

The President and most of the country were oblivious to the tattooed men in flannel shirts, men with Purple Hearts and Bronze Stars sitting in a circle at the Vet Center that day. They sat and talked about what they’d experienced, maybe wondered what it all had accomplished beyond their disabilities.

Twenty years on, more Veterans, those lucky enough to survive, will follow these men, sit in a circle, maybe wonder the same. This next crew, men and women, might wear tee shirts and desert camo, sweatpants and flip flops, as they talk about what most of us in our busy lives and busy attire don’t know, about what really happens in war.

Dalton bought a used F150 in Kalamazoo with oil rig money and drove north to a trailer he owned south of Mancelona. It squatted on ten acres that were his along a creek. It was way out in the boonies, very secluded at the end of a long and winding lane behind a tree line. He let two chucklehead brothers, Dace and Lee Morton, live there. They had been a couple years behind him in high school.

The Morton boys sold weed, but Dalton didn’t give a shit. That was their gig and not his. Live and let live. He was just the landlord. They were good about keeping the place up and if they got caught, it had nothing to do with him. He would just point out that he arranged the rental by phone and took his payments by wire down in Florida.

He hadn’t been there in three years. That was back in 75, just after Saigon fell. Some days, Vietnam seemed like a long time ago. Some days, it didn’t. And some days, but not so many anymore, it seemed like yesterday.

Dalton flashed his headlights on and off a few times. It wasn’t some pre-arranged signal, which the two chuckleheads would have forgotten by now, but he knew not to just barrel up the lane and startle them. He figured they kept a few weapons, and they weren’t the brightest bulbs around. And they were perpetually medicated. Drugs and guns — what could possibly go wrong?

He gave them some time to get sorted and then he eased slowly up the lane, flashing his headlights again for good measure. No cop would come up like that. He knew that and knew they would, too.

Dalton pulled on up to the trailer and got out and stood next to the truck for a moment, to let them get a good look. A flashlight beam from one of those big camping lights got switched on him. It lingered on his eyes. He put a hand over them after a few seconds.

“Okay, dickheads—knock off the fucking searchlight shit.”

“Jesus — that you, Dalton?”

“No – it’s fucking Yosemite Sam.”

 “Yeah, that’s Dalton,” a second voice said.

There were two young, pretty girls inside with Dace and Lee. Both blonds. No surprise there. Barely over eighteen, by the look of them. No surprise there either. They were stoned to the gills. Again — no surprise. Weed dealers always had a pretty girl or two hanging on, mooching weed and speed in exchange for sex. Not quite customers and not quite girlfriends. A sort of entourage born of necessity and practicality.

The trailer reeked of weed, but it was otherwise clean, orderly. An empty pizza carton was on the coffee table. He wondered who delivered this far out. A bong was propped against a sofa. He had been right that the Morton boys would keep the place together. Dace switched the stereo back on. Dalton recognized Zeppelin right off, but it was an older album – Houses of the Holy.

Dalton signaled for Dace to cut the volume some, so he could be heard, and he dialed it back to background music.

 “How are you, Dalton? Long time no see.”

Dalton nodded.

 “That album is, like, five years old,” he said.

“We’re just getting around to it,” Lee said.

The blonds had glassy stares.

Dalton nodded again. Dace passed a joint and Dalton took a hit but declined the second time around. He didn’t mind cutting the edge from the long drive, but he wasn’t interested in getting baked until he had a good lay of the land.

“Lee,” Dace said, “why don’t you fetch old Dalton here a cold brewski.”

Lee smirked and went to the kitchen.

“Don’t mind if I do,” Dalton said.

“Long trip?” Dace smiled.

Dalton leaned back and sighed. Lee came around the corner and handed him a cold Pabst. Dalton took a healthy swig.

“The train up from Florida,” he said and took another swig. “Then the drive from Kalamazoo. Yeah, it’s been a long, strange trip.”

He wondered if they got The Grateful Dead reference.

“New truck?” Lee said.

“A new old one,” Dalton said. “Just bought it in Kalamazoo.”

“Staying long?” Lee said.

“Forever and a year.”

He drained the rest of the beer and Lee got him another.

“You worked up a thirst,” Lee said.

One of the blonds abruptly said, “Can we turn the music up?”

Dace patted her thigh.

“Hold on, baby. We’re having a little talk here with our old pal Dalton.”

“Who’s Dalton?” she said. Dace fired up another joint and handed it to her. The two blonds passed the joint back and forth and giggled.

“I need a place to crash tonight,” Dalton said.

“Well, your casa is your casa,” Lee said, sniggering.

Dalton didn’t like the sound of Lee’s voice. Never had. The boy had always struck him as barely north of retard.

“You come at the right time,” Dace said, a quick frown aimed at Lee.

“Why’s that?”

Dalton leaned forward.

“We’re going on a road trip tomorrow.” Dace grinned. “The four of us.”

“Is his name Dalton?” one of the blonds said. To Dalton, they really did seem interchangeable.

“Where to?” Dalton said.

“Chicago.”

“How long?”

“Four, maybe five days.”

“Pizza at Giordano’s,” Lee said. “Wrigley Field and all that shit. We get to sing Take Me Out to the Ballgame.”

Dalton and Dace rolled their eyes. Dalton knew Lee was an idiot. So did Dace. Still just a happy-go-lucky high school kid, really. But he would probably not grow up beyond assistant weed dealer. And he would probably turn up dead in a ditch someday. Dace was the brains of the outfit, but that wasn’t saying much.

“Taking the train down to Chi-Town,” Dace said. “Like real tourists.”

“So, a pleasure trip,” Dalton said.

“Some business, too. There’s a vehicle to drive back.”

“Of course.” Dalton figured Chicago was their source of supply. It made him think of Seymour, of Vietnam, but he managed to shake the images away. “How much product you got on hand now?”

Dalton was mostly just making small talk, but he was curious, too. It was his trailer.

“Just what we need for recreation,” Dace said matter-of-factly. “We never keep any amount here.”

He had a smug look. Dalton figured that was to let him know he knew his business.

“Smart.” Dalton sipped his beer. “You never know who might pull up the lane.”

“You did,” Dace said, grinning.

“Sorry to bust in on you unannounced.”

“Don’t say bust, man,” Lee said, attempting the joke.

Dace glanced at Lee.

“Lee, why don’t you take the ladies outside for a little snipe hunt, so me and Dalton can talk.”

Lee nodded and took them out. They held hands and stumbled, nearly falling to the floor.

“What’s a snipe?” one of the blonds said.

“Bye, Dalton,” the other blond said, waving.

After they were gone, Dace said, “She’ll keep you company, if you like.”

Dalton grinned but shook his head.

“That’s mighty generous of you, Dace. But maybe another time. I’m wrecked from the road.”

“Anything we ought to know?”

“Like what?”

Dace leaned forward.

“Like, why you ain’t on an oil rig in the Gulf, making good bread.”

“I made enough for a while. Three years of it.”

“How much is enough?”

“My needs are simple. And now I have cheap wheels. You ever even seen an oil rig, Dace?”

“Can’t say I have.” He expertly rolled another joint. “But I have bought a few oil filters in my time. Other than Chicago, I ain’t never been farther than Detroit.”

“You ain’t missed much,” Dalton said. He decided he could partake after all. Dace handed it to him and he fired it up. He wasn’t going anywhere. No plans to operate heavy machinery, including his brain. His only tangible plan was to stay off that asshole Seymour’s radar. He didn’t know if that was possible. But it was a theory that needed to be tested. The future—whatever was in it – was limited by Seymour’s radar screen.

After the joint, Dace turned up the music just enough to be heard clearly. Zeppelin was playing “The Song Remains the Same.” Dalton nodded and kept time and thought, yeah, that’s life. It tends to usually stay the same. You had to break out to have a chance at all. Breaking out meant finding a door. If there was one. Life was often just four walls and no door.

“You’re not here for just a joint,” Dace said. “Not after three years.”

Dalton thought a moment, which wasn’t easy because it was primo weed and it cooked inside him pretty well. He could see himself just turn up the knob and groove to Zeppelin rocking the trailer on its foundation.

“I might want to build a little something out here, by the creek,” he said after a long pause. “A cabin, maybe. But livable.”

“You got enough for all that?”

Dalton mulled how much he’d made on oil rigs. And then there was the money from Seymour. The payoff for keeping quiet about something they’d done in Nam involving drugs, which made Dalton indebted to Seymour. Accomplice was a better way to put it, but he was too tired now for that shit.

“Yeah, I reckon I can swing it.”

Dace nodded but looked slightly skeptical.

“How do you figure to make a living? No oil rigs around here.”

Dalton shrugged.

“I could sell a few acres, if I need to. One step at a time.”

“And you don’t need dope dealers as neighbors.”

“It ain’t that.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah, Dace, I’m sure. And I’d do you a deal, for taking care of the trailer.”

Dace thought in terms of deals, related best to deals.

“What kind of deal?”

Dalton went to the kitchen and got a beer to buy time, to make sure he knew what he was doing. He brought Dace one, too.

 “To getting evicted,” Dace said, holding up his PBR.

“I’d give you the trailer,” Dalton said abruptly.

“Say again?”

“Just haul her to a new location out in the boonies somewhere. You could be back in business in under twenty-four hours.”

“For real?”

“Sure. We can put a hitch on my truck to do it.”

Dace eased back in his chair and mulled it. He smiled.

“Mighty white of you, Dalton.”

“Well, shit, I’m feeling especially white, I reckon.”

“When do we do it?”

“Not for a while,” Dalton said. “No hurry.”

“Winter’s coming, Dalton. Comes early here in case you forgot that down in sunny Florida.”

Dalton nodded.

“Maybe I break ground first, before a freeze. Get a foundation down for spring.”

“Cool.” Dace passed the joint to him. “So, what’s Florida really like?”

“Hot.”

Dace nodded and waited to hear more, but Dalton just passed the joint back and leaned back into the sofa, glancing at the ceiling a moment, exhaling smoke.

“Sometimes,” Dace said, “me and Lee think about shifting business down to Florida.”

Dalton raised his head and smirked.

“That would be like opening a McDonald’s on a whole block of McDonald’s, my friend.”

Dace nodded and looked disappointed.

“It was just a thought.”

 “Uh-huh.” Dalton knew Dace lacked enough drive to make such a move. And Lee had no drive at all. They would live and die as the weed kings of Antrim County. And probably in a low, short trajectory.

“But, man — thanks on the trailer.” Dace sipped his beer and then offered a hand. They shook vigorously. “You always done right by us, man. I appreciate it.”

“Esta bien,” Dalton said, not immediately aware it came out Spanish.  “No sweat, Dace.”

“You speak much Mexican?” Dace said.

“Spanish, Dace.”

“Pardon my French.”

“Yeah, I know a little. From the rigs.”

Lee and the blonds came back in, and it took a minute for the blonds to get situated on a sofa and fire up a joint. Dalton partook in that one, too. He figured he was now sort of on vacation. Or something close to it. A lull of some kind. A lull away from that fuck Seymour. Calm before the Seymour storm? He couldn’t discount that. But it was okay to get good and baked and let Zeppelin drill a hole in his head.

“Lee said you got a Purple Heart in Vietnam,” one of the blonds abruptly said to Dalton.

“Did he?”

“That’s what the man said.”

“Must be true, then.” Dalton put his hand over his heart. “But it doesn’t feel purple.”

“Did it hurt?” she said.

Dalton looked at Dace and rolled his eyes. Dace chuckled.

“Naw,” Dalton said. He didn’t think a serious war story was the way to go with the blond. It would just be more than she could relate to. But he rolled up his sleeve anyway and showed her the long scar. He didn’t know why.

“Just a bee sting, really,” he said.

She ran her finger along the scar.

“A bullet did that?”

“I guess so.”

 “You’re not sure?”

She was baked even worse than he was.

“Yeah, I’m sure. A bullet. Bob the bee bullet.”

“That’s gnarly,” the other blond said. Dalton hadn’t heard anyone use that word since he rolled through California on the way back from Nam. He’d spent an interesting week in Frisco with some hippies in Haight-Ashbury. He learned right off that the locals hated the name Frisco. Only outsiders used it. Travel was always an education. Florida was where he learned too much about that bastard Seymour.

The other blond leaned closer for a look at the scar.

“Lee says you got a Bronze Star, too.”

“Lee’s quite the encyclopedia,” Dalton said.

“What’s a Bronze Star?” the blond said.

“A medal, for being brave,” Lee said.

“Were you brave?” she said, grinning. She touched his elbow lightly.

“Not at all,” Dalton said. “It’s just bullshit.”

“If it’s bullshit, why’d you get one?”

“They pass them out like candy.”

“But you must have done something,” she said.

Dalton sipped his beer and studied her face a moment. The lighting was dim, just a soft -bulb lamp in a corner and the lights from the stereo, and he couldn’t quite make out her features.

“I guarded the rubbers,” Dalton said.

Dace and Lee laughed. The two blonds looked confused.

“Rubbers?” one of them said. “Somebody had to guard rubbers?”

“Yeah—we had a whole warehouse of them.”

“Bullshit,” one of the blonds said.

“No, it wasn’t. Couldn’t just let the enemy get them, right?”

“And who again was the enemy?” one of the blonds said.

Dalton realized it no longer mattered which one it was. Keeping track was irrelevant. And history? Fuck history. Americans didn’t know history.

“The VC,” Dalton said soberly. “Victor Charles – the Vietcong.”

“That sounds nasty,” a blond said.

“Didn’t they have their own rubbers?” another blond said.

Dalton and Dace laughed loudly. Lee brought beers from the kitchen.

“What’d I miss?” Lee said.

“Alice wanted to know why the VC didn’t have rubbers,” Dace said.

Dalton looked at the two blonds and wondered which one was Alice. He ought to have paid attention at that point but said to himself, fuck it. We are now all baked in an oven and turning brown. Go ahead and spread cinnamon on us.

A blond squeezed Dalton’s knee and he figured it must be Alice. Or one of the other blonds. He nearly laughed at loud at the notion of a room full of stoned blonds.

“Primo weed,” he said to Dace, who nodded confidently.

“I really want to know why there were so many rubbers,” Alice said. “Is that all you guys did over there?”

Dalton chuckled and then got a few, fleeting images from Vietnam, and it all kind of swept over him suddenly and he shivered.

“We put them over the barrels of rifles,” Dalton said calmly, after a pause. The images had slipped away. He had a swig of beer.

“That’s what you called your cocks – rifles?” Alice chuckled. “You guys always think with your dicks.”

“Wow!” Lee said, shaking his head.

“We put them over the rifles to keep water out, to keep them dry,” Dalton said quietly, seriously.

“You mean real guns?” Alice said.

“Yeah.” Dalton finished his beer. “As real as it gets.”

Silence set in among them for a minute, just Zeppelin low in the background. The album had been started over and Dalton again heard “The Song Remains the Same.” There was a lesson in that if he could think well enough to say it. He stood, a little rubbery in the legs.

“I could use a blanket or two, and a pillow,” he said.

“Lee, get the man some blankets and a pillow,” Dace said quietly. Lee came back from the bedroom with them, and Dalton slipped the blankets under an arm and clutched the pillow. He turned toward the door.

“We got a spare room, Dalton,” Dace said. “It’s your trailer, man.”

Dalton glanced back.

“I want to sleep outside. By the creek.”

“Your call,” Dace said.

“What if it rains?” Lee said and Dalton thought of many nights it rained in Vietnam.

“I want to hear the water rush by,” he said. “And see the moon.”

“Okay, man,” Dace said. “Your wish is our command. Lee, help him with that door.”

Dalton stepped out and walked toward the creek. Crickets performed an amazing symphony, and he was so baked he felt he could reach up and touch the moon.

He dumped his bedding under a tree hanging over the water and he propped himself against a boulder and listened to the riffles in the creek. It was a lovely sound that seemed as strong and loud as Niagara Falls.

“Good damn weed,” he told the creek. “You should try some.”

In a few minutes, Alice showed up and handed him a beer. He figured he had room for one more beer. Just one. She didn’t say anything. She played with a curl of hair next to her ear and grinned, looking down at him for a few seconds, and then she sat beside him.

“So,” she said, drawing the word out like it was taffy,” are you all fucked up from that shitty war.”

She was direct. Dalton liked direct.

“Are you asking if I’m crazy?”

“Well, not insane,” she said. “I didn’t mean that.”

“Good to know.”

“There’s all sorts of fucked up,” she said.

“True enough. Are you asking if I’m a violent asshole —shit like that?”

“Well, are you?”

“Make love, not war,” he said, chuckling.

“That’s just a saying.”

He held a hand up, making the peace sign right in front of her face.

“Peace, love, dope,” Dalton said.

“You’re avoiding the subject.”

Dalton drew his knees up under his chin and listened to the water.

“No, I’m not crazy. Or violent. The first couple years back in the world, I had trouble sleeping but that worked itself out.”

“Nightmares?” she said.

“A few. But they finally went away. Just up and went.”

“Why?”

He shrugged.

“One day I just reminded myself they couldn’t send me back to Nam. That door was closed. Locked. Game over. Things perked up some after that.”

“What did you see?” she said.

“In Nam?”

“No, in your nightmares. What were they like?”

Dalton tried to remember one of them clearly, which was hard at first because it had been a while. Only hazy fragments came to him. Jagged pieces of the puzzle.

“I really can’t remember much now. Maybe that’s for the best.”

“But surely you remember something?” she said.

He sighed and looked up at the moon for a moment. It looked the same as in Vietnam. The moon was the moon was the moon.

“I remember little things.”

“Like what?” she said.

“Smells.”

“Just smells?”

“And the fucking heat.”

“Good,” she said. “This is progress. What else?”

“And how birds stopped talking to each other when someone was coming, and the jungle would go as quiet as a graveyard.”

“Good,” she said. “We’re rolling now. What else?”

“I remember the fucking drippy humidity. It was like a steam bath.”

“Like down in Florida?”

“Yeah, but nobody was shooting at me in Florida. And we had AC.”

“And now you’re home, safe and sound.”

“That’s the rumor.”

They watched the water, moonlight kissing the surface, and for a long time, neither of them spoke. The weed and alcohol and fatigue from the road now weighed him down and he felt himself slipping away. A benign darkness descending. He wanted to talk more with Alice. Lovely Alice. But she was now just a dark face in the moonlight as his eyes fluttered. The booze and primo weed did their anesthetic duty and tugged at him, pulling him deeper, and then he smirked before he sank for a while into the peaceful abyss.

Dalton was reasonably sure he wouldn’t dream about Vietnam.

When visiting

a friend’s grandpa, the Boy learned that the grandpa liked watching football games on the weekends instead of the black and white western movies. His favorite football team was the Kansas City Chiefs. Their team colors were—red, white, and yellow. Some of the fans had feathers on their head and they chanted and made a chopping motion with one of their hands when the game started. Sometimes a man who was dressed up in a pretend costume would beat on a giant drum. The grandpa said it was tradition and traditions were good. The Boy asked the friends grandpa if he ever watched western movies, but he said those were all fake and weren’t worth the copper they were printed on. That’s why he liked watching football. Real men. Real blood. Real consequences.

None of that fake cowboy horseshit.

Sometimes, though, if it was late at night, the friend’s grandpa said he liked to watch military documentaries, but only if everyone was already asleep. The Boy didn’t ask why. The grandpa had an American flag that hung from the front porch of his house—red, white, and blue. The Boy’s own grandpa didn’t have one. Neither did the Boy’s father.

Were you in the War too?

No, my parents wanted me to go to college. The same college my daddy went too. In fact, we even played ball for the same team. That’s my old jersey there.

The friend’s grandpa pointed to the wall. Two framed black and white photos with wooden frames that bent and curved all fancy like hung next to each other. The Boy knew one photo was older because it had a football team where they all had leather helmets on, and the image was faded. There was also a framed football jersey on the wall with the same last name that his friend had with stitched together letters on the back of it. The team colors were—green, gold, and black.

I almost volunteered for the military. I wanted too—hell, they almost got me in the draft! Maybe I wish they would have. Just wasn’t in the playbook, I guess. Your grandfather was in the service? World War II?

Yes sir. Well—no, he fought in Korea. My dad too. Air force. He didn’t fight in any War, though.

That’s okay son, you should be damn proud. We all have our role to play. That’s what my old man used to say.

I’m going to join too—when I’m old enough, anyway.

The grandpa smiled and put a hand on the Boy’s shoulder.

That’s a good boy.

The grandpa reached over and grabbed an old football that sat on a wooden mantle with some sports memorabilia underneath the old photos and the jersey. He held it in front of the Boy’s face close enough for him to smell the aged pigskin leather, letting his eyes wander over the scars from the field of battle. When the Boy’s hands moved to touch the football, the grandpa reached back in an old-school football pose like the quarterback does and threw the ball across the room to his grandson who caught it above his head with both hands.

Nice one! Just like your old man!

He lost

his favorite coffee mug. The Old Man poured dark roast into a short glass mason jar mixing it with the golden liquid already left waiting at the bottom. It wasn’t meant for hot liquids and the Old Man reached for a red trimmed potholder with a green and yellow wildflower pattern to hold it with. He sat down into his favorite corduroy rocking chair, one hand against his lower back for support. He smiled with the jar between his legs letting the glass cool, the steam from the roasted beans rising to his nose. Smells of earth and sweet honey warmed the room. The sting of diesel was nearly absent.

Please, just one-story Grandpa. I promise I won’t ask for more. Please—

Well shit, you’re old enough by now. I promised your dad I wouldn’t, but hell in my day you could drive a tractor at ten, and you’re nearly that. It can be our little secret. What do you want to know?

About the War, about—Korea. Like, what kind of gun did you use?

A few, but mostly the ole Browning M1919. I bet you don’t even know what that is, do you?

The Boy shook his head no.

It’s a light machine gun. L.M.G. It took two of us to shoot and two more to carry everything. It was a real son-of-a-bitch to get around.

Did you have to shoot it a lot?

I never shot it once, to tell you the truth, not at anyone anyway. See, I just fed the ammo to keep it firing. Do you know what that means, to feed the ammo?

The Old Man didn’t wait for the Boy to answer.

I was what they called an assistant gunner. Corporal did all of the shooting and stuff for us. He liked that kind of thing.

The Old Man grabbed the hot mason jar from between his legs and took a long drag of his coffee. The rounded glass edge burned against the crease of his lips, but he drank it anyway. He remembered the Corporal well. They grew matching mustaches; they all did. The lieutenant dubbed them his “Mustache Maniacs,” which later got shortened to just “M&M’s.” It was a real hoot with the men. The Old Man shaved it shortly before returning home. He felt stupid with it by himself. It didn’t feel right without Corporal Lopez and the rest. He wouldn’t tell that story today, though.

They didn’t deserve it, the people. Not too different from us you know—some of the best God-damned people I’ve ever met, actually. They fought side by side with us. Those Koreans, real God-damn patriots. We suffered together; I remember how hungry they were. How hungry we were—and cold, for shit’s sake was it cold. Colder than a well digger’s ass, if you ask me. You have to understand, it’s a different kind of cold they have there in Korea. It’s all any of us thought about most of the time. We weren’t ready for any of it. It was a terrible War.

Why were you fighting then Grandpa? If they weren’t bad?

It wasn’t them we were fighting; it was those god-damned Reds! You see, retreat was never part of the plan, hell, War was never part of the plan—we just killed that other bastard five years earlier! You have to imagine, when they first came over them mountain tops, millions of ‘em, I swear to God, the God-damned ground disappeared. I don’t know if they shot back, or hell, if they even had guns. Corporal █████ just kept firing. There was so much smoke you couldn’t see more than a few feet in front of you. I loaded until my hands charred like wood. We could hear them breathing they was so close. A wave of glowing lead to the left. A wave of glowing lead to the right.

The Old Man’s arms followed waves of bullets from one side of his body to the other in a repeating pattern. The aged wood from underneath his corduroy rocking chair snapped with the weight of his story. Liquid from the mason jar in one of his hands splashed over the rim.

The Boy breathed hard, too afraid to look away.

We screamed for the runners to bring more ammo; I don’t remember when they stopped coming. The Reds didn’t. They never stopped. When they were right God-damned on top of us, Corporal █████ handed me his pistol, a Colt 1911. Just a small little thing. He picked up that son-of-a-bitch Browning with his bare hands and we fired until we both had nothing left. And then, we ran. We all ran. Everyone did. And we kept running. When the order finally came to stand fast; we already made it to the God-damned ocean.

The Old Man drank from his mason jar again, the amber glow of liquid not able to hide behind his lost porcelain coffee mug. He nearly spit it out when he started laughing from somewhere deep down in his belly. He had to use his free hand to cover the top of the jar to keep the liquid from spilling everywhere.

You know, when we finally did stop, there were these two supply crates, just sitting there waiting for us. One had ammo, one had food. We hadn’t had a single round of ammunition to fire in over a week and no one had eaten in at least double that amount of time, probably longer. But wouldn’t you God-damn believe it, I was the only shit-stick dumb enough to go for the ammo first. I was more scared of those god-damned Reds than I was of starving to death. Go for the ammo first, that’s what Corporal █████ would have done, so that’s what I did. He always knew what to do.

Invitation to a Gunfighter, staring Yul Brynner and George Segal, played at a low volume in the background on a black and white television screen. The film ends after the hero takes a shotgun blast to the chest and one bullet through the stomach. The hero manages to jump from his horse in a dramatic roll before single-handedly disarming the bad guys in one swift motion. An entire town watches from the side. The hero then spends the next two minutes and thirty-four seconds forcing the bad guys to apologize in front of all the town’s folk for their crimes against their own neighbors. Eventually, the hero succumbs to the injuries and the people carry him away on their shoulders. The Old Man and the Boy sat in silence until the credits finished and the screen turned to black.

The Boy wasn’t sure what was meant to be funny about the ending to his grandpa’s story. He waited for the rest of the story to finish, but it never came.

The Sheriff

first met the Boy when he was still just a boy. The Sheriff took the Old Man away but said he could come back home once he was feeling better. The Old Man said it was the bitch’s fault. The Sheriff also gave the Boy a pack of Colorado Rocky baseball trading cards and a golden sheriff’s sticker that he could put on the outside of his shirt. The Boy wore it to school the next Monday and everybody wanted to know where he got it from but he told them it was a secret.

Vietnam, 1969

The world appeared like a ripple in a puddle- a Jell-O jiggle spreading across dark green jungle water. The scene came together but would not hold still.

Caleb did not know where he was. His vision swirled, and his chest hurt, and his lungs seemed full of water. His hand searched for his chest. Found it. Wet. Found it. Empty. A finger sank into it. Wiggled a moment. Mud, he thought. Mud at the bottom of the puddle.

There was a wall behind him. He braced himself to move, clenching his teeth tightly, and then slid himself against it, propping himself up. He let out a growl, and a twinge of nausea passed through his stomach. He nearly threw up, but he held in the bile, thinking of a man he’d seen throw up at a state fair once- thinking about how embarrassing that must have been. A grown man vomiting. He could do better. He squinted into the horizon. The nausea faded, and solid shapes began to take form.

He was in a village. A rural village. A smoking village. The huts around him were on fire; their woven roofs blazing orange and deep red, like the flesh of the Gac fruit he’d seen a young boy devour at a rural market in the eastern part of the country. Across from him, a hand lay, palm up, fingers sprawled, totally still. Slender brown wrist and jagged nails. The hand was connected to an arm. The arm was connected to nothing. Its severed edge, too, resembled the wet red meat of the Gac fruit. Caleb couldn’t remember whose it was. He wished he hadn’t seen it.

The air was smoke and fresh-turned dirt, tinged with feces, urine, and metal. Whether the metal smell was blood or guns, he could not say.

Caleb coughed, and a spray of red shot from his chest. So I’ve been shot, he realized. I’ve been shot, and I’ve been left for dead.

A groan split the space in front of him. He rolled his head toward the sound. “Hello?” he gurgled. He coughed again. Stronger: “Hello?”

There was a young Vietnamese man sprawled at his feet. The man lifted his head.

Opened and shut his mouth three times, bubbling like a fish. “Do you speak English?” Caleb asked him.

The man stared at him with fish eyes.

Caleb rolled his eyes. “Of course not.” Damn Gook. He pointed at the hole in his chest. “Are you hurt?” he asked. He pointed at the man. Pointed back at his own chest.

The man rolled his body to the side, revealing a wet, red cavern in which bits of flesh hung free from bone, swinging like sheets on a clothesline. He sank back to the earth with a grunt.

Caleb nodded. “We’re both goners, you know?” The man blinked. Sputtered, “Xin Loi.” “Gibberish.” Jesus.

Caleb rubbed his fingers together. He wanted a cigarette. He grimaced. “I’d kill for a drag,” he told the man. He’d killed for less before, but what did it matter now.

The man bared his teeth in a rugged smile. “Xin Loi,” he said again. Caleb tilted his head towards the sky.

The wall he was leaning against was part of a crude hut. When he shifted his weight, it crackled. A twig wiggled loosely above his head. He snapped this twig off and put it to his lips. He softly sucked in, gritted his teeth, and blew out. He offered this twig to the Vietnamese man, who pretended to take his own hit and then passed it back.

“Nothing like a Pall Mall,” he sighed. He took another drag.

On his exhale, he pointed at himself and slowly pronounced, “Caleb Millard.” The man pressed his hands to his sternum and said, “Do Hien Minh.”

Caleb pretended to tap ash from his twig. “Where are you from, Do?” Do stared at him.

Caleb shifted his weight, winced at the movement, and then settled his shoulders lower against the wall. “I’m from Iowa.” A bird played lip harp in a distant tree. “America.” He eyed a big sow nosing through the turmoil beneath a burning hut. “Got a lot of pigs there, too.”

Drag from the twig. “My family kept a cow, but no pigs.” Do bobbed his head as if he understood.

“I had a dog for a bit,” he told Do, “but she died. Never had a pig.” Do patted the dirt at the base of Caleb’s boot.

“How old are you, Do? Can’t be more than twenty.” Caleb raised an eyebrow. “My brother is twenty. He went to college, so he didn’t get drafted.” Caleb felt a bead of sweat forming on his forehead. “I didn’t go to college, so I got drafted. Now I have a damn hole in my chest.”

Caleb met Do’s eyes again. “We’re both gonna die dumb, you know that? Dumb and uneducated. And young.” Caleb shook off a gnat. “And covered in bugs.”

“You ever ate a bug, Do?” Do’s face was covered in sweat. “I bet you people eat bugs all the time.”

Caleb rubbed his chest. “I can’t breathe so well. I never could breathe in this country. You must be dumb to stay in a country where you can’t breathe. What’s the point?”

Caleb squirmed against his inhale. “It’s like breathing under-damn-water. Are you a fish, Do?”

Do moved his hands together, intertwining his shaking thumbs and fluttering his fingers like butterfly wings. He flew his hands towards Caleb and grinned.

Caleb muttered, “This is serious.” Do settled his hands under his chin.

“You got a girl, Do?” Caleb asked. “I swear, if a bastard like you has got a girl, then God can take me now.”

Do’s pinky finger twitched under his chin.

Caleb pursed his lips and made a kissing noise. With one hand, he drew the outline of a woman with generous curves in the air. Pointed at Do. “A girl?”

A soft smile spread across Do’s face. “Cô gái xinh đẹp,” he said.

“I bet you’ve got an ugly little thing,” Caleb mused. “Beanstalk tall and scrawny, with crooked teeth. Or no teeth.” He licked his lips. “There was a girl named Nancy back in the States who I always wanted to go with.” Caleb shook his head. “I never even wrote her a letter.”

Caleb scratched at his chest. “But man, was she beautiful. All-American, with blonde hair and the pinkest lips I ever saw. Always wore a red dress to Sunday service. And man, she loved to sing. Especially sad songs. Sounded just like Doris Day.”

Do repeated, “Doris Day.” “That’s right, Do.”

Do began humming.

Caleb recognized the tune. “Que sera, sera,” he half-sang. “Whatever will be, will be.” He dropped his eyes to the dirt. “That’s real nice, Do.”

“Do you reckon that letters ever make it out of the jungle?” Caleb wished a cloud would cover the sun. It was too damn hot. “I don’t see how anything makes it out of the jungle.”

It was quiet for a moment, aside from the two men’s dueted breathing and the rumble of a burning hut collapsing. “When you die, your body will sit here and rot. That’s a given. But what happens to my body?” Caleb sucked on the twig. “Will they come looking for me? Will they find me? My parents may never know what happened to me. They’ll hold out hope, I know. But I’ll be gone. Rotting, with no name. No meaning.” Caleb looked at the severed arm. He threw the twig away. “It’s sick.”

Do followed his gaze to the arm. Then Do looked back at him. “Caleb,” Do said. “Not me,” Caleb said. “I didn’t do that.”

Do patted the dirt again.

“It’s so hot.” Caleb squinted. He tried to shake the sweat from his head. “Do you think that’s the sun we’re feeling, or the light at the end of the tunnel?”

Do shielded his eyes from the sky.

“That’s the spirit, Do. Don’t look at it. Don’t look at it either way.”

Caleb wanted a cup of cold water, or a root beer. The air was thick with humidity- practically liquid- but his thirst remained unquenched. He wished that he had drowned. At least then he wouldn’t be thirsty.

He sat back and watched smoke pour out of a hut. There was searing pain in his throat. “To die in a place like this… Well, it isn’t Christian. Do the souls of those whose bodies are eaten by stray dogs still make it to heaven?”

Do coughed up a sticky string of blood. It sank into the dirt at the base of Caleb’s boot. “Damn it,” Caleb said. “Damn it all.”

“What’s the point of this anyways? Why am I talking to you?” Caleb was dizzy. He thought again of the state fair. The vomit. “What’s the point of me prattling on and you not knowing what I’m saying? Do you know what I’m saying?” Caleb kicked at Do’s hand. “Can you feel what I’m saying?”

Do’s face was pale. “Doris Day,” he said.

“That’s right,” Caleb let out a low whistle. “Que fuckin’ sera, sera.” Do rolled in the dirt.

“I killed a man who looked like you, just east of Bo Tuc.” Do’s hands curled into claws.

“And another just north of here.”

Do’s mouth opened into a near-perfect circle. “And another, north of that.”

“When my dog got ill, my father shot her in the side,” Caleb’s chin began to tremble. “She rolled that same way, rolled until my father shot her a second time. Shot her in the head.” Caleb held a finger gun to his temple. Pulled the trigger.

Do jerked sharply, arching his back into the shape of a mountain, and then fell flat against the earth. He became still on impact, save for his fingers, which twitched and twitched like the wings of a gnat. His eyes locked on Caleb.

“Thing is, I think I’m sorry for what I did. But this is war. I don’t know how to feel sorry. They tell me not to feel sorry. I’m not sure that ‘sorry’ cuts it anyways.”

“Do I pray for you?” he whispered. “Does it make a difference?” Caleb swallowed. “What can one do?”

Do’s earthquaking hand extended back towards Caleb’s shoe, traversing the dirt like a snake stalking prey. The hand met the boot and encircled it. Squeezed once. Then his eyes glazed over.

Eyelids half shut, mouth agape. A gnat landed on his thin lip. He was gone.

Caleb felt tears well up in his eyes. He resigned, “What can one do?”

He struggled for breath. He touched his chest again and found that the wet had expanded. His vision was a tunnel. He saw Do at his feet. Saw only Do. The gnat on his lip. The look of sleep on his face.

Caleb trembled. He knew what would happen next. He’d be a casualty of war with no story. No one- not his commanding officers, his parents, his brother, Nancy, no one- would know what had happened to him. The fire from the huts would spread, his flesh would fall to ash, and he’d be gone. There’d be no story, no burial, no resolution. Nothing. Forever, nothing. Alone in the jungle for the rest of time. For what? Nothing, nothing, nothing. What can one do?

Alone, but not alone. Do’s hand on his boot was a message. “It’s alright,” the hand said, “we’re in this together. We’re going to die, but we’re not alone. It might be for nothing, but we’re not alone.”

He saw it now. Xin Loi. I’m sorry. At least we’re together.

That gave Caleb as much peace as he could hope to get. That evening, the sun went down as it always did, but for Caleb, it burnt out. The jungle dirt lapped up his blood the same as it did anyone else’s. After all, all blood tastes the same. All blood nourishes the same. Caleb was still in the jungle night, with Do’s hand on his foot and a gnat crawling on his lip.

She found the Siamese cat tied up in a plastic bag in bushes behind Target. She can’t believe what some people do. Her boyfriend, Teddy, still asleep, rolls onto his side. He manages a gas station and gets off at six in the morning. Husband, Katrina calls him. Marriage a ceremony neither can afford and perhaps the fragility of their lives warns them against. Tweekers both of them but clean now. She looks out a window at the cracked street still wet from the calm night. A block away, the silence is being nibbled away by cars on Interstate 805, soon to be a madness of rush-hour traffic. Not long from now Katrina will awaken to other noises. She wonders what those will be. Some traffic, sure, this is San Diego. Every city has traffic but maybe she’ll hear birdsong, too. Waking up to birds as she did as a child. Imagine. She and Teddy recently found an apartment through the housing authority. Of the nearly 8,500 homeless people in San Diego County, more than 700 live in vehicles. Almost 500 emergency housing vouchers became available in 2021 to address housing insecurity worsened by the COVID-19 pandemic. Katrina and Teddy got one of the vouchers, but it took them nearly a year to find a place. One landlord told her, All people on Section 8 have bedbugs. She felt he was just lumping her into a stereotype. In her opinion, there’re the bums who are content being homeless, and then there are people like her and Teddy who are working but don’t have a place to live.

The landlord who finally accepted their application rents apartments on Loma Way. She offered Katrina and Teddy a two bedroom with brown linoleum floors. Much better than that cheap brown carpet so many apartments have, especially with cats. Katrina checked it out on Google Maps and thought it looked like crap. But the photo she saw was old. When she and Teddy met with the landlord they found that all of the apartments had been recently remodeled and freshly painted. Nine hundred and fifty square feet. Beats the thirty-two square feet of the Winnebago and the leaky roof. When it rains, water pours into the bedroom and kitchenette. Teddy will shove her to one side of the bed so he can stay dry, her body pressed against the frayed particleboard of a cabinet. The other day, her mother called from Utah and said a foot of snow had fallen. Tell her we got a foot of rain inside, Teddy said. When they were using drugs they draped tarps over their tent to keep out the rain. One night, Katrina had to be life-flighted out of a riverbed near the golf course behind Fashion Valley Mall because of flooding. She was detoxing from speed and shaking so bad she couldn’t climb out ahead of the rising waters.

The landlord did not hold the history of drug arrests and convictions against them. As long as you tell me the truth before I do a background check, you’ll be fine, she had told them. They can move in two weeks. Hard to imagine having a place after living in the Winnebago for a year. No, eighteen months. A year and a fucking half. She and Teddy didn’t sleep much when they lived on the street before the Winnebago. Afraid who might walk up on them. Katrina knows three people who died, one stabbed, two OD’d. Bad stuff. If you make someone mad they can hide anywhere and come for you about just stupid stuff. Could be a guy touched someone’s backpack. People are nuts about their packs. This one dude took a guy’s pack because he owed him money. The pack had his heart meds and he died that night of a stroke. At least that’s what the paramedics said. Scary out there.

Robin stirs, opens one eye and watches a man walk past her car wheeling a garbage can. He picks up pieces of paper with a trash picker, peers at her, glances away and moves on in a desultory fashion suggesting that the sight of her provided only a temporary diversion from the mindless tedium of his task. She sits up, opens both of her eyes wide, squints, opens them again allowing the morning to sift around in her head until it settles into the beginning of yet another day, then she pulls the door handle, gets out and stretches. She wears a faded, green sweatshirt and gray sweatpants. Short, stocky. A wrestler’s build. Her brown hair falls around her cheeks. She holds a hand over her eyes against the sun. No clouds. Down the street toward The 805, a sign promoting Hawthorne Crossings shopping center shines in the sun as do the names of stores listed beneath it: Staples, Cycle Gear, Ross, Book Off, Dollar Tree.

The staff at Cycle Gear throw away bike helmets like confetti. The slightest dent and scratch and they’re tossed into a dumpster. Robin has seen Teddy collect them to recycle. Teddy’s out there, a hustler. He says he even finds Rolex watches but he’s got to be bragging or lying or both, right? C’mon, Robin tells herself, selling just one Rolex would get him off Othello. But he and Mike keep the tweekers away. Othello Avenue is quiet for the most part but if someone parks here to get high, those two are on them and get them gone, they sure do. Robin doesn’t know Katrina and Teddy well, or Mike for that matter. Talks to them but not all the time. What’s the point? Get to know people and then they leave. Katrina and Teddy aren’t staying. If all goes well, she won’t be far behind them.

Robin has lived in her VW for about a year. Stick shift. Saving for a new clutch. She has a clutch kit but needs someone to install it. The car is her everything. It’s a mess of Burger King wrappers and coffee cups but it ain’t horrible. She’s not a packrat like Steve. When it becomes a mess, she cleans it and when it turns into a mess again, she cleans it again. Like her life. She works as a caregiver for a grandmother and her two-year-old granddaughter. The child’s mother lives on the street turning tricks for crack, a toothless, emaciated figure peering wide-eyed into the slow trolling cars. In four weeks, Robin will move in with a man who needs in-home care 24/7. She has known him for eight years. Not well but they talked a lot over the years. A Polish guy, Harold. In his sixties, maybe seventies. He lived next door to a mutual friend. He sorted mail at a post office before he retired. He wanted to be a cop but, he told Robin, in those days the San Diego Police Department wouldn’t hire a Pole. Injured his hip on the job and it’s given him problems ever since. He’s in Carmel Mountain Rehabilitation & Healthcare Center now. Comes out in about four weeks. She’s ready to move in with him, ready for a room of her own. She’ll sleep a lot the first couple of days, she’s sure.

The median home price in San Diego County has surpassed $500,000 and the median monthly rent is almost $2,800. Some studios downtown rent for $2,000 a month. With prices like those, Robin feels grateful for the arrangement with Harold. It won’t be her place but it’ll be better than living in the VW, and she’ll still have time to help the woman with the grandchild. With two jobs, she should do all right. She used to clerk at a day-old bread store for four years until she screwed up. Was going through a divorce.. Was going to casinos and losing money. She stole one hundred dollars from a cash register at work one afternoon. Got caught, got fired. Then one night at a casino she lost what little money she had left and in her fury she punched the window of a slot machine and broke it. Damn window must’ve been pretty wobbly because she did’t hit it that fucking hard. Prosecutors charged her with a Class A misdemeanor for destruction of property. Had to pay $1,800 for that little bitty window plus the one hundred dollars she owed the bread company. People in charge don’t play. Stuff follows you. Background checks screwed her when she put in job applications. She left her apartment with only her clothes and took to the streets. When she got tired of being in her car, she pitched a tent in one of the many canyons around the city. She tried to think of it as camping, but she missed her bed.

Mike sits in the driver’s seat of the Chrysler, left elbow out the window like a bored taxi driver waiting for a fare. His blonde hair falls to his shoulders. One side of his scruffy beard skewed from sleep. Heavy set, he looks much younger than his sixty-one years. Thick body, his belly spills over his belt buckle. His black shirt, speckled with dandruff, stinks of his unwashed body. The stale air within his vehicle carries his funk. He rolls down the passenger window and feels the breezy crosscurrents. Steve appears in his side mirror walking up from behind the Chrysler, a skinny little dude the same age as Mike, T-shirt and jeans sloppy with wrinkles hanging off his body. He pauses, pokes his head in, Hey. Mike. Says he’d gone to Target for coffee and dropped his phone but someone found it and gave it back to him. Pretty lucky, huh? Stressed him out. Feels exhausted. Gonna take a nap. See you, Mike. He walks to his RV, turns to face Mike again as if to fix him there. Mike makes a face, folds his arms and looks down and shakes his head. Steve’d lose his arms if it they weren’t attached to his shoulders. He’s OK. Harmless. Suffered a head injury in a motorcycle accident, or so he says. Might have TBI. Mike considers himself lucky that he doesn’t have it. Or maybe he does. He can be forgetful. When he was in the army, a tank hatch cover fell on his head. Dropped him like a stick. He receives VA disability, about a $1,000 a month.

The other day, he saw Katrina, and she told him that she and Teddy had found a place. They don’t talk much but if he splurges on a pizza, he’ll offer them a slice. Steve and Robin, too, if he has enough. Good for them. So many homeless people. Mike keeps his head down, minds his own business. If he sees someone shooting up in their car or loading a pipe, he writes the license plate number and calls the cops. They show up eventually. He tells the tweekers, I know what you’re doing. Get out. He doesn’t yell at them. That’d be a good way to get a gun in his face. Teddy always backed him up. Now, Mike just might have to settle for calling the police and leave it at that.

Every morning he drives four or five blocks, gets something to eat. He has received tickets for being parked in one place too long. Five of those and the city will tow him, and then where’d he be? Carl’s Jr., it’s close. Gas costs too much to go far. He has up-to-date tags so he’s good there, and insurance, he’s got that too. It’s hard to get insurance being homeless. He lies. Gives the DMV an old address. They don’t check. He loves to cook but can’t in his car, of course. He warms soup at a 7-Eleven. McDonald’s, Denny’s, Jack in the Box, they’re not too expensive. His doctor says he has high cholesterol and type 2 diabetes. Blood pressure off the charts. Well, doc, I eat nothing but fast food. At Costco, he gets grapes, cherries, and water. Bananas, too, but on hot days after hours in the car they begin to turn brown and spotty. In cold weather he’ll buy up to six bananas. If he eats one a day, they’ll be gone before they spot.

He worked as a home healthcare aide for his old man for thirty-eight years after a driver ran his dad off a highway in Arizona. It was 1979. The old man had dropped Mike off at a boy scout jamboree near the Grand Canyon and got hit on his way back home. Never did catch the guy. Mike was something like a junior in high school at the time. Yellow paint from the driver’s car etched into the old man’s passenger door. He flipped into a ravine. His headlights tunneled straight into the night sky. He broke about every bone that could be broken and remained in St. Joseph’s Hospital in Phoenix for a year. Came out a paraplegic but he didn’t quit living. He met a woman from San Diego, got married and moved with her to California. Mike stayed in Arizona, married his high school sweetheart and joined the Army. Bootcamp at Fort. Lewing, Washington. Served three years on the DMZ in South Korea. That was enough. Came home, got his wife pregnant. He worked at KFC, Jack in the Box, and Jiffy Lube. Bounced from one job to another. Eight months later, he and his wife divorced. Young love gets to be old love and then no love at all after a while. He had gotten into speed by then. The old man told him to come to San Diego. Mike had nothing keeping him in Arizona, so he moved, settled next door to his father in Oceanside. In 1986 he began taking care of him full time after the old man’s wife left him. Like father, like son. Shot speed with his sister, who lived in Santee, a suburb.

The old man died in October 2018. Eighty-nine years old, three months shy of ninety. Had dementia in his final years. He served in Korea during the war, won a Bronze Star, three clusters. Before he got dementia in 2011, he volunteered at the VA. Mike didn’t know about the medal until he sorted through his dad’s things. That sort of bothers him. After so much time together, they shouldn’t have had secrets. He thought they were as tight as Siamese twins. Guess not. Goes to show. He’s not sure what but it does. The old man never talked about the war to anyone so he didn’t deny Mike anything he hadn’t denied others. And he never confronted Mike on his drug use. Fair’s, fair. But Mike wasn’t anyone else. He cared for him for decades even when he was high. So much for family. Caring for the old man for so long, Mike didn’t have much job experience. No résumé that’d count for shit. By May 2019, nearly a year later, almost out of money, he moved into his Chrysler. He’s not using drugs now but his sister still is so he won’t stay with her even if she offered to take him in which she hasn’t. He stares out his windshield at Steve’s RV. Steve has two grown sons. They aren’t offering him a bed. So much for family.

Steve stirs from his nap as the draft from a passing car rocks his RV. He has so much crap he can’t open the side door. To get out, he wriggles through the sliding window that separates the cab from the back of the RV squinching his nose, and while still on his stomach, sprawled across the driver and passenger seats, his legs bent, toes balanced against the driver’s window, he opens the passenger door and crawls out to the sidewalk. Loose tennis balls and a fishing pole, follow him. He bends and tugs at his belt and a man walking pat glances at him and keeps going.  Steve picks up the pole and tennis balls and drops them on the passenger seat. He went fishing the night before, caught one small fish, and threw it back. Watched it swim crookedly to the bottom and felt bad he had hurt it.  He decided not to fish again giving up a diversion that began in his childhood. Loved the rhythm of tossing the line, reeling it in. Kind of hypnotic. Almost disappointed when a fish took the bait and broke the spell. He was born in San Diego but spent a big part of his childhood in a Fresno ranch house. He just saw it after God knows how many years, decades really. Super cool. He had driven his niece, Nicole, to Washington state where her husband was stationed in the Navy. She had been visiting friends in San Diego and needed a ride. When the bottom fell out of his life, Steve lived with Nicole for a time in Liberty Military Housing – Murphy Canyon until her husband was transferred to Washington. His keeps in touch with his sons, Jacob and Gabrielle. Gabriele is in the Air Force in New Mexico. Jacob lives in University Heights, San Diego. Computer guy. Steve uses his address for mail. Jacob lives with his daughter, Scout, 7, and his girlfriend. Not enough room for Steve, at least that’s what he assumes. Jacob gave him one hundred dollars one time. That was nice. He wants to believe his boys have faith in him. He doesn’t pull alarms. He doesn’t complain.

Steve was on his way back to San Diego after he’d dropped Nicole off when he decided to stop in Fresno and check out his old childhood place. More developed now, nothing like it was in ’69 when he was kid. He had pulled over and just looked at the low-slung brown house, closed his eyes and his memories played out like a movie. He took a bus to school,  walked down the long driveway when it pulled up. Cows nearby strolled in their heavy, head-bobbing way, pausing to pull at grass, and chickens wandered fields. That night as he slept in his RV, someone stole the generator he had strapped to the bumper. In the morning, when he realized what had happened, he shook his head with the innocence of someone who could not fathom how such a thing could happen anymore than how he could comprehend inadvertently injuring that fish. He continued his drive back to San Diego and Othello Avenue.

The morning progresses. Emaciated weeds grow through cracks in the sidewalk, vine-like and pale green. Palm trees sway. The noise of children and women drift from the Target parking lot. Gulls bob on currents staring down at the confusion below them and a few alight on the hot pavement of Othello Avenue snagging a speck of something before flapping their wings and rising again.

Katrina starts work at ten in the morning, stands behind the counter of the Häagen-Dazs store in Fashion Valley Mall and opens a box of paper cups. She wears a black T-shirt with the Häagen-Dazs logo and she ties her long hair in a ponytail. This is her time, the early hours. Gets more done working by herself, restocking for the afternoon and evening rush.

You have chocolate? Someone asks, poking their head in the door.

Of course.

I’ll be by after lunch.

I’ll be here, Katrina says.

She has worked part-time at the store for about a year and earns about $1,600 a month. A customer, a four-year-old girl named Sophie, recently asked her to be her best friend. Katrina smiled and agreed. Another asks for pumpkin ice cream, a combination that sounds disgusting to Katrina. She has gotten to know a hairdresser and her three daughters. Another customer said he’d miss her when she told him she had applied for a job at the Target store where she and Teddy park. It would be a wonderful opportunity to work there and so convenient. Even after they move, it would be closer than Fashion Valley and better pay with benefits.

She finds a stepladder and climbs onto the bottom rung so she can reach a box of styrofoam bowls from a shelf. Raising her arms, she arches her back. Her body curves, her shirt and pants tight to her body. A man pauses by the door and admires her. She grins. It’s good to be noticed. Good to feel attractive. Good to like herself, her figure. She pulls the box and sets it on the counter. Reminds herself to call her mother. She normally does every morning but she was running late today.

Katrina was born in Orem, Utah, and moved to Huntsville, Utah, when she was eight. She liked Huntsville, a small, quiet town. No weirdos. As a little girl she could hang out with friends in a park at night and play hide-and-seek near their elementary school. Rode their bikes. In the winter they met at the ice-skating rink. Father a diesel mechanic. She has two brothers in Washington near the Canadian border. Can’t recall the town. Another one still lives in Utah. Doesn’t hear from any of them.

Her senior year in high school she met a guy and got pregnant four months before graduation. She doesn’t know what she liked about him. He was cute: she was in love.  They were young and she thought he was perfect. Even when she realized he wasn’t, she stayed with him. Her parents had divorced and  she didn’t want her kids to grow up like that.

Stupid, she says to herself.

He didn’t work, sold drugs and introduced her to heroin and pills. In 2016, they divorced. She kept the kids until her mother informed the Department of Social Services about her drug use. Katrina had tried to hide it from her, but she knew. She saw her hanging out a lot with a crowd that looked like they hadn’t bathed in a month. Katrina didn’t allow her to see the kids because she didn’t want her mother to see her. So, yeah, she knew. Her ex-husband’s aunt ended up raising the children. A blessing, Katrina thinks now. They’ve done better without her. A twenty-year-old son joined the Marines; her eighteen-year-old son is about to graduate high school, and her thirteen-year-old daughter joined the girls’ eighth grade wrestling team. She hasn’t spoken to them in two, three years. The last time they talked, it didn’t go well. Pissed off at her for leaving them. They’ll come around. She’s different now. She writes letters and sends gifts, tries not to beat herself up. Does it hurt? Yeah. Does she feel bad? Yeah, but she can’t change the past. Guilt makes her want to get high. She’s no good to them high. That’s how she lost them. A lot of tweekers don’t quit. Or they do but just for a minute. They stop and look around and all they see are the bushes and dirt where they live. They start thinking about the mess they’ve made of their lives and they get high to stop thinking. So, yeah, she feels bad but she’s happy for her children. And for herself now.

Katrina did four months in a Utah prison for theft and other charges resulting from her drug use including prescription fraud. When she got out, she met a truck driver whose route included California, Colorado and Utah. He’d stop at the Flying J Truck stop in Ogden where Katrina panhandled for drug money. The trucker bought her a sandwich from Denny’s every time he came through. They became good acquaintances if not friends and after five years, he told her if she ever cleaned up he’d put her up in his San Diego home. In 2017, she got on a Greyhound bus and took him up on it. He died a year later at sixty-two of cancer. Katrina started using meth again and stayed in Presidio Park. She met Teddy about the same time outside of a 7-Eleven, tall, skinny and handsome and high on speed. He had just done a ten year stretch for drug crimes. He kept getting busted until his most recent release from prison in January 2019 when he decided to clean up. He told Katrina he was through with drugs and had even stopped smoking cigarettes. He wouldn’t see her unless she also quit. She did. When they received their housing voucher Teddy told her to leave him, that she’d have better luck finding a place alone. His extensive prison record, he said, would hold her back. Why would I leave you when you helped me get clean? she asked him.

With Katrina at work Teddy awakens alone. On his off days, he hustles with the instincts he honed scoring drugs. He found twenty-six helmets from the dumpster behind Cycle Gear one night. Abandoned shirts, pants and jackets he sells at swap meets fifty cents to a dollar. Jewelry, iPhones, he finds it all. He buys aluminum cans from homeless people, a penny a pop, and sells them to recycling centers. He has $250 worth of cans in the Winnebago. The cats squat on the sacked piles like royalty. His babies, Teddy calls them. Coils of tattoos snake down his arm and both sides of his neck. Braided hair down his back. Not like he was when Katrina met him but filled out. Buffed. A presence. He stops shoplifters busting out the back doors of Target with carts full of stolen stuff. One man yelled at him, At least let me keep the shoes! He didn’t. Teddy runs Othello Avenue.

Robin knows a lot of people, even a few with homes. There’s a woman she works with now while she waits for the postal worker to get out of rehab. She helps her raise a two-year-old granddaughter. The girl’s mother runs the streets. This woman, the grandmother, used to live on the streets. Just got a place. Everybody Robin knows needs a little bit of help, and she’s not afraid to help herself. Robin loves to work. Never once was she on welfare. Always found some kind of job even if it was only day labor. She passed those values onto her daughter, now thirty-years old living in Colorado working as a teacher’s aide. Married with two kids. Robin can go out and see her anytime but she ain’t no beggar. She’ll visit when she has money. She’s never been like the guy she sees now on the sidewalk by the shopping center, flat on his back, using his T-shirt to cover his face from the sun. No, never that bad. She always had a tent, a stove, and a good place near a highway or in a canyon when she got tired of the cramped conditions of her car. Police charged her with vagrancy more than a few times. She probably still has bench warrants from all her citations. Was it vagrancy or trespassing? She doesn’t know. Whichever, it’s not worth the time of any cop that’s not an asshole to bother her about it. She’s met all kinds of homeless people: the desperate, the meth heads, and the general trouble kind. One guy slammed her face with a rock in a Starbucks parking lot in Clairmont. Crazy. What did she do? Nothing. Still sees him jabbering to himself. Robin knows she’s a mess but she’s not crazy. A little touched maybe. Takes that to survive out here.

Steve has a 1973 sHonda CT90 in a carrier on the rear of the RV. Sweet little ride. Nice orange job. Sort of a keepsake, he guesses, from his good, younger days. He was into motorcycles as a kid. In high school, he rode a Honda Cl 175. He loved the way it turned, getting low to the road. Wind in his hair bugs, in his teeth. It was all that. Not a team sport, really, motorcycling. Just him and his bike and the road. All that. He moved up to a BSA DB350 and then a Yamaha RD 400. It was fast but heavy, it felt like he was riding a bus. He traded it for a Yamaha RD 350. Smooth better handling. Nimble. An extension of himself. His wife Sandi would sit behind him, arms wrapped around his waist. First date with her was on the last day of his senior year in high school, 1979. Pretty as all get out. Captain of the drill team. They had a history class together. Married in 1985. He scrolls through old photographs on his phone. There he is in a blue helmet showing all his teeth in a wide grin; there he is crouched low over the handlebars; there he is posing with a white Labrador retriever, his two young sons and Sandi, her mouth open with the same tooth dazzling smile he has.

Steve stopped riding after he crashed his 350 in November 1988. He was out with his buddies on California-78 and Banner Grade when they stopped for a break.. A beautiful day. One of those clear days where the sky stretches forever. The road ran into a flat stretch flanked by scrub and desert. Steve had a sip of a friend’s beer, put his helmet back on and said, I’m going to see the rest of this road. Sightseeing, staring at distant mountains going eighty miles an hour. Not paying attention. He skidded, lost control and hit the pavement striking his head, brains scrambled. He remained in a hospital for three weeks. Sandi had just given birth to Jacob three months earlier. Steve tried to return to work but he couldn’t focus on any one task for very long. He forgot what he was doing almost as soon as he began it. At home, he tried to help Sandi with Jacob. He understood he needed five scoops of formula to make his bottle but he couldn’t remember how to count to five.

He lost his job but found another as a maintenance man with a packing company. His boss wrote down what she wanted him to do so he wouldn’t forget. He was named an employee of the month one year but was laid off a short time afterward. In 2009, after years of taking odd jobs, he went on disability. Eight years later, he found a love letter to Sandi in the glove compartment of her car from another man. Steve called her all kinds of names and she slapped him and he shouted, Hit me like you gotta pair, bitch! She moved out the next day. He remained in the house until 2019 when they sold it, and then he moved in with a woman he had met on an online dating site. After two months and endless arguments, he left her and stayed with Nicole and her husband. When they left for Washington, he settled into his RV. He doesn’t know where his money from the sale of the house went. He believes the IRS took thousands of dollars for back taxes but he doesn’t know why and amid all his junk he can’t find any documentation to confirm that. He cashed out some of his savings with the idea of moving to Mexico but he thinks he left the money in a bag somewhere or did something else with it. Whatever. He doesn’t have it. He knows that much. Some days, he scrolls through his phone and looks at old family photos. He sends angry texts to friends condemning Sandi. She’s a narcissist, cheated. I discovered her dirty, little secret. He looks at pictures of his bikes like a lover. My beloved RD350.  My beautiful RD 400. My gorgeous Super Sport 750 Ducati.

This morning, he considers the mess inside the RV. He has an older brother, Joe, in Las Vegas, a retired maintenance man. Move in with me, Joe has suggested. His son, Joe Jr., runs a pest control business in San Antonio. Steve could work for him. They’ve talked about it but he can’t decide. Should he move to Las Vegas and be with his brother or San Antonio and work for Joe Jr? He doesn’t know. He feels so overwhelmed sometimes his head hurts. Today, I’ll throw away trash, he tells himself. He needs to do something.

A damp breeze tosses crumpled food wrappers across Othello Avenue. Pigeons strut, pecking at the ground. A slow moving semi-truck rattles a rusted sewer lid as it turns into the driveway of Wentworth Automotive. The driver swings out holding a clipboard and walks with a determined stride toward a door. Clouds collect in the distance above downtown .

A man pauses by Mike’s car.
Two guys tried to break into my ride.
What they look like? Mike asks.
No idea. Had gray hoodies. When they saw I was in it they ran.
Thanks for the intel.
Be careful, the guy says.
Same to you.

Mike sighs. A tweeker robbed him at gunpoint not too long ago. Ninety-five percent of the time Othello is quiet but not that day. Bastard got seven dollars, his eyes the size of dinner plates. Fucking tweeker.

Maybe it was payback for his own drug-addled days. When he was twenty-seven and doing speed with his sister, her neighbor, also a speed freak, accused him of abusing her fourteen-year -old daughter after he told her he had no dope to give. She hangs around your house a lot, she said. Maybe that’s because you’re fucked up all the time. She filed a complaint and the police arrested him. A public defender told him to plead guilty and she’d get him five years probation. You know what they do to child abusers in prison if you’re convicted? she asked him. Scared, he took the deal. He thinks now that his lawyer screwed him to make her job easier. He checks in with the police once every thirty days. Has done that for thirty-six years. Nothing else on his record but parking tickets. He can forget about finding housing and a job. A background check will take him out faster than he can say, I didn’t touch that girl. Othello Avenue allows him a kind of peace. Here he experiences no judgment.

Teddy scours neighborhoods on blue days, the days of the week when households put out their blue recycling bins. He knows the hotspots. One week he made $1,000, and he and Katrina bought the Winnebago. He was ten years old when he arrived with his mother in San Diego in 1993, refugees from poverty and civil war in Ethiopia and devout Muslims. His mother tried to steer him away from the street, but he saw drugs as a fast way to make money and followed a different path than the one she had chosen for him. He had money and women until he didn’t. Before he met Katrina, he lived for four years camped in a parking lot. He has two kids in grammar school, one son at Georgia State University. His wages are garnished for child support. He doesn’t complain. Past is past. He won’t say more. Doesn’t need just anyone to know his business. He lives for the future. He changed course, follows a different path.

The cats in the Winnebago settle on the dashboard and watch Katrina walk toward them after a coworker dropped her off from work. She opens a door and they rub against her ankles until she scoops food from a bag into their bowls. After being on her feet all day she would like to sit and relax but she knows if she does that she wouldn’t get up again. Instead she finds a broom, goes back outside and begins sweeping the sidewalk, her way of showing appreciation for being allowed to park there 24/7. Teddy found a perfectly good generator in a dumpster that she’ll use later to power a vacuum and clean the Winnebago. They purposely work opposite shifts so one of them is at the RV at all times to prevent a breaks-in. Once they move into their apartment, they’ll try to work the same hours so they can spend more time together.

When she lived on the street, Katrina spent her evenings at a soup kitchen downtown. After she quit using drugs, she stopped by to show the staff she had changed. She wore makeup, had on a perky pink blouse and designer jeans. Teeth fixed. Told everyone to call her by her full name instead of her street name, Trinny. She wasn’t that person anymore.

It’ll be so good to get off Othello. People drive down it at seventy miles an hour, tow trucks barrel ass. What if someone hit the Winnebago while she was in it? There was an accident one time in the Target parking lot. A guy’s car got smashed in a hit and run. Katrina heard the noise inside the Winnebago. The guy whose car got hit was dazed but unhurt. The airbag had knocked him almost cold. At first he didn’t know where he was. She comforted him until the police came. He was so grateful that he invited her to his beauty parlor and did her hair.

She rummages for a jar of peanut butter to make Steve a sandwich. He forgets to eat sometimes. And Mike and Robin. They might want one. She won’t be back here, she knows. She won’t forget about them, but there’s no need to return. She’ll no longer be bound by the experience that now connects them. Being homeless isn’t a group sport but they do look out for one another. So, while she’s here. While she’s homeless. Sheltered homeless, as social workers call it because she lives in a vehicle. She supposes that sounds better than plain old homeless but whatever they call it, it still sucks. A distinction devised by people who haven’t been on the street, she’s sure. She reaches for a loaf of white bread, removes six slices. After she makes the sandwiches, she puts them in a bag maneuvers around the cats and steps outside.

Thank you, Steve tells her in a breathless voice that reminds her of a child.

Thank you, Robin says.

She stops at Mike’s van.

Thank you, he says taking the last sandwich.

I’ll see you tomorrow.

I’ll be here.

Shadows spread over Othello Avenue as late afternoon progresses into evening. A clear night concealing in its depths the sounds of desolate, unsettled sleep in the cramped confines of vehicles. Except for Katrina. She looks at the clear, night sky and stares into the light of one star until its yellow glow is all she sees. Her mind clears. She dreams in that kind of emptiness. Dreams quiet dreams of a yard, birdsong, and a cute little garden. Something small. Something clean. Something safe.

The scored green vinyl seat inside an Air Force Bluebird bus at the base of the “Bring Me Men” ramp at the U.S. Air Force Academy was slippery under my jeans. On this 1987 June afternoon, I was wearing my acid-washed Levis and the shortest haircut I’d ever had. The Naugahyde stink of the seats with the warm, nervous bodies made my already churning stomach a witch’s brew. In some ways, these nerves felt like they were happening to someone else. I was a distant observer of a movie scene where military recruits were about to enter basic training. I felt my damp hands opening and closing as if forcing my body to move would prove to me that I was still myself.

To my right, I saw the glass and metal dormitory windows of Vandenberg Hall blindly reflecting the sun. A line of tables with boxes set up on the open concrete pad beneath the windows stood between us and cadets fiddling with folders. They were wearing green fatigue pants and tight white t-shirts with dark blue cuffs, their last names and USAFA screened onto the left-hand side of their chests. The ones near the bus folded their arms and their tight faces under their molded blue berets showed nothing. Not one person on the bus with me said a word under the idling rumble of the diesel engine.

The whoosh of opening doors made me whip my head forward. A muscular demon of spit and sound boarded the bus yelling “Basics, I am Cadet First Class ….” but I wasn’t hearing the details, only coming back into my body and noticing that every muscle there was vibrating. It’s starting. A smile played around my quivering lips: nerves coming to the surface, that ingrained response to please that would become the bane of my existence. He growled “…if you have any doubts about this, whatsoever, do NOT get off this bus.” When I stood, gripping my small bag with my pre-purchased and broken-in combat boots and my underclothes, a guy a few rows back from me stayed seated.

Under screams of “Go! Go! Go” we hustled off the bus and over to the tables where other cadets handed us cards on strings to wear around our necks. With a checklist to complete, we snaked off in a single-file line through medical stations, unwittingly signing up for a life-time membership with the Association of Graduates, taking armloads of issued uniforms. We all received haircuts even if our hair was already cut; men were shaved bald and women had to have hair above their collars and less than one-inch thick. I misread that fact as less than an inch long, arriving with woefully short hair they still cut. We looped up and down hallways and through rooms that would become familiar in the coming years but were a blur without meaning on this first day.

∞

Thirteen years after I trailed in my brother’s footsteps through a yellow jacket’s nest outside our Oregon childhood home, I followed in his same footsteps to the U.S. Air Force Academy. The movie Top Gun was one year old by the time I stepped off the Bluebird bus, but my brother and his freshmen-year roommate visited our home the previous summer just as the movie came out, radiating that same cocky confidence that made the characters in that movie so enviable. I wanted that power, too, so I pursued their confidence all the way to the Air Force Academy. I didn’t notice that Kelly McGillis’s Charlie in Top Gun, was a civilian. That she never flew a plane or wore a uniform or served much purpose beyond being arm candy for Maverick. I just continued to believe that I could do anything my brother could do.

My beginning on this journey into the military was as an annoying little sister. I tried almost everything he did. And if trying the same stunts hurt me, I had to make sure he didn’t see me cry. In fact, I just didn’t cry by the time I was a teenager. I was his groupie, his cult follower, his worshiper. I learned that hiding my weakness was a badge of honor. That skill, at least, was great preparation for the Air Force Academy.

On the day I arrived at that steel and glass fortress for Basic Cadet Training, BCT or Beast, my brother was nowhere around. The large painted footsteps that taught basic cadets to stand in formation might as well have been made in his image. Somehow, I knew that this military college was small and that any failure on my part would be passed on to him. I’m sure I was feeling all of the emotions people around me were feeling: fear, anxiety, inadequacy, probably not in that order. I pushed them down so hard that I can’t remember them.

Faking my way through the physical demands of Beast wasn’t an option. My bravado was an act, and I wasn’t sure about my ability to follow through in reality. Up to this point in my life, I set goals and I achieved them. Straight A’s in high school? Bam. A four-year scholarship to Washington State University? Done. And that high school senior spring break, after visiting Cameron at his college, I decided I would apply there as well. Too late to be accepted to the Air Force Academy immediately after high school graduation, I took the scholarship to Washington State University for a year. When I applied to the Academy, I think I was expecting someone to finally tell me no. But they said yes.

Who leaves a nearly free ride at a state party school for a strict military college with payment in kind for military service when I finished? Apparently this girl.

The Bluebird bus was hours ago, now. At some point, after we dumped our pile of issued uniforms into our basic squadron dorm rooms and came out dressed in polyester tight shorts and white t-shirts with our last names scrawled in felt pen over the USAFA, I stood at attention studying CONTRAILS, the small book of knowledge we had to carry and memorize. An upperclass cadet woman leaned in and asked, “Do you have a brother?”

A smile ghosted my features as I said, “Yes, ma’am,” one of seven basic responses I was allowed to give.

“Wipe that smile off your face, Basic,” she hissed. “What do you think this is, a tea party?”

∞

The next morning, the first real morning of Beast, bleary from a lack of sleep, I stumbled out into the brisk Colorado dawn making rows and columns with my peers, my arms locked at my sides, my feet in military-issue running shoes, splayed out duck fashion in my attempt to be at the position of attention. My hair was so short, the chilly, soft breeze didn’t lift it. Cadets only two years ahead of us, but every bit adults in our eyes, were yelling instructions. As a group, we learned the basics of marching the afternoon we arrived. I was a member of the award-winning Montesano High School marching band. I wasn’t worried about that part.

But almost everything else worried me. My alternately grinning and serious face gave no clear clues to my interior turmoil while my head spun with self-doubt. Could I make it through the physical training? Cameron joined me on a joint run and doing some push ups only a few days before I boarded a flight away from home for this challenge.

“You’re not going to make it,” he said with frank eye contact and raised eyebrows.

Now as I faced the test of the first morning, I could feel the pre-breakfast acid trickling through my stomach. Punch drunk on minimal sleep, terrified someone would see I didn’t belong, I clenched my hands to avoid shaking in the fresh, scentless air.

Even though we kept our eyes “caged” without looking around us, marching band taught me to sense my neighbor’s state of mind by the smallest of body movements. Every last one of us, even the cadet cadre training us, was exhausted by the “oh-dark-thirty” fire alarm that sent us all stumbling out of the dorms and waiting across the street.

Hunched against the night air, the gaggle of brand new recruits looked like hundreds of mental patients in our pale blue Air Force-issued pajamas, velvety dark blue robes, and slippers. Upperclass cadre wore civilian pajamas and did their best to herd us into accountability. I, for one, wondered if the sense-splitting shriek of the fire alarms was the usual wake up call. They took away our watches and, for all we knew, it was time to get up. I knew so little about this training, and what I did know had an air of the ridiculous. We never found out if that first night’s alarm was a prank or a real alert, but we never woke up in Beast that way again. After what felt like an hour, we returned to our rooms to sleep until reveille. I’m sure I wasn’t the only one who waited in bed, plank stiff and staring at the ceiling, ready for the real wake up that would kick off the six grueling weeks of training.

There were about 120 of us in my Basic Cadet Training Squadron, almost 1400 new freshmen in total spread evenly over ten squadrons. The Basic squadrons were named by letters and each combined four groups of freshmen divided into flights. I didn’t realize, at first, that the people in my flight would be in my numbered squadron in the school year.

For morning runs, they sized us shortest to tallest to make sure the people with the shortest legs, mostly women, were setting the pace. I was surrounded by other C Squadron “Cobras” of the third Basic Cadet Squadron when we received the order to “forward march.” As we stepped off into the chill air, I wondered for the first time why that order, when the commander shouted it, sounded like, “Forward, HARCH!” In another few steps we heard the call, “Forward at the double time…..HARCH!” In that pause before and during the final sharp directive we growled like animals showing our enthusiasm for the physical effort awaiting us.

We scuffed off across the pebbled-concrete Terrazzo, a square which connected the buildings of the campus. If I could have been a falcon, the school mascot, that morning, flying at 10,000 feet, I would have seen the 10 basic cadet squadrons filling one side of the concrete, jogging beside Vandenberg Hall toward a massive ramp burnished with the metal words “Bring me Men” on the back side, just where we were dropped off by Bluebird buses the day before.

So far, our movement was flat or downhill. I could make it.

I learned that the Academy clusters in the foothills of the Rampart Range at an altitude of 7,258 feet above sea level… “far, far above that of West Point or Annapolis” we learned to say. Signs in the sports complex warned rival teams “The Air is Rare.” Viewed from the air, USAFA is unique with its sharp angles, shining metal, and glittering glass. The architect intended a wholly modern space to represent this new military branch.

The massive rectangular space was lined with Terrazzo-pebbled concrete and marble strips with a grass square east of the chapel and between the dorms. From a falcon’s height, the old fighter planes punctuating each corner of the grass became tiny models and the corner closest to the dining hall was a hill with the patently unbelievable myth that it covered the bones of the earliest cadets. Between that hill and Fairchild Hall, was the Air Gardens, with hatched terrazzo-style paths slicing the grass. Perfect, architect-model Honey Locust trees representing each graduate who died in the Vietnam War led our eyes to the Eagle and Fledglings statue facing the dining facility, Mitchell Hall, instructing on its brown marble front: “Man’s flight through life is sustained by the power of his knowledge.”

When I felt the slope of the ramp dropping away under my feet that were slapping in time to our cadre’s rhythmic call “Left, left, left-right-left,” I heard a tall blond leader wail out the notes in cadence “C-130 rollin’ down the strip,” and I became part of a machine answering this call and response: “C-130 rollin’ down the strip!” My breath was taken away in the enthusiasm of the music of this military jody—the song forming some military complaint that was to take our minds off the running and keep us breathing. As I began gasping in the effort to sing and jog, even downhill, I was swept up in the camaraderie and sheer military-ness of the moment. I was doing it.

“Airborne Daddy gonna take a little trip.”

“AIRBORNE DADDY GONNA TAKE A LITTLE TRIP!” our hundred-plus voices already knew that we needed to drown out the other 9 squadrons singing different jodys around us.

Later our required, rote freshman knowledge informed us that each of the USAFA building names belonged to a man famous in making the Air Force a distinct branch of the military or for his honorable and heroic service. In fact, my basic cadet summer marked the first year a woman showed up in our required memorization, even if there were still no massive structures honoring women’s achievement. This 1987 summer, only seven years after the first women graduated, we were supposed to memorize a quote by Amelia Earhart from our small Contrails book of information Air Force doolies carried on our person at all times. We memorized the book from cover to cover by the time the year was over. Back then, I didn’t bother to learn what Earhart said, already trying to inhabit these guys’ values: to devalue women who I was already seeing as “other.” I wouldn’t find any value in the wisdom that pioneering woman was meant to impart to us. What could a woman teach me?

During that freshman year when a faceless upperclassman yelled, “Give me Earhart’s quote,” we recited in a high-pitched wail, “Sir, Amelia Earhart’s quote is as follows: I was lost when I wrote this.” We were ridiculing a ground-breaking aviator’s disappearance. I recently rediscovered the intended words, and learned that Earhart, who was also a poet, wrote: “Courage is the price that life exacts for granting peace.” Perhaps the eloquent, thoughtful words were too sophisticated for the juveniles meant to know them. If only I had memorized her words, held onto them as a form of rebellion instead of conforming to the older cadets’ blind misogyny. I wish I had known who I would become instead of trying to be like everyone else, mostly men.

We trotted down the Bring Me Men ramp and then across the short leg of the road north of Fairchild Hall. Straight and farther down another ramp, we leveled out on the Cadet Parade Field, soon to be named Stillman Field for the male first Commandant of Cadets. In the third of 10 squadrons, I ran in the squishy tracks of the columns in front of me, and they reeked like an overflowing toilet underfoot. Across from the bleachers, we formed up into position so that all 10 squadrons faced the empty seats. The leaders gave us an order that spaced us out for calisthenics, and we went through the paces of jumping jacks and stretches before finding ourselves prone in the mud doing leg lifts and pushups. So far, so good. I could do all the physical work. I felt my confidence boosted. Later, we learned that the stench was from the non-potable water used to water the grass, cold and leaching through our clothes. The stains never came out of our white t-shirts.

When we finished a series of body-weight exercises, we formed up for the run back up to the Terrazzo. We circled the parade field once and headed up the ramps.

That first morning, I kept right in step, laboring under the absence of oxygen at this altitude but relieved to discover I was up to the task. On other mornings, those short people up front proved that having shorter legs didn’t mean they weren’t fast. Sometimes sprinkler saturated ground meant the mud sucked at our shoes and hindered our strides. Probably about the second week of training, our leader growled and turned us away from the ramp after the first lap. Soon I didn’t always keep up with the formation. I also didn’t always drop out, but some mornings I just couldn’t get enough air.

Others dropped out of some runs, too, but I had no energy to notice their struggles. My ability to finish with the group, or not finish with them, still seems random to me. Some mornings I could keep up with the formation. Other times I was left gasping with my hands on my knees. Any time I dropped out of a run because I couldn’t breathe, I found that, once I caught my breath, I could run at the same pace as the squadron behind them. I could keep running at the squadron’s pace until we arrived back at the dorms at the top of the hills. This last trick infuriated the unfortunate cadre member staying back with me who hissed, “If you can run this fast now, Torrens, why can’t you make it with your classmates?”

“Sir, I do not know.” One of the seven basic responses I was allowed to give. And I was telling the truth.

SOUNDINGS

Things,
your black b-ball shoes,
loose-laced, open-tongued,
curse one corner;
your books, benched, titles turned down;
your trophy array, glitterings speechify

—steering far from the sirenic
roar of your closed room—

The tulips drip,
yellows slackening,
some randomly red-lined
with a quirky genetic scrawl,
into a drinking glass
you left …

Listen, all I can do
is endure for a word
in edgewise.

However I heave and haul,
the lines come back hooked empty.

So fuck it,
boots, shoes, shirts, books
Throw them all in
the hole in me,
landfill in
free fall
spiking off
the split bark of winter trees
down fire-escaped stories
through the uneasy laps of whitecaps,
to thud some sandy bottom
where you came to tossed rest.

Such depths, no fathoming?

Our Folklore

Long ago, you were molten rock, and I—
well, I spoke the language of bears.

But now that I have been out of the forest
for so long, all the words and grammar escape

me, and I often find myself lost. And you—
well, you are often mistaken for a statue

in this solid state. No more rumblings and
agitations. We are both quiet these days.

I can still see his smile as I settle into my desk and the normal morning wave shuffles in. First comes the pinstripes of the best and the brightest, carrying their expertise and experience like an expensive briefcase by their side, letting it swing around for all to see. They speak of exotic and noteworthy places all the same, making no distinction between a Washington and a Baghdad. Their presence and self-importance is ballooned by the special assistant that seemingly exists to fan the flames of their egos, oohing and awing with every detail of the important missions the guests recount, and gesticulating at the carefully placed references to impressive figures they dealt with on their travels. I tap on my keyboard to log into my computer and listen in on the personal odysseys of guests’ respective self-declared, world-saving pilgrimages. I place my second coffee next to the cheap frame at the corner of my desk and there it is, the smile.

Like every morning, I peer over at it and see the sparkle of Mulligan’s teeth above the sand-caked filth of our fatigues. I try not to smell the smoke or taste the dust, as I know that leads down a dark road littered with smoke, fire, and demons. That I cannot stand. So, instead, I distract myself from the tightening in my chest with a gulp of the warm brew and some shuffling of papers. I blink hard and take a deep breath as the final straggling dignitary drones on about the misfortunes of his delayed connecting flight and the plights of business class. I think he’s a former ambassador turned senior fellow of some kind with an expertise in economic development or the like. Just for kicks, I look at the special assistant’s schedule to find the reason for the wayward ambassador’s troubles. In block letters, I see the title of the conference he has been invited to attend: DIPLOMACY AND BUSINESS SYMPOSIUM: ADDRESSING POVERTY IN THE GLOBAL SOUTH.

The worn down dirt roads and begotten mud huts along the banks of the Euphrates replace the calendar on my screen. The smell of wretched decay, sewage, and wastewater penetrates through the windows of our M-RAP. I hear the laughter of the little girl who chases a deflated and torn soccer ball down the trash-filled alleys of Al Baghdadi. She waves at our convoys as we pass by until, one day, she follows the ball onto an unexploded mortar cache that sends her flying high into the sky and litters her tiny bones and flesh across the same roadway.

“I’m Dean Miller’s 9 a.m.”

I look up to see another suit standing above my desk. This one is slim and powder blue, matching the relatively young man in it. He does not look at me. Instead, he is glued to his phone, which must contain urgent emails that will assuredly save little girls from blowing themselves up playing soccer. I begin to say that I am not a receptionist, but bite my tongue as I look at his expensive watch and down at his polished shoes. He’s never been near Al Baghdadi or any town like it. Instead, I give him a smile and lead him to the Dean’s office where they commence a discussion about their understandings of the harsh realities of intra-state conflict and prospects for resolution after sucking down their French-press and marveling at the Indonesian artwork on the Dean’s wall. From their air-conditioned haven, they will save the world, for they know war and violence.

Walking back to my desk, I try to guess the blue suit’s age. He looks as old as D’Angelo was when he died. Early thirties. D’Angelo played guitar and had a Harley at home. He showed me a picture of his kids once, but I can’t remember if it was one girl and two boys, or two girls and one boy. That’s about all I can remember about him. I didn’t know him well, but our few interactions were cordial enough. I wasn’t there when the IED ripped apart his legs into a mangled mess, either, but I heard on the radio that he was still alive when they put him in the medevac chopper. He bled out somewhere over Al Anbar province. I look back at the frame on my desk, focusing on the American flag we’re holding in front of a row of Hescos on our second week in country. We’re wearing boonie caps and our full combat load, flaunting our weapons, ammo, and Kevlar. I wonder if it was one of the boys or one of the girls who was handed the folded flag at D’Angelo’s funeral.

The computer bings and I look at my email to see an announcement about a new security studies fellow. I scroll through and skim the highlights. Army. Lieutenant Colonel. West Point. Intelligence officer. Always intelligence officers. Sometimes pilots or JAG lawyers. But no grunts. That must be the unwritten rule in the veteran’s affairs office down in admissions and financial aid. I imagine a not so distant reality where the security studies fellow conducts an intelligence briefing. He details the security of a road in the Hit district of Al Anbar and deems it free of IEDs. He declares it safe for travel by convoy and foot patrol. He stands in front of a PowerPoint presentation in a faraway headquarters in Kuwait or Qatar. That’s that, and so, off D’Angelo goes.

*

It’s 10’oclock now and all the suits have filed off to their respective conferences and meetings. With the fanfare died down, the stream of faculty trickles in. The pinstripes of the best and brightest are replaced with the tweed of the wise and prognostic. Reading some of their bios on the website, one wouldn’t be alone in mistaking them as manifestly prophetic. A well respected professor of gender studies decides to engage is some small-talk with an associate dean behind my desk. I can’t help but overhearing as I sort through expense reports of faculty research trips to Italy and Montenegro. They discuss her recent book on women in the US military and consider branding techniques to effectively showcase it on the website. The dean suggests a meeting with marketing.

“It’s remarkable work, Kathleen. The section on women in combat arms units was so inspiring.”

I hear the creak of Carhart’s door flying open from her chu as the clash of metal pierces through the silent air of the desert night. Thompson runs out as he pulls up his OCP trousers by the belt and holds his rifle in his left hand. He swivels his head from left to right and scans the surrounding compound before he runs off and disappears from the moonlight. I hear Carhart’s screams. But it’s more than screams, like the unrelenting howl of a wounded animal about to die. I walk into her room and see her sobbing on the floor, cradled into a ball, and notice the blood on her sheets and the gash above her eye. I follow the procedure. I get her to medical care, notify the commander, and pester him into opening an investigation. I tell her she can trust me. I promise her justice. “No probable cause” is the official finding. Three months later, we stand in the same rank of formation and watch him get promoted to first sergeant. I check my phone to see the last time she responded to one of my calls or texts since we got home. Three months ago, “don’t worry about me.” The second try at a sober living home hadn’t worked out. I hope she’s alive.

Professor Goff is next, the director of security studies, who is even more ancient than the academic institution itself. Carrying himself with a purposely relaxed gate and attitude, he emanates purported knowledge my way. He’s wearing his usual attire, knee-length khaki shorts, a wrinkled polo shirt, and his all-weather Birkenstocks. What’s Professor Goff up to today, I wonder, as he plods along the hallway towards the dean’s office. Pasted on the front page of the school’s website, I see the usual overbearing text and logo advertising “Great Power Symposium: Deterrence and Conflict in a Polycentric World.” Professor Birkenstocks is the headliner, calling all of the future national security leaders that roam the halls to be blessed by his presence in the large auditorium. I roll my eyes and take another sip of coffee. I think of the professor’s book about Iraq that launched him into the stratosphere of academia’s giants. It’s about Al Anbar Province, where my friends and I served, and deals with the Marines who “bore the brunt of the fighting.” I look up an op-ed of his from 2003. He’s arguing in support of the invasion. I find another from 2007 where he explores the logic and efficiency of the surge. He says losses are inevitable. I remember Mulligan’s obsession with reading. Sci-fi and flash fiction, I think it was. I see his smile. Don’t do it, I think. More coffee.

The dean comes out to greet Professor Goff with the normal platitudes and mutual self-congratulation. It’s almost noon and I decide to leave for my daily walk around the quad before eating lunch. I like to sneak away from my desk for fifteen minutes to breathe fresh air and see the finely cut grass. I see a group of undergraduates playing ultimate frisbee outside and try to guess their age. Probably 20 or 21. With some quick math, I realize that Mulligan would be a junior if he lived long enough and his GI Bill paperwork went through. The undergrads laugh as they toss the frisbee back and forth and I see Mulligan’s grin. I hear him chuckle as the older guys in the platoon mess with him. Thankfully, that’s how I remember him, smiling. I’m grateful I wasn’t there when they found his body. Blasted brains and blood all over his chu. His left hand still gripping the trigger well. No note. Nothing. Just Mulligan smiling one day and his own rifle in his mouth the next. I’m glad that I’m left with his smile.

Heading back into the school, I pass the framed awards and photographs that line the halls of the entrance to honor famed alumni who went on to shape world events. They include a Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, an ambassador, and a head of the World Bank. I see the students scurrying about, cramming articles, academic journals, and other forms of knowledge into their brains as quickly as they can. I look back at the pictures and wonder which one of them will be on the wall next. I wonder if anyone in the building has taken the time to look at the picture on my desk, at Mulligan. I think of all the current, former, and future leaders of geopolitics that roam the halls around me that could benefit from having known him, from having known his smile. Maybe it would make the world a better place. Maybe not. The idea brings a poem to mind, but I’m not sure why. The author escapes me. It says, “Call me nobody. Let me live.”

Missouri inmate Patty Prewitt has been in prison for almost 40 years. She is serving a life sentence for the murder of her husband, Bill, in 1984. The conviction, however, is problematic. The prosecution’s case relied upon slut-shaming Prewitt and questioning her fitness as a mother based on relationships that took place five and more years before the murder, a time when the Prewitts were separated. The prosecutor did not share with the defense evidence that established a strange car was seen parked around the corner, a significant omission. A pathologist, brought on only weeks before trial was discredited in a number of trials where he served as a witness for the prosecution.  

Prewitt is not eligible for parole until 2036, when she will be 86 years old. Maintaining her innocence, she declined a plea bargain that would have made her eligible for parole after just seven years. Had she taken the deal, she would have been released many years ago. 

As the longest-serving inmate at the women’s prison in Vandalia, Prewitt has been a model prisoner. Former Missouri Department of Corrections Director George Lombardi who, during his 41 years in corrections, has never recommended anyone for clemency supports Prewitt’s release.  In light of “the long sentence she has already served, the total support of her children and grandchildren, and her unprecedented contribution to the culture of the prison and to her fellow offenders,” he recommends that “Missouri Gov. Parson take the just, responsible and compassionate action and grant Patty Prewitt clemency.”  Warden Brian Goeke identifies Prewitt as a woman best suited for release.

In May of ’86, 20 days after I first came to the prison near Jefferson City, I was shackled, chained, cuffed and shoved on a state bus to the prison in Chillicothe.  Upon arrival, a male corrections officer caught me alone in my cell and strongly suggested, threatened, that I would be his sex slave with no choice in the matter. His words and manner were horrifying to this newbie, but his prediction did not come to fruition, because my new guardian angel cellmate, Theresa, made it her business to protect me. She was a large no-nonsense heroin-addict biker chick who had done serious time in Florida where she acquired absolutely no love from prison staff. She also teased me about being a scrawny country gal, a rube, but we both agreed that the perv was not going to get his hands on me, so help us, God.

In August of that year, after Theresa was paroled, word came down the prison grapevine that a federal court declared that male and female corrections officers are to be treated equally with the very same duties and rights. That sounded only fair until we realized that it meant that male guards could frisk and strip search us. A bit of panic ensued, but the officers I spoke with swore they didn’t plan to jump into that trick bag fraught with unforeseen and seen problems. But it only takes one.

As Carol and I exited the chow hall, this particular guard, a stout big-bellied greasy man, motioned for Carol to turn around and assume the position with feet apart, arms outstretched. Prior to this we’d only been patted down by females. To our shock and surprise, that man stepped close on Carol’s backside with his face buried in her hair, then reached around to cup and squeeze her breasts. I stood frozen–the next in line. The color drained from her face as he roughly moved his beefy hands over her buttocks, then reached between her legs to feel her pubic mound. Color came back to her visage with a scarlet vengeance, while he retraced his steps from buttocks to breasts. I couldn’t stay to witness the rest because fear kicked my rabbit legs into gear, and I found myself running, racing up the stairs to hide in my cell.

After I calmed down, felt safe to come out since he hadn’t come after me, and shift change was over, I found poor Carol, a tall, handsome lady with considerable intellect and two teenage daughters who adored her. But her husband was abusive. During one violent event, as she attempted to leave, he chased after her like the maniac he was. He yanked open the car door but slipped while grabbing at her. She inadvertently ran over him. To ensure he wouldn’t kill her and the girls as he had promised, she slammed it in reverse and backed over him which earned her 25 years for second degree murder. After 20 years of horror at her husband’s hand, she did not deserve this guard’s sexual assault in the name of penal security.  From that day on, if that guard was on post, we’d miss a meal. Sometimes the chow hall would be nearly empty except for a handful of masculine inmates whom he never bothered.

A few months later, on December 14, I was called to the visiting room to see my parents and five kids. To my dismay that guard stepped from the side and in front of the female officer as he motioned for me to assume the position. (In those days we weren’t strip searched prior to a visit, just frisked. They rightly reasoned that we wouldn’t be bringing drugs out of prison to our visitors.)  I quietly appealed to his inner gentleman, “Please, sir, I’m a rape victim. I beg you. Please allow the female officer to search me.” Trembling in trepidation, I saw and felt his rage explode like atom bombs within his gray eyes.

My five young children and parents watched this exchange while trying to figure out exactly what the hold up was. The pat search prior to a visit had always been quick, so to them this was suspect foot-dragging, but my protective father got the picture, narrowed his eyes and set his jaw.  Attempting to sound like a grownup who’s in charge, I sternly advised the officers, “If you’re not going to allow me to visit, give my family the big box of Christmas gifts I made for them.”  Both stared blankly at me, so I bravely added, “Do you understand?”

By this time every husband in the visiting area was asking his wife if that particular greasy-headed fat man had run his hands over her.  I was not alone in my indignation and could feel the energy shift. The guards exchanged looks and silently decided the female would frisk me and allow me to visit. But the moment all the visitors left the area, I was escorted to the hole for “creating a disturbance and disobeying a direct order.”

In May of ’87, that same man sent me to the hole again for the same transgression–refusing to submit to his sweaty hands on my body while huffing his sour breath on my neck. This was the last straw. A group of us dug around in the law library and successfully sued the Missouri Department of Corrections in federal court.  On September 30 of that year, seven of us rabble-rousers found ourselves shackled, chained and sitting in court testifying to not only the abuse of officers, but, for some, the years of abuse by husbands and boyfriends. The kindly older federal judge was visibly shaken to hear a lady tearfully explain that a male guard had felt her sanitary napkin and interrogated her about it.  Another lady had a double mastectomy, the result of cancer, and was torturously embarrassed when a man made fun of her “flat-as-a-pancake” chest. We and the officers also explained that the searches were targeted to find cookies–cookies that were served to us on our trays at chow. That particular guard stumbled through his testimony as to why he must thoroughly search our breasts, buttocks and inner thighs to keep America safe, while his fuming wife glared from the gallery. Because of the fuss we caused, the Missouri Department of Corrections was mandated by the federal court to create a method for officers to cross-gender pat search without fondling and grabbing certain body parts, but of course no one can make rules by which everyone abides. I’ve had issues since with both male and female guards who can’t help but take liberties.

In December of ’89, a large group of us trouble makers were shipped back to the prison north of Jefferson City. While there I ran into several minor sexual skirmishes and wrestling matches, but nothing I couldn’t handle until a new education supervisor was hired. Unfortunately I was his clerk. This persistent little man thought it was his duty and right to have sex with me, so he literally chased me around his desk. Our warden got wind of this problem and asked me if it were true. I explained, “If I tell you that he is inappropriate, I will go to the hole under investigation. Right? Well, I will not do that and miss visits with my kids.” And I didn’t. But I had another plan. My lecherous boss was friends with a recreation officer, and I let it be known that my brother would do bodily harm if I told him that a black man was abusive to me. Everyone had seen my big handsome brother visit, and evidently my boss believed my lie, because he nearly ignored me after that. The truth is my sweet brother was a peaceful preacher and never fought anyone in his life, but these people didn’t know that.

The Great Flood of ’93 ruined our prison and sent us packing to a men’s prison called Church Farm. I was so accustomed to unsolicited, unwanted sexual encounters that those years seemed pretty mild–nearly peaceful. For example, one maintenance man quickly lost interest in me when I harshly kneed his groin. Then in January of ’98, we were transferred to a brand new prison in Vandalia with all new guards. During a count time, one COI, who resembled a bloated Elvis impersonator, knelt at my chair in front of my other three cellmates and sincerely inquired, “What do I have to do to get you to suck my big ole dick?” My friends inhaled in shock, but after he disappeared, Donna remarked that the reason he jumped up and exited quickly was the lightning quick drop-dead look I shot at him. As if!

During the next couple of years, more than several staff persons were caught with their pants down and lost their jobs. One sergeant in particular had a type: petite, pretty, young, white. One of his targets, a lovely twenty-year-old with a soft bootheel accent, asked me for advice as to what to do. I counseled her that if she tells what he’s up to, she will go to the hole. Her only safe recourse is to never get caught alone around him. But this panicked kid confided in a grandma-like officer who slammed her in the hole just as I predicted. The girl rotted down there for months until she “admitted” she lied and then was transferred to another prison. Standard operating procedure.

Years of his terrorism passed by until this sergeant met his match. His final victim, who was beautiful in a mean way, spit his semen on her sheets and called her lawyer who called the cops. I never found out what became of the sergeant, but this gal sued and settled for millions and freedom. I thanked her while telling her that we’d been trying to get rid of him for years. With her hands on her slim hips, she leaned back, cocked her head and plainly told me, “Ya weren’t tryin’ too hard.” With a chuckle, I had to agree.

For years we were terrorized by a guard who loved to grope us and call it a routine pat search. Not only did he pull up close on a butt, he’d grind his hard little penis on the butt and whisper nasty words in an ear. If you protested in the slightest, he cuffed you and hauled you to the hole, the original walk of shame. Everyone, including staff, knew about him, but staff turned a blind eye. Every hour he was on shift was torture. My friends and I were repeatedly in trouble over him, and he took down too many good women. He would still be employed here, except he was arrested for a pervert-related crime in the free world.

Take me to the alley

Take me to the afflicted ones

Take me to the lonely ones that

Somehow lost their way

                                                                                                                                                                       Gregory Porter

The twelve-foot chain link capped with concertina wire said, Whoever you are, you aren’t welcome. The penitentiary sprawled on a barren hill in a forgotten tract in Connecticut, far from houses or schools or the next town. It was 1990, the dirt and rutted parking lot empty. Maximum security didn’t pull many visitors, and this would be my first time inside. I recognized no fear, not at first.

I remembered waiting as a boy in a lot outside another penitentiary. I perched in the passenger seat of the state car my father drove, the black 1950 Chevy with the siren and flashing light. Dad exited the facility smiling. The men inside fashioned signs for the Rhode Island Forest Service and were likely paid very little. The work, Dad said, was always good, always professional, and always on time.

Great oak trees surrounded that old place.

Here, there were no trees, no flowers, not a planted bush. A twilight overcast pressed down as I made my way to a squat, concrete-block building that appeared to be the welcome center, beyond which crouched the penitentiary, a low mean spread of menace which housed two thousand inmates. I explained to the officer hovering behind dark, inch-thick glass what I was there to do. He grunted.

He asked for a driver’s license and peered into the worn briefcase Dad had gifted, checking for anything an inmate might want as a weapon. He dropped the license into a drawer and extended a laminated pass through a small hole in the glass, and with the sweep of an arm, he motioned to a steel gate through the chain link.

Dad had been a hard man. While he never came clean about his earliest days, I realize now he was aware a ghetto kid like he had been, loose with brawlers on a drunk through Providence speakeasies, could have landed in a prison making signs. Possibly he smiled as he left that Rhode Island penitentiary because he felt lucky.

He’d floundered as a student and dropped out at sixteen to do piecework in a factory where he poured out work with speed. A threat to more senior men and making hardly any money, he turned back to finish school. And throughout the Depression, without support except an immigrant father’s scorn, Dad bulled a path through college. He worked a year and enrolled in school the next.

He died a decade before I entered Osborn Correctional.

I flinched as the steel gate clanked shut behind. I crossed a dirt yard on cracked asphalt to an officer in a head-to-toe black uniform, and I flashed my laminated pass.

“Wait here.”

His glower said, Forget it. We have more to deal with than you.

“Screw ‘em,” Dad would say, “whoever the hell they are, whatever the bastards do. Sometimes, you’ve got to stand and be counted.”

Black uniform ordered me through a second, heavier steel gate where more guards lurked behind more dark glass. My Harris tweed jacket, the worn briefcase, and the evening hour said who I was.

I’d been warned about the guards.

The second steel gate clanked shut behind me. My stomach churned. Will anyone open these doors when I want out?

There seemed to be no laughs in this dwelling, only these cold mothers and their freaking gray walls.

“Why you here?” a voice barked from behind the glass.

“I teach in the college program.”

Books won’t help thugs, Mister, I was ready for him to say.   

He gestured down the wide hall.

“Take a right down there and go till you find a guard.”

Still no waste of words.

I did what he said and took a right into an enormous, extended corridor. Voices blasted off the walls and concrete floor. Inmates exited a room far ahead, most of them bulked up bodybuilders in identical tan shirts and tan pants. They thundered toward me four abreast, one pack after another. I stepped faster and avoided eye contact.

They ran over 225. I was an Ivy League poster boy in tweed and corduroy. Their faces said, Who’s the punk? Who invited him?

What had I expected? I’d joked the inmates might have two heads and keep cobras as pets.

A woman at a party asked why anyone would teach in a prison. Wasn’t the place dangerous?

I said teacher-pals declared prison the best experience they’d had in a classroom and didn’t say more. Their conviction was absolute and I bit. They’d crossed a bridge they hadn’t supposed was there and learned something, though they didn’t say what.

Bedlam grew as more streamed from what was maybe the dining mess. Masses of them, and too many to count. They howled.

What am I doing in this place?

I showed my pass to a guard I found. I said I taught the English course. He smiled and proceeded down one more hall to a room assigned to Jacobson.

“Is this experience new for you?” he asked.

The guard seemed curious, not at all prickly. He wished me the best.

Inmates passed and nodded to the new guy. They smiled.

I thought, I must be in a different institution.

The room that was mine had an immense oak desk and a matching oak chair. I wasn’t going with that; I wanted no barricade. I took a plastic chair-desk from the front and turned it to the other chair-desks in neat rows facing the front, the oak desk and chair and the blackboard behind me.

I tried not to think what men had done to end in maximum security. Murder, pedophilia, armed robbery, rape, the worst crimes were the most likely. A section of my brain spat images of fiends.

Get a grip. You can’t teach fiends. Dad drank with Tommy Pelligrini, a man rumored to be in the Providence mafia. Tommy wore a navy suit and a modest tie. His memory seemed to quiet my mind.

I understood little, nonetheless, about the actual men I was teaching. I’m certain I looked grim. I picked fingernails and fooled with the marriage ring on my finger. Men were finding seats. I rooted in my briefcase for a pen, a pad of paper, for nothing. My back had a knot the size of a golf ball.

Would I recognize anyone? I scanned the roster.

An inmate asked a question and I gave a too brief answer. I didn’t initiate conversation like I usually did in a new class.

I glanced at my watch and a voice inside chirped, You’ve crossed scarier roads than this, boyo. A buddy remarked once on my cool in a crisis and my son, Morgen, cracked: “Dad’s good in a crisis. It’s ordinary life that gives him trouble.”

He was ribbing, though I hoped tonight he was right.

I counted twenty-three men in all. Half, I would learn, had killed someone. Most had spent their childhoods in fractured homes, abandoned by fathers whose savvy might have pointed to a better pathway.

The men sat in four straight rows, seats directed at the teacher like we had in grade school. I didn’t ask them to form a circle because I planned to hog the talk tonight. They were black men except one, everybody in a tan uniform with a buzz-cut. White people can’t tell one black person from another, a smart observer said.

The single white sat in a far corner. Outside, darkness had fallen and inside it wasn’t bright. He wore deep-ink shades. What lay in wait there?

I’d memorize their names and offer that much consideration.

Now. Let’s go.

I called the roll and scribbled a note when a man responded. One had red hair. A coffee-colored inmate displayed freckles. One was Goliath, a second a featherweight. Another wore a bandana. Still another had a sweeping scar on a left cheek.

I went one by one, up a row and down the next. I used the scribbles and named each inmate correctly. Bodies straightened. The room perked. Two mentioned how little respect they received in Osborn and others nodded.

The next would be easier, I thought. I would describe in general terms what we’d read and their writing would analyze in coming weeks: American writers from Irving to Twain to Baldwin to Tobias Wolff, with a handful of accessible poets.

I started to speak and couldn’t get the words out. My hands shook and my voice fluttered. Fear had taken a public walk. I stopped. I couldn’t teach like this.

A hand shot up three seats away. The Goliath, maybe in his twenties and close to three-hundred pounds, a football player once, I bet. He plowed holes for running backs.

Head down, he waved a hand, hesitant.

“Can . . . can I say something?” He spoke with a stutter.

“Sure,” I said.

He held a beat, reluctant to say what he wanted to say.

“You . . . you seem nervous.”

“You got that right.”

The room exploded. Laughter, every single man, belly laughter, even No Eyes behind the ink shades.

Without a prompt except my fear, the men spilled their first hours in Osborn, last week or years before. The shakes, the diarrhea, the sleeplessness, the stares into the dark, the dread, the guards, the threat they might not live.

They did their best to talk me back from where I’d shrunk. They’d been there. They understood. Don’t be ashamed. We managed. You can too.

***

I’m old. I forget names. Days are shorter and they fly too soon. I admit it was a tiny episode in a prison, years ago, hardly worth a mention.

The moment stays.

We are you, they said. We are you. These men who were like the mill kids I grew up around, only older, and in more serious trouble. Men who brought me back to my brawling father.

They weren’t foreign. They weren’t strange. For a moment, they saw me as I was. Like them, afraid. They were me.

I came from no fractured home, I hadn’t been abandoned by my father, I hadn’t ever been so continually disrespected. Yet here I was, at a bridge my father knew.

And there they were too, waiting.

I have come to do a writing residency at the Museum of Loss and Renewal in Molise, southern Italy, in a remote mountain village to escape the distractions of Berlin. Just as every writer does when they go off for a residency, in this case, with the added burden of Covid having prevented me from escaping myself for eleven months straight. I had been fighting the need to flee from myself for years, yet Covid closed my usual escape route outwards and made me turn inwards. And towards depression. It wasn’t just the desire for Mediterranean sun but the name of this residency that got my attention: Loss and renewal. I am working on a memoir about my three-and-a-half-year stint in the US Army as an enlisted soldier during the early years of the American wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, but it was not proceeding smoothly. For over two years, I reread my journals, wrote up notes and insights in fits and starts, fought back various pains, and despite writing fifty-thousand words, it wasn’t moving forward after the bleak winter of lockdowns and isolation. I decided to focus on one chapter during my trip to southern Italy.

I arrive at the Museum of Loss and Renewal on a hot afternoon in July and after getting settled in my room, the curators show me around the little town. In the morning, I awake to the sound of tractors passing in the street below, the neighbor’s chickens clucking, and roosters crowing as the village comes to life.

There have been periods of my life where every day, I consider my own death. Should I stay, or should I go now? Suicide is on my mind a lot. I can’t remember the first time I thought about killing myself, but I was surprised to discover in my “self-research” that already as an angst-ridden teenager, I had written about it in my journals.

Watching the cult classic Harold and Maude as a teenager, I was less interested in the age gap between the titular characters and more in Maude’s status as a Holocaust survivor and Harold’s fixation on death by suicide. I spent several years in high school consuming every story and image I could get my hands on about the Nazi era. Photos of dead bodies, emaciated prisoners, piles of teeth, glasses, and shoes—it all fascinated me.

The iconic movie It’s a Wonderful Life, traditionally aired on TV every Christmas, was also part of my childhood.The pivotal scene, of course, is where James Stewart’s character wants to kill himself by jumping off a bridge because of the impending financial ruin of his community bank until his guardian angel intervenes. This is what crisis looks like: suicide as a solution to our problems arises naturally in the human mind. Despite the taboo on discussing it and for its potential contagiousness, I’d like to think that I came up with the idea all on my own sometime around the age of nine or ten when I began contemplating my existence. You cannot contemplate life without death; being without non-being.

***

The curators of the residency have a well-stocked library and leave the novel The Original of Laura (Dying is Fun) by Vladimir Nabokov out on the table, somehow reading my mind. The book of notes for a work-in-progress was posthumously published by the author’s son Dmitri, who wrote the introduction. Nabokov—who likes the em-dash as much as I do—always held a curious fascination. He also spent fifteen years writing in Berlin and lived a life of displacement; the loss of his homeland and the themes of sex and death echo in his work. In this story, the main character is an obese cuckold scholar who resorts to the pleasurable erasure of himself, a process that occurs in his imagination but fictionally appears real. “The process of dying by auto dissolution afforded the greatest ecstasy known to man.” By the end of the book, he claims, “By now I have died up to my naval some fifty times in less than three years and my fifty resurrections have shown that no damage is done to the organs involved when breaking in time out of the trance.”

I have suffered uncountable imaginary deaths. Sometimes by my own hand, other times in perfectly acceptable, nay, even understandable ways. Cancer is a top contender—even as loved ones die for real around me from the disease. There isn’t a pain, bump, ache, odor, or other bodily irregularity or phenomenon that I don’t suspect of being cancer at some point.

Although my ten-year-old self wasn’t familiar with French philosophy, later, when I read that Albert Camus says in The Myth of Sisyphus, that the most fundamental question of philosophy is whether to commit suicide, I thought, “Well, duh.” Camus concludes that the most urgent of questions is the meaning of life because whatever higher purpose we ascribe to our lives will determine whether we will live (not kill ourselves) or even die willingly (in war) for that meaning.

***

In college, I took a seminar called “Theories of the Good Life,” where we read, among other texts, Victor Frankl’s famous book about finding meaning in life. He wrote it after surviving the Nazi death camps. He was already working on suicide prevention amongst students in Vienna before he was sent to Auschwitz, where his new wife and family were murdered. Later, he developed “logotherapy” and “existential analysis” wherein he identified three main ways of finding meaning in life: making a difference in the world, having particular experiences, or adopting particular attitudes. A helpful attitude may be, “The universe is fundamentally good.” Or, “Every human being brings something unique to the world.” I was down with that.

***

In the military, which I’d joined at the age of twenty-five seeking to “make a difference,” I hoped to deploy and was prepared to die honorably, heroically even. I fantasized about stepping on a landmine in Afghanistan. I would welcome either death or to at least be rid of my right leg, which had been giving me so much pain during my enlistment. But because of the leg and back troubles, I instead was medically discharged.

With each episode of depression and crisis—when my suicidal ideation usually appears—I’m surprised at what challenges tear apart my ability to withstand the strain of existing in this human body, one that comes with so many pains and issues. One common denominator is that I have a tunnel vision of self-absorption and a warped sense of my place in the world. A combination of “I don’t matter” and, “I am the center of this universe of pain.” The first such experience as an adult happened while I was in the pressure-cooker of army basic training. I had been under the special “tutelage” of a female drill sergeant who informed me that I was a piece-of-shit soldier one too many times. I snapped and believed her. I wanted to die. I considered how best to do so, and settled on our rifle marksmanship training, when we were given live ammunition. But I also wanted to take her out with me. There was even a moment when she crouched behind me on the firing line, ostensibly to help me make it through the test with a malfunctioning rifle and I could have turned around and shot her. I did not. Perhaps it was that spark of anger at her and the army for putting us both in this situation that got me through the ordeal with no-one the wiser about what had transpired in my head. By now, I have envisioned my own death in a million ways. Preferably an accident, but that’s a fine line to walk. I used a lot of energy imagining my demise, and here Nabokov’s description of Philip’s exercise in Laura is apt: “Learning to use the vigor of the body for the purpose of its own deletion, standing vitality on its head.”

***

According to the various spiritual and religious beliefs toward suicide, it is considered either a sin, self-defeating, or ineffective. In the view of the world and afterlife that I was raised with, I knew suicide was frowned upon. It does not solve a problem; instead, it takes away the ability to solve it, ridding our souls of our body—which we need to live out this incarnation on earth. Later I learned the line, “Suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem.”

In much of the literature I have read about near-death experiences, when people return to earth and report on what they learned in their “preview” of the afterlife, the stories are similar. They say that souls who die by suicide are often tortured while stuck in between heaven and earth in a sort of purgatory. They are unable to comfort those left behind nor move on to higher spiritual realms—for how long differs based on theology. Now, that’s a bummer. This belief that our souls are eternal (and reincarnate) and the attitude that there’s no quick fix to end it all kept me alive for a long time, but it did not prevent me from turning to such thoughts when in crisis. I have come to view the siren call of release from earthly chains now more as an indicator of how bad my situation has become. It’s time to make necessary adjustments—even major ones that make other people unhappy, and also cause me to lose face. I must cancel plans, disenroll from school, seek help from professionals.

***

In 2012, I volunteered on a crisis and suicide hotline. I was contemplating a career change from linguist in the defense industry to therapist in the helping professions and wanted to get a taste for the job. Before being let loose on the lines, we trained in the Carl Rogers method of unconditional positive regard and learned that the fundamental goal of the hotline was to preserve life. One policy was that as hotline listeners—that’s what we were called—we would not accompany people while they killed themselves. We were trained to intervene, by—in the most extreme cases—calling 9/11 and sending the authorities to the caller’s house while we had them on the phone. This only happened once or twice during my tenure.

Figuring out how to answer people’s concerns and know what to say was anxiety-inducing. I sweated through one hundred logged hours of answering the phones in a dank hospital basement in suburban Virginia, though the amount of time I spent on actual calls was probably only one-third of that. Those thirty hours were enlightening. Hunched over in a booth, organs on high alert as I strained to hear my way into the pain of another soul, I learned how a suicidal crisis goes in waves or cycles. The trick is to remove the means to implement the urge and ride out the wave to safety.

During my hotline training, I also learned that in the US, more people kill themselves with guns than die in car accidents or homicides and I changed my views entirely on the second amendment. I learned compassion but also just how frustrating people who are in need can be. I was having a good year in many ways and ended by making a major decision to go to Europe to theological seminary and not study counseling. But a year or two later, amid a toxic relationship-induced crisis, I learned that it’s difficult to do the trick of de-escalating on oneself, or rather, only possible to a point.

***

In late 2016, after deciding to take a year break from pursuing ordination into the priesthood after three years of seminary, I was searching for something to do for a year and processing a breakup. I decided to finally visit Spain for a week and check that off my bucket list, and on the descent into Madrid, we hit turbulence. It was the worst I’d experienced in all my years of flying. As the plane shook back and forth, up and down, and people cried out—I was perfectly calm and ready to die. I have done everything I came here to do, I thought as my stomach jumped up to my throat. I have traveled the world and followed my major impulses (to serve in the military and go to seminary). If this plane crashes, I won’t have any regrets. And it was true, but it was also because I had ended a life chapter but wasn’t yet ‘out of the woods’ to even see that I had been in a wood, much less a dark one. It took another year of wandering and contemplating the truth that although I had religion, as the expression goes, the more theology I got, the less I wanted to be a priest. A year of suicidal depression followed, and I realized I wouldn’t go back to be ordained anytime soon.

In his esoteric lessons held in Berlin in February, 1913, the Austrian philosopher and mystic Rudolf Steiner said that God is real and active where we see the destructive powers of nature; in autumn storms, in all shattering and disintegrating of things. I sat and watched the seasons pass outside my window and existed, being crushed by the manifestation of the divine. Slowly, once I let go of the idea of needing to do something meaningful in a foreordained, meditative, and godly way, moments of happiness returned.

When describing the difference between the “normal” everyday life versus the “esoteric” and supersensible one that can be accessed through meditation, Steiner issues a warning: “Exoteric life takes place in the world of cognition. We know something because we confront an object, look at it and make mental images of it. This changes the moment we meditate.” In advising the seeker of spiritual wisdom through meditation, Steiner cautions that “We shouldn’t immediately make ideas about what approaches us in this world [of supersensible reality]. We should just open ourselves, listen and feel what wants to stream into our soul.” In my case, however, I am not a very regular practitioner of meditation except for three years of attempting to know ‘higher worlds’ in seminary training. I already sense my mind’s existence astride the boundary of the exoteric and esoteric, between mental cognition and psychic reality. One in which often-unwilled thoughts of my own death are what stream into my soul, taking up an inordinate amount of “space.” When I opened the door further to this supersensible world, disorientation, depression, and death awaited. One evening last year, my ear began to hurt, and I thought immediately, “Oh, it must be some terrible disease and I will soon die.” I see signs in hypochondria. I read into my symptoms the hope that the journey is almost over. The plane is about to crash.

Steiner continues: “We must preserve absolute equanimity with respect to spiritual experiences, just as we should remain calm in everyday life with respect to all events, ideas, etc. so that we don’t get excited or upset.” Great tip, Rudolf. When not describing the intangible world, Steiner does offer some practical advice for how to practice such equanimity, and it involves disciplining our soul’s capacities for thinking, feeling, and willing. This much I have learned is true—there are ways to mitigate the inner emotional turbulence; but I have also learned to sense when I am in danger of being dragged down by an external situation, one that inevitably involves other humans. Why did the frog cross the road? …

Because it was stapled to the chicken.

***

Sitting in my room in the village overlooking the Mainarde Mountains of Molise, I look down at my swollen fingers, the instrument of my intended work and they look foreign to me. No, not quite, they resemble my mother’s leathery hands which are slightly swollen from arthritis and seventy-five years of work, but mine are now also covered in an angry rash of hives. The left hand has red bumps full of liquid bubbling up from my swollen flesh like poison ivy burns. Slowly bursting from the pressure after a few days, my body’s juices ooze out of my finger like maples being tapped for their syrup. The itching on my hands and legs is maddening, coming in waves, triggered by even a slight mountain breeze upon my skin. Even many weeks later, the itching returns like the echoes of a bad dream. The first day I arrived at the residency, I must have encountered the cause of this reaction, but I have no recollection of what it might have been.

I have been in this situation before. In 2013, once I abandoned my career in the US defense industry and decided to attend seminary in southern Germany. First, I stopped by the eastern Mediterranean following an invitation to visit some pastors from my church who were holding an inter-religious peace camp in the hills of Galilee. After one night sleeping underneath the pine trees with the youngsters, I awoke with what I thought were mosquito bites all over my hands, feet, and face. When they quickly turned into these oozing, itching sores, I saw the Kibbutz doctor who told me about the pine processionary moth. I was the only afflicted party in our group. This miraculous creature of the genus “Thaumetopoea,” species “pityocampa” has microscopic urticating hairs in its caterpillar stage, which cause harmful reactions in humans and other mammals. The internet tells me that “The species is notable for the behavior of its caterpillars, which overwinter in tent-like nests high in pine trees, and which proceed through the woods in nose-to-tail columns, protected by their severely irritating hairs.”

Although the name pityocampa comes from “pine and larva,” the word pity seems most appropriate to me now. Pity-evoking is the only word for a skin rash. It’s hard to hide and catches the eye. You can’t help but be moved by either disgust or pity, in the best case. I am so full of self-pity it is literally oozing out of me. Did the pity come from feeling unattractive due to these angry hives swelling my limbs, or was it always there and just now coming to expression?

There are certainly many things that I am angry about but do not say. There are truths I want to shout out to the world that are unsightly and unpleasant about what I have done and experienced in my life. I am trying to write them in the form of a memoir, but I’m blocked. In the meantime, my skin will reveal it as literal and metaphoric markers and warnings. These are expressions of my attitude towards the world I’ve encountered.

***

One morning on the mountain, I read the introduction to The Original of Laura. In it, Dimitri describes how his father’s downward spiral to death started with falling in the Swiss mountains while pursuing his hobby of lepidoptery, the study of butterflies. In the cooling late afternoon of that same day, I found myself walking up the hill to the last house in the village on the left, where I had intended to visit Clara, an elderly woman recently widowed earlier in the year. She said to stop by anytime and meant it, but once I finally got myself up the single road, past the village’s old houses, to ring at her door, she wasn’t home. Later she told me she was picking out her husband’s gravestone. I followed the road upwards on its rough-hewn sun-bleached cobblestones, which ran parallel to one of the many stone walls that crisscrossed the mountainside.

During World War II, the Americans came through here on their way north from Sicily, having beaten back the fascists in bloody battles throughout southern Italy. They fought the Germans here in the Gustave Line, which practically runs right through the village, in the winter of 1943/44. They even built a road still named after “the Americans” to access the remote mountains of Molise in the slimmest part of Italy’s boot. The curators tell me about a Scotsman who fought against the Germans in southern Italy but upon returning home met an Italian from this village, and so returned to Italy for good. He stayed on the hill for the rest of his ninety-two years. That’s one way to deal with the aftermath of war.

Along the white stony path, I found myself chasing butterflies to capture them with my iPhone camera, far from civilization, and contemplating the purchase of a house in this village that I had just left. There are many empty houses in the towns of the region. Many of the children of families who’d lived here for generations having long since moved to the big cities of Europe, though some continue to return to build more energy efficient houses or move to lower altitudes, where the winters are milder. The house I looked at came with a plot of land, upon which fig trees already grew. The idea of having an orchard and chickens providing fresh eggs daily and growing my own food in the garden captured my imagination.

If I wandered off the path here, I had been warned there might be shells, unexploded ordinance, and other nasty surprises like scorpions and wild boars awaiting me. I had seen the boars already, hurtling through the underbrush uprooting everything in their path—hard to miss—but also the seemingly invisible moths and caterpillars which caused me grief. As I wrote and searched through my journals—trying to put them in some meaningful order in my memoir—plumbing the depths of my memory, I found undiscovered ordinances of thoughts and feelings, a seemingly endless supply of trauma and suicidal ideations that I had confided to my journals but otherwise hidden from those around me, and even myself for so many years. I had been mentally living a life on the edge for decades, where thoughts of suicide would lie waiting behind every bush, stone, boulder, or obstacle in my path. Whenever I was challenged and felt like I had no more choices out of a bad situation, I had thoughts of ending it all. And now I was stumbling upon them in my journals and wondering how I’d even made it this far without hurling myself off some cliff.

The rugged beauty of this landscape appeals to me because it is not just pretty, or quaint, or touristy, but real. Molise is beautiful in its wildness. It wasn’t always quite so wild. It has been worked, yet it is a work in progress as the re-wilding of this region takes over. My hosts explained how over the past fifty years, nature has been slowly reclaiming these hills and hiding the many stone walls and paths that had been cleared over generations for small plots of land to be cultivated. In the photos of the area at the WinterLine War Museum in the nearby town of Venafro, the landscape looks vastly different. There is history here, but there is still potential amongst the rocky terrain and partly deserted villages. People like me are coming here in search of something quieter and safer, like the curators of the Museum who created such a residency for artistic reflection. Some things look better with the passage of time; others just appear different.

I imagine a life where I live in the house that I saw for sale in the village. I have chickens in the yard and a garden, and I harvest figs. If I had chickens—whose lives I would worry about preserving—and a plot of land to care for would the incessant thoughts of my own mortality fade? Keeping busy certainly is one way of keeping the hounds of existential angst fed and quieted for a while.

***

I wrote a children’s story about chickens once. I wrote it mostly in my head and like Nabokov, whose characters in Laura never get fully fleshed out, my chickens never saw the light of day on a page. They were inspired by real ones my sister kept in Pittsburgh for a few years. Her young children loved to chase them around the small backyard. Every night the hens went into their plastic coop, but one night, as my sister later relayed, several of them managed to flee into the uppermost branches of a tree in their yard. She had to chase them around in the dark for what seemed like an eternity, so intent they were upon staying in danger.

In my story, these imaginary hens escape their coop and have an adventure in the big city. The story began thus: Miffy, Laurel, and Hilary lived in the small backyard of a big house in a big city. Their coop was opened every day, and they had free range in the yard to search for tasty bugs and juicy caterpillars. They often flew up and roosted on the boughs of the big pine tree next to the house—especially when they got tired of being chased and hugged by their small human friends. From the tree branch, they could see into the big house. From high up, they could see over the fence into the neighbor’s yard. They could also hear the shouts, whoops, cries, laughs, and bits of conversations about life out in there in the big city. One day, Miffy—she was always the one starting such debates—said to Laurel and Hilary: “What do you suppose it’s like out in the big city?” And so off they went, out into the wilds of urban America, encountering curious raccoons, venomous vipers, pensive pigeons, and friendly foxes who share with them how to stay alive in the big, scary, cityscape. Eventually, they return home, safe and sound.

Is it too obvious to say this story is an allegory? That I long to return to the heavenly coop is a simplification. I am not a mere chicken. I yearn for a sense of meaning in my life. Having pursued it in various external titles, roles, and institutions for years, I am on my own now.

***

There are many ways to deal with suicidal thoughts; the stigma attached to seeking help for mental health issues is thankfully disappearing. I also know from other friends and acquaintances, not just myself or suicidal exes, that while so many of us remain depressed, we are not alone in our suffering. We often need other humans to assist us with getting through the worst of the wave of crisis. Other times, we are being called to connect with our purpose. The Quaker theologian Parker Palmer writes about his depression in Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation—the title itself giving away the key to healing—and connects our ability to hear and thus speak the truth of our selves with maintaining our mental health.

My dad used to tell jokes around the dinner table. Here’s one I remember: A man goes to a psychiatrist and explains that he thinks he is chicken feed. They work together for months until finally, the man comes to understand that he is not chicken feed. Just as he’s saying goodbye, he says, “Wait, Doc, I have one last question. I know that I’m not chicken feed. You know that I’m not chicken feed, but what about the chickens?”

When do we label ourselves something like “suicidal”? Once you tell someone that you’ve had thoughts of suicide, they never look at you the same way again. After my formative experience in the military where I was constantly overworked, muscle fatigued, sleep-deprived, harassed, and pushed over the threshold into suicidal ideation (all without deploying!), I learned to be wary of having everything taken from me or “giving my all.” It still happens that things become too much, but I remain protective of my internal and external resources, most importantly my soul resources. I try to avoid situations where I might be stuck in a situation that I do not desire; I always have an escape route. My life depends upon it.

Rudolf Steiner also said, in the same lecture given in Berlin almost 100 years ago, quite helpfully that the Gods protect those unprepared for what lies on the other side of the threshold of the visible world by giving us pleasure and enjoyment in creative activity in the physical world. So here I stay, on the haptic side of the line of consciousness and immateriality: writing, eating, and when possible, making merry. Besides writing out the truths of my life and turning hives into literary hay, I’ve learned to let the imaginary chickens save my life. Creatively sending the hens out on adventures or calling them home to roost again. Just getting to the other side can be enough. This is an attitude that Victor Frankl would endorse.

My eagerness propelled me up the airplane steps. Eleven years to the day. Well, technically eleven years and a day. We assembled for the meandering trip to Afghanistan on September 11, 2012 but didn’t take off until September 12. Close enough. I was finally on my way to join the fight.

The takeoff forced me back into my seat. Pushed the still recent news of Todd forward. “Fuck, I don’t want to die.”

Sergeant Murphy, my perpetually pissed off platoon sergeant, veteran of the invasion and surge in Iraq, was already asleep in the seat next to me. His slight snore grew in intensity.

I thought of an old friend’s dad almost eleven years ago watching footage of the initial combat in Afghanistan. “We’ll kick their ass and be home in a month.,” he had said.

*

Almost eight months later, with a few weeks to go in our nine-month deployment, my company was preparing to shut down the small combat outpost near the Pakistani border that had served as our home and frequent target for attacks. We’d be turning it over to our Afghan counterparts. Obama’s surge in Afghanistan was over. The official line was we had created enough space for the Afghan military to operate. They were now prepared to take a leading role. At the soldier level, we saw things differently.  Sometimes when our base was attacked, our Afghan partners wouldn’t fire back. They didn’t always know when an ammo resupply would come. We joked about how they’d pilfer everything they could from the bases we turned over. Then they’d sell it and desert before getting whacked by the Taliban or Haqqani.

Meanwhile, we had some surplus ammunition that we decided to use for training exercises before we left the base. This included a hand grenade familiarization training. Familiarization training is an ambiguously valuable phrase. For our grenade chucking platform, we used a dirt ramp built up the interior side of the base’s HESCO wall. It was normally used as a battle station for an armored vehicle to return heavy weapons fire when the base was attacked.

First Sergeant Gholson was supervising the lobbing. Gholson was a freak. He ran ultra-marathons and was unusually strong for his wiry frame. He was a creative problem solver, he cared, and was a sarcastic dick. A model first sergeant. I walked up the ramp after my soldiers had familiarized themselves. It was a warm, sunny spring Afghan day. Gholson handed me a grenade.

“Try not to fuck it up.”

“Fuck you, dickhead.”

I prepped the grenade. Picked out a particular bush I didn’t care for. I wound back and lobbed the grenade. Gholson and I braced for impact. We waited the customary amount of time. Waiting. Waiting. Then an explosion of laughter from Gholson.

“You dumbass! You forgot to pull the second safety pin.”

“Fuuck, still a cherry huh?”

“Here, toss this one at it.”

I prepped, then double checked this was one was ready to go. I found the same bush I didn’t like, and let it go. We braced for two explosions. The grenade bounced in the wrong direction. A single explosion near a different defenseless bush.

“We uh, we don’t have to call that in for EOD right.”

Gholson paused. “Eh, fuck it. We’re on our way out.”

*

They celebrated as they rushed away from the objective. The men scrambled along rocky ridgelines, moving south and east as quickly as possible while nursing injuries. The six men occasionally shook their rifles against the night sky.

“You got it on film, yeah?” The youngest of the group asked a more seasoned veteran.

“Yes, yes. Now keep moving. We’re not safe yet.” He replied, eyeing the dark sky.

The younger one smiled. He picked up his limping pace. The smile turned to a grimace as pain shot through his right leg.

The donkey in the group bayed. The noise broke the night quiet. The donkey was saddled with rockets and ammunition. It hadn’t complained before.

“What’s that?” A third man driving the donkey asked the group, or the donkey. He paused to crane his head skyward. Farther ahead, the cameraman continued pushing his younger companion.

The donkey’s baying quickened. Its handler perked his own ears toward a faint whistle.

*

The sun woke me. I felt a rock in my back through my body armor. I struggled to place myself and why I was tucked in the cracks of a craggy hilltop. My ears were ringing, my body ached, and my watch read 6:30 am on October 29, 2012. The day after Eid’s culminating celebration.

Right. The previous night’s “celebration” came rushing back.

I stood and looked down on the ridgeline below. The five bodies lay in the same position as we’d left them last night. They didn’t smell. At least not from about a hundred meters away. At least not yet. I wondered again how someone had survived the bomb blasts.

*

We finished our patrols early on the final day of Eid celebrations. Eid al-Adha. We called it Big Eid because there are two Eids. The first celebrates the end of Ramadan. The second is a multiday celebration of sacrifice and family, our interpreters explained. Abraham was ready to sacrifice his son. His son was prepared to die.

These days Afghans sacrifice goats, sheep, and cows. “Bismallah.” Allah’s blessing is sought before the sacrifice. Sons are no longer at risk of cold blooded murder. The purpose instead is to share. To welcome others into your home. On the final day of celebrations, the sacrificial meat is shared with family, and friends, and the poor. According to our interpreters, it was the Muslim version of Christmas. It sounded less commercial, more selfless, to me.

Whatever it was, I was glad to have an evening off. Finally, no second patrol for the night with its necessary preparations and debriefs cutting into any downtime. Just a short morning walk from our company’s small combat outpost for my platoon to a nearby village. We enjoyed some Eid chai with the locals wearing their best manjams. They invited us to chai with smiles. Their fingertips were a deep copper red from a fresh dip in hentai dye. A couple rocked socks with their sandals. Which was a first over here. It somehow looked classy. They seemed happy to share the day’s tradition with us, but I wondered what role our weapons played in that invitation.

We’d been in theatre for over a month. We had launched at least two patrols a day from our small combat outpost near the Pakistani border.  The only contact we’d made with the enemy were the roadside bombs they left for us. We were getting restless. It was clear from those bombs the enemy was watching us. We had no way of striking back.

That night, I settled into my small plywood-walled room to enjoy my first deployment movie. Goodwill Hunting. An old favorite. Something I could relax to. Shortly after winding down, there was a thundering crack that shook my room and me out of complacency. My heart rate spiked. I rushed to throw on my body armor and helmet.

A loud patter of dueling machine gun fire began. I grabbed my rifle as I ran out of my room and into the night. The sky was alive. Tracers on machine gun rounds streaked through the dark toward and away from our base.

I ran to the tower my platoon was responsible for manning. I felt as alive as the night sky. The tower was on the corner of the base closest to the ridge that appeared to be the source of the incoming fire. The previous unit had named it Rocket Ridge.

Inside the tower, Private Kilgour was working the .50 caliber machine gun. Sheer joy lit up his face. He was physically illuminated by the bright orange muzzle flash. I could make out fuzzy green movement on the ridgeline through my night vision goggle. The thud of each .50 round coursed through my body. The echoes of the machine gun in the tower went beyond noise. It was the only thing I could hear or feel. It felt like my heart rate was matching the rhythm of the rounds. The pungent metallic odor of gunpowder was all around me. I loved it.

I sent a status report over the radio to the company headquarters as I ran to my platoon’s other battle station. My ears rang so hard I couldn’t hear the response. Sergeant Lyons was directing automatic grenade launcher fire toward the ridge. I asked what he saw. He pointed out barely visible figures moving along the ridgeline.

I popped off a few rounds fully aware the ridgeline was outside my rifle’s range. It still felt good. “We train hard, so we’re prepared when we it’s time to fire our weapons in anger.” Our battalion commander repeatedly said. I wasn’t angry. I was ecstatic.

A couple rushed hours later, I stepped over the last round of concertina wire that surrounded our base. The night air felt different on this side. The mountainous horizon was the same, but the sky seemed bigger, more open.

An F-15 had been in the air nearby during the attack. From thousands of feet in the air, the pilot dropped two 500-pound bombs on six men and a donkey hurrying toward Pakistan. None of our guys had been injured during the attack. It was a clean win. My platoon was dispatched to investigate the blast sites. Despite the late hour and waning adrenaline rush, there was still a sense of excitement in the air.

We scrambled up and over rocky ridgelines and craggy hills not quite tall enough to be mountains. They were tall enough to cause a sweat in the cool night air. It felt good this night. The loose shale shifted underfoot as always. For once, I didn’t mind.

Things got even better when the Company headquarters radioed to say they’d seen a heat signature with the company drone. They thought it could be a wounded enemy hiding because he couldn’t keep up during the escape. The map grid headquarters sent threw off our planned route. It meant a lot more climbing. I briefed my squad leaders on the change of mission. We moved out with a fresh determination.

We were winded when we hit the final spur before the heat signature’s grid location. I directed a machine gun team to higher ground for overwatch while First Squad got on-line to assault through the objective. They advanced deliberately. My heart pounded. I braced for confrontation. First Squad approached the suspect bush.

“Stand down, stand down.” The team leader called over the radio. “It’s a fucking goat.”

I deflated. No last-minute encounter with a live one after all. I sent a quick update to headquarters. Their disappointment was clear in the curt response over the radio.

“Stupid TOC jockeys don’t know what they’re looking at,” Sergeant Murphy said.

We knew we were close by the sharp chemical smell in the air. There was a slight metallic taste as we grew closer.

“Two Four Bravo, set up on the hilltop at 3 o’clock.” I sent the machine gun team to another high point.

The rest of us turned our headlamps on as we climbed the hill. Better to be thorough. No one else would be coming so soon after those bombs dropped. Debris littered the hill on the way up. A sandal here. A piece of tactical vest there. Scattered across the slope by the whims of explosive force. We hit the first body where the slope levelled off to a long ridge. The explosion had blown his pants off. The exposed legs were so thin I struggled to understand how they propelled him up and down mountains while attacking us. “We need F-15s for these guys?” I thought.

When we flipped him over, his eyes were wide open but unfocused. The flat gray eyes confirmed death more than the charred hair, the blood, or the gaping wounds. Our biometric scanners couldn’t register his irises. We were under strict orders to collect their biometrics. My soldiers dripped water onto eyeballs to lubricate them. Rigor mortis had set in. With some of the bodies, it took two soldiers to pry fingers back to snap them onto the equipment’s fingerprint scanner.

Sergeant Murphy watched as two of our soldiers wrestled with a stiffened arm.

“They think this shit is cool now. Like they’re too hard for it to matter. But one day, when they decompress, this shit is going to come back. Everyone up here tonight will talk to the battalion therapist. I don’t give a shit if they say they don’t need it.”

“Yeah, that’s a good call.” I agreed. I didn’t have anything meaningful to add. It was unspoken, but I knew he meant I should talk to the therapist too.

We systematically exploited the first blast site. The pants had been blown open on every body. Explosions behave in mysterious ways. Stephens, my radio operator, photographed the bodies—under clear no funny business orders. Cellphones, wallets, and notebooks were sealed in ziplock bags. Labelled by body and location. I sent a report to headquarters that site one exploitation was complete. Site two was about a hundred meters further south.

We followed a narrow, elevated path leading toward the second site. We walked in a file. My eyes were forward. Someone else was more observant.

“Nine o’clock, we got a live one.”

The shock registered as immediate action. I turned to my left, raising my rifle in concert. I had flipped on my rifle’s infrared laser without thinking. Through the narrow green tube of my night vision goggle I saw a body lying flat on the ground about fifteen meters away. The head was raised. He was staring straight at me.

What the fuck.

Within seconds the body was covered with infrared lasers. The head turned slowly. Proof of life. Bombs and their mysteries. I tensed the finger on my rifle’s trigger. I scanned the body and surrounding area as quick as I could. His life was in my fingertip and the next words I spoke. I saw no weapon on him or in the immediate vicinity. His arms were down at his sides. Under the fuzzy green of my night vision it was just a body with a head staring at me.

“Hold your fire.” I announced.

The lasers remained trained on the body. A fuzzy green figure lit up in a morbid lightshow of narrow bright green beams.

“Tell him to put his hands up,” I said to my interpreter.

Sergeant Murphy raced up to me. “I should probably call this in.” I said.

Sergeant Murphy’s eyes remained fixed on the man, this mystery, this terrible miracle of life. He shifted as he spoke. “Roger, sir.”

We looked at each other and back at the man. I paused.

“Stephens,” I called. He hustled over. Passed me the handset.

“X-Ray this is 2-6, can you put on Choppin’ 6 actual, over.”

“Standby 2-6.”

The body was moving. Lifting himself upright. SFC Murphy and I raised our rifles in unison.

He raised his hands above his head.

“2-6 this is Choppin 6 actual.”

“Choppin 6, we have one EWIA, break. Appears unarmed, break. Condition unclear, I think he’s messed up, break. We’re currently about 15 meters away, over.”

Silence.

I imagined Captain Tallant in the monitor filled plywood walled operations center in a hurried discussion with First Sergeant Gholson.

The silence dragged. It was broken with a question.

“2-6, Choppin 6, are you sure he’s alive?”

Was that an innocent or targeted question? Radio traffic wasn’t built for ambiguities.

“Roger.”

“Positive?”

I drew a deep breath.

“Roger, he is staring right at me.”

Another pause.

“Roger, we’ll work with Battalion on extraction.”

 *

“Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck. I don’t want to die.” He thought. He then worried that thought was too loud.

“Please don’t see me, please don’t see me. I just wanted to have a little fun.”

He had crawled away from his weapon and gear once he’d heard voices. Whatever adrenaline had carried his wounded body this far had been knocked out by the two explosions. All he could manage was to crawl a few meters closer to Pakistan, still miles from its safe harbor.

“Are they laughing? These godless heathens!”

He stewed in anger and fear. Then the voices grew closer. Worry overtook anger. He saw a line of armed men less than twenty meters away. Then a voice shouted something unintelligible. The line halted. In the blink of eye everyone was facing him with rifles raised.

“Fuck. This is it. This is how I die.”

 *

“What are they waiting for?”

*

After we confirmed that he was unarmed, I approached him with Sergeant Murphy and Favre, the platoon medic. When I looked in his eyes, I realized I had never seen sheer terror manifested before. His eyes darted back and forth assessing us as threats and the whites were prominent beyond reason. We were surrounding him, strapped with weapons and body armor. Everyone around him had been killed by massive explosions. He must have heard us laughing about the dead and already bloated donkey as the group ringleader.

“I am here to help.” Favre said. He began assessing for injuries. Once Favre’s hands touched his body his eyes darted back and forth. The whites of his eyes grew another size. They slowly returned closer to normal as Favre treated his wounds. It seem like he was slowly realizing these Americans weren’t a bunch of bloodthirsty, Muslim-murdering animals after all. His name was Mahmoud.

“I swear I didn’t really know these men. This was my first attack. I swear. It was supposed to be fun.” My interpreter relayed.

We didn’t believe him. I figured Battalion would eventually get some actionable intel out of him. It seemed like the right choice as a medical helicopter flew him away. I wasn’t aware of the conversations being had back at headquarters.

Battalion said they wanted us to overwatch the bodies that night, in case their buddies came to collect their friends and anything incriminating. That didn’t make much sense. How would they know these guys were dead and where they were? And there had been helicopters flying around all night. But whatever, we were too tired to walk back that night anyway. I directed the rest of the platoon to the machine gun teams overwatch position. We settled in among the rocky hilltop for a few hours of sleep between guard rotations.

Third Platoon arrived energized and carrying body bags the next morning. They laughed at the donkey, and all the missing pants. We laughed together, but I felt they were partial intruders. They weren’t carrying the full night before into this day.

Sergeant O’Keefe, Third Platoon’s wisecracking Mexican-Irish platoon sergeant, walked straight up to me.

“Hey, sir,” he said in his usual casual tone. “The battalion commander called the CO after you reported homeboy wasn’t dead. He said, ‘why the fuck did they call up he was alive.’” O’Keefe barked his signature laugh. “Hope your officer eval don’t suffer.” He laughed again.

“Oh, by the way, some locals are coming out to collect the bodies. CO agreed to it with a village elder to show respect for them Islamic burial rites.”

We walked Third Platoon around the blast sites. We pointed out the mystery head at the second site, perfectly intact but missing a headless body. We divvied up the evidence to carry back. Third Platoon graciously volunteered to lug the recoilless rifle. As we chatted among the bodies, a stream of villagers emerged from a dry wadi leading toward the ridge.

 *

The conversations among the villagers were quiet as the group wound through the wadi.

“It was good of the elder to host us for goat and sheep last night.” Mansoor said as he looked at Haji Ghul leading the procession of his villagers.

“Yes, yes, very good. I spent all my money on gifts for the kids, and fresh robes. We had no money left for good meat,” Abdul responded.

“Inshallah prosperity will come.” Mansoor replied.

“Inshallah.”

“I am surprised the Americans are allowing us to come for the bodies. It wasn’t always this way.” Mansoor said.

“Yes, this too is good. Though I do not know these men.”

“Allahu Akbar.” 

The conversation ended as the curving wadi opened to a view full of soldiers on a ridgeline.

*

They were all still wearing their best Eid clothes. The couple of villagers I’d shared chai with the day before recognized me. They smiled as they waved. Sergeant O’Keefe started passing out body bags. I began speaking with the village elder.

He disavowed the attack. Swore the villagers knew nothing of it, or any of the men. “They are from Pakistan. They were running to Pakistan.” He said. He was solemn, and genuinely appreciative we were letting them collect the bodies. “Even though these are very bad men, it is very important they be given a proper Muslim burial. We are truly grateful for the opportunity. Dera manana.” For one of the first times in country, I didn’t sense a hidden motive. In most conversations, I could tell something was being withheld, if I wasn’t being outright lied to. This was genuine.

I watched the villagers place the bodies and parts in body bags and on top of the wicker bedframes they’d carried. Their best holiday clothes and their objects of rest collected bloodstains. A deeper red than the hentai on their fingertips. Their smiles remained.

*

When the villagers finished, we began the long trek back to base. The sun was up and warm. It was still early in the day. I was so tired I had to reach back to my time in Ranger school to keep moving and issuing orders.

“That was a hell of a night, huh?” I posed to Sergeant Murphy as we walked back.

“My wife is going to be so pissed.” He responded.

“Huh?”

“We were on the phone when we got attacked. I’d been telling her this deployment was safe. I ran out with the phone still connected.”

“Damn, that sucks.”

I wasn’t prepared to respond to that. I couldn’t shake Mahmoud’s eyes. The smiling villagers lining up to collect bodies. The day after their Christmas. No gifts to return. Assembled for a morbid collection.

We were heading home. The return walk was largely downhill. But I felt heavy. My body armor was dragging down on my shoulders. I was weary beyond the lack of sleep. It was both a physical and mental challenge to raise my legs for each step. Something had changed. I needed time to place it.

Several months later and a few weeks before we left our outpost, a village elder informed us of a death. An old man. He made a living selling the casings from rounds ejected during firefights. He was carrying a sack of casings when he triggered something. An improvised bomb buried by the Taliban or maybe an old Russian mine. The wounds proved fatal. A villager heading toward the mountains to gather rock and sticks came across his body.
I was eating lunch in our small cafeteria when Gholson walked up with an odd grin. “It wasn’t an IED, it was a new UXO.” Gholson said.

I finally made the connection. A fresh unexploded ordinance. Maybe a grenade. I looked down at my tray of mini pizzas and fries. I pushed it away.

“You’re uh, you’re not gonna say anything right?”

“Ha! What do I get out of it? Relax, I’m joking. Your secret is safe with me. Besides, maybe it was the Russians.”

“Ok, cool.” I said, staring at my tray.

*

“So, did you kill anyone?” My high school friend Mike asked.

I was gathering with a few hometown friends about a month after returning to the states. We stood in Mike’s driveway deep frying wings and drinking beers.

Mike would never deploy. Never even join the military. He’d failed out of college but landed on his feet selling used cars. The auto industry and demand had recovered from a few years back. Business was booming. Life was good back home. But when Mike logged onto Call of Duty, if he was the friend of a real-life killer, the war could be real enough for him.

His interest in a greater than a decade -long war came down to a single issue: how many dudes did you kill? In Mike’s mind, Afghanistan and Iraq were where Americans got paid to kill people. Like so many Americans, these conflicts occurred in the background. A novelty addressed with a “thank you for your service.”

My hands reached for the rifle that had been slung across my chest for nine months. I felt empty, alone. Powerless. My authority, my purpose, was nowhere to be found.

“So, did you kill anyone?” Mike repeated as he leaned toward me eyebrows raised.

“Mike, come on man,” Geoff interjected.

“Nah, it’s all good. I knew if anyone would ask it would be Mike.” I took a long swig to finish my beer. Mike could be an idiot sometimes, but he didn’t mean anything by it. “Not me personally man. But my unit, we got six and a donkey in one night.” I reached for a new beer.

“Oh, woulda been cooler if it was you.” He didn’t bother hiding his disappointment.

I was still seeing the terror fade from Mahmoud’s eyes and bloodstained Eid clothes. In place of the cold beer, I felt the heft of a grenade in my hand on a warm spring day.

Where mom and dad and me used to live in the Haight, from the brush in the empty lot across his street, with a BB gun, I shot a big, scary German Shepherd guard dog –  right in his gonats.  Wasn’t my gun. Was a big-kids’ dare. The oldest one told me, “You’re just a dweeb fourth-grader. His tail’s always in the way. Only time you can get him’s when he lifts his leg to pee. You’ll get two, three seconds and that’s it.” So I held my fire. I waited for the Shepherd to pee, and I got him! One shot. They went, “Jeeze! The kid did it!”

I don’t know what I thought would happen when I shot the Shepherd. It yiped and  yiped and skidded all around on its rear. I dropped the gun and I ran. Could hear the dog blocks away. It was awful. The big kids knew where I lived and they told my mom. Said I stole their gun.

They took ‘em both – the Shepherd’s owners did – both his gonats. The Shepherd never charged his fence or growled or barked after that – just wagged and smiled and let me pet him sweet – like he never knew it was me shot him. Like he never knew at all – just smiled and wagged, but always wanted me in particular to pet him and let him lick my hand. Nobody else. Just me. He never acted like he knew what hit him, but it was like forgiveness anyhow – forgiveness I never deserved on the dark side of the moon.

Later, coupla times, I brought the Shepherd special gizzard treats and he used to go nuts and spring his front paws up on top of his fence double-happy and smile to see me just like he knew the way how dogs know and do things, like he knew how my heart was hurting – like he knew all along I shot him.

After a while, I couldn’t stand it. Couldn’t look him in the eye. Couldn’t stand – didn’t deserve his happy dog-love – my false, trigger-happy truth stuck festering inside me.

Finally, I quit going even down that street. The big kids said I was a jerk for taking the dare and called me a dirty rotten, little gonat-snatcher twirp and worse – and it’s all true.

Cactus Tuna

A semi-sweet taste
of watered-down nectar
bleeds out from the prickly
pear nestled
PUT_Aon a crown of thorns.

In the desert you once
sneered over rifle sights
at the farmers drawing
PUT_Arakes over the sun-
baked ground, and now,
PUT_Aas atonement
you’re a farmer of rocks
and what comes with them.

Stained fingers tear through
leathery skin. Sometimes you
forget you’re standing
alone in a cactus patch
PUT_Ared trickling down.

Grace is not this –
living on what grows where
nothing had a right to grow,
seeds fine as sand
PUT_Ahide between teeth.

And crows, refusing to starve,
land unafraid, pick through
the rinds, eat, take flight
scatter seeds on rocky places
PUT_Aand among thorns

even on tops of walls,
and maybe it’s resilience
PUT_Aor spite
something finds purchase here.

We Return from the Holy Land. God Stays.

The mystery is often in the gaze of men
and women waiting for the sky to speak.

We used to spend days in the desert
waiting until the sky whistled and then
we wished we hadn’t.
Someone’s former
home, now sharp edges of cinderblock
cut upward through our soles. We kept
walking through the desert; everything
radiated, catching us in the crossfire.

* * * * *

We spend days in the Hill country
beneath a blistering sun, a clean sky,
traces of blue that have faded,
burnt off but for the edges by noon.

‘Say something,’ we shout in our minds,
looking up as if it’s God.  Eventually
the sky speaks in the language of wind,
fear fills our hearts. Still, we knew
it would be this bad, yet wanted so much
to feel something – until the moment we did.

Run in Reverse

In dreams the ball bearings and nails and flame
are sucked backwards out of the truck, along
with the screams, and the shrapnel enters
The IED, a makeshift paint can half buried in sand.

The boy’s face heals, his body slides back
into the passenger seat and after a momentary
glare at this pained country he turns and smiles
at the driver. It’s a calm hundred-degree morning
and the Baghdad street is filled with shoppers
carrying bags, laffa bread, eggplants poking
out the top, Turkish vendors serving doner kebab,
their angry looks toward the truck
have softened now and they’re joking.

***

Some days walking with my wife, I turn,
walk backwards just to say something silly.
It’s that moment that seems truest. She is
looking at what’s to come just beyond my shoulder,
no regrets about the past, and I’m trying to hold
on to what we left, moving against my will
into the future blind, the scene I’m trying
to make sense of, moving farther away.

A little stoned, on the screen porch facing the invisible grunts of New Hampshire spring peepers. Something night, something woods, something long sleeve. Lou looks down into mostly darkness. They can barely see the plaid pattern. One of Alex’s, figures. You can swear off a person, but still wake in the middle of the night wearing her damn shirt you swear you didn’t go to bed in. You can be a person, listening to thawed frogs, little creatures literally frozen the month before, and only hear her voice, though it’s been two months since she’s been gone, only taking half her clothes.

The two of them made it through the pandemic, the election, Lou’s own thaw, cracked egg, the fucking whirlwind of body and mind and for once in their fucking life not having to deal with it alone, coming out stronger on the other side, all those cliches. Alex going back to school, Lou moving north for her, buying a house neither could afford separately, making fun of the debt, together, making fun of work, leaving work, making fun of the Olympics, fuck you Intel, fuck you AI, fuck you 2032, working off a little laptop in the forest, tall trees on all sides swaying in the wind like they’re bound to fall, but they don’t, or, OK they do sometimes, but not on the house, far away. The turbulence of the 2020s transitioning to perpetual hurricunt of the new decade, tyfool, all puns but no groan, Alex gone.

Gone over such a stupid thing, compared to everything before. Lou gives the finger to complacency, somewhere in the nearby vernal pools, with one hand, undoes the buttons on Alex’s flannel with the other. They open the door and throw the shirt into the yard. Half-dressed and shivering, they root around in the dark for the rest of their ex’s wardrobe, tossing pants and hats out the windows. Living up here, can’t even have a proper blowup scene, end of a dirt road, no chance of anyone driving by and wondering why the mess. Had they broken up in Mass, they could have given the suburbs the expected show. But no, they were fucking bulletproof, made it through everything, only to lose it after all the hard things. Now it’s all soft things, mud, rain, hurt by flannel, hurt by others’ smiles, smiling back, pretending to everyone at their new job that they are this quirky and fun kid who happens to be in their mid-thirties. It’s cool. Yeah, I love New Hampshire. No, not born here. Why’d I come? You all have the best maple syrup. Change the subject. Hey, look at my new piercing!

#

The unicopters paused over the New Hampshire State House, longer than planned. There were just under 200 in the sky, hovering quietly above the gathered, applauding, crowd. They had left from Hanover that morning; another crowd, a set of speeches, the procession of the chosen students, standing before the doors of each aircraft as they opened automatically. June, the semester had just ended, the passengers mostly undergrads heading home. These models could make it safely to Michigan, to the west, the Carolinas, down south; all autonomous, all single occupancy, electric, and irritatingly plastered with Live Free or Die, on the sides.

That they had to pass over the State House first, before scattering to their destinations, was ridiculous, political, unnecessary. The design had come from two Dartmouth grads; for years they had tried to get the state to invest, no luck. New Hampshire only kicked in a little bit, at the end, once it was clear these things were special, were getting buzz. The state stamped their motto at the last minute, so the football field still reeked of paint, as everyone waved the unicopters off.

Downtown Concord was a mess of closed streets and temporary grandstands, so Lou drove in from the east, parked in a strip mall lot across the Merrimack River, and walked along the Route 9 bridge toward the ceremonies. They wished they had a hat, even one of Alex’s, lost to the forest; it was hot and stupidly muggy. They wished their camera worked; their phone was cracked and stupidly old. Mostly they wished they could have thought of a good reason not to attend. They were not, and had no desire to be, a real journalist. But, they had forty pages of magazine to fill by end of summer, and this little show was sadly the biggest thing in New Hampshire.

At least since the legislature passed the latest round of abortion restrictions, at the end of their spring session. A month ago, GOP clowns barely containing their glee, emboldened by the new governor, leaning in to the fucking circus mentality of the campaign, egging on the protestors, begging for a pie in the face, wearing chunks of banana cream on their foreheads for days, defiance kink, ringmaster high. The opposition did their best, showed up, filed lawsuits. But it wasn’t looking good.

Lou passed a small band of them, protestors holding signs, snakes in the shapes of uteri, Margaret Atwood-inspired bonnets, homemade everything. The demonstration was being kept far back from the festivities; even most of them stopped chanting, when they saw the first of the copters take its place downtown, waiting with the clouds, for the others.

A small square past Storrs Street. Eagle something? Atrium? Umbrellas, brick, a good enough view of the sky without Lou needing to push further on, close enough to the action.

Of course, in retrospect, it was still too close. The swarm of machines dipped in unison. Just a little bit; the cheering turned to one collective gasp. Then faint clapping again, as they all ascended back to their original altitude. Hmm, didn’t think that was part of the program. Lou tried to check their phone; stupid thing, too slow. Then the things dipped again, but seemingly at random. The little vessels jerked groundward, then back up. Something wasn’t right. No one was clapping anymore.

The Republican Speaker of the House found a microphone, started asking people to remain calm and – wasn’t able to finish his sentence. The unicopters started plummeting, on the crowd, on the State House, on the street. There were explosions, fragments of bone and tar, screams. Lou was knocked down some steps as the crowd ran. They dragged themself as far as they could to the side, under the lone umbrella that hadn’t yet been overturned. They covered their head and heard the parade of impacts, all down North Main, panicked footfalls of those separated in the confusion, survivors moaning and circling tragedy in real time. They stayed down until someone (a medic? not in uniform) shook their arm. Lou swatted the hand away, limped past people running in all directions, until they reached the highway, crossed the median in a daze, stupidly, and sat with their back against the guardrail, facing away from the disaster, toward the river.

#

By the time their leg feels good enough to cross the bridge back, they’ve forgotten which lot they’ve parked in. To Lou, it seems at least an hour must have passed since the mayhem, yet firetrucks are still streaming in, the echoes from shouts and glass breaking still bouncing off, one can see even from the river, an unrecognizable downtown.

It may as well be a different country, the other side of the Merrimack, though. Plenty of cars in all the lots, people walking into stores. Lou’s got the vague sense they should call someone, but no names pop into their head, let alone a string of digits. They follow a family into Books A Million, hypnotized by the group’s normal gait, the unfazed parents, the unpretentious children.

When they see a photo of the newest iPhone on one of the magazines, amongst the periodicals, they get the bright idea to look at their own phone. Still unsure who to dial, Lou tries someone named Mary it looks like they tried to call fourteen times this morning. Line disconnected, odd. They then pick a name at random from their contacts, Lionel. No luck either, but wow the guy’s timbre is soothing, on his voicemail. Lou’s lucky it’s one of those long ones, where the person must be wonderfully eminent, conscientious, and leaves a ton of info, who else to reach out to in case of something urgent. Considerate, beautiful. They are murmuring into the device, mindless appreciations, without hearing the beep, not realizing they are leaving a message.

They see someone wearing a “Tamra” name badge, in a Books a Million polo, watching them with concern over the racks.

“Excuse me, where is Lionel.”

“Lionel? Are you lost?”

“It’s just, he’s got a, very sonorous.”

“There’s no Lionel working here.”

“Tamra though, that’s a pretty name…”

And then they pass out.

#

Smell of burnt coffee, Bates Motel cushioning. Must be in the cafe section.

Lou shifts from slumped to sitting, unnecessarily dusts themself off. Tamra is holding a phone.

“There’s no need, I’m fine.”

“Er, you fainted.”

“I haven’t eaten.” Lou blinks, scans the cafe menu without taking in the words.

“I wouldn’t,” Tamra warns. “But, water.”

She’s back in second, somehow, with a glass of mostly cubes, and a little piece of paper.

“What’s that?” Lou asks, chewing the ice.

“From the community board.” Tamra hands them a card. “If you need it.”

Lou reads aloud. “Crisis Center of Central New Hampshire.”

“You can use my phone if you’re in trouble.”

“I was, it was.” They look around for a TV. It’s a cafe, not a sports bar, so. “Are we, under attack?”

“OK I’m definitely calling the police.”

Lou scoffs. “I think they’re busy.”

Tamra hesitates, puts the phone away, looks out the front window. “It’s awful.”

“Yeah, I slept bad before, so, this will be fun.”

“Wait, you were there?”

“Barely, I was lucky.”

“Um you look like shit.”

“Um yeah it was a fucking horror show.”

“Sorry, I mean, sorry. You just, I wasn’t sure.”

“If I looked like shit?”

“No, you do.”

“Thanks.”

“You kept saying something about Lionel.”

Nice voice, Massachusetts, Cultural Council. Ah, all coming back now. “Someone I used to work with.”

“Yeah. I thought like, abusive boyfriend, and…” Tamra trails off.

“Not quite, or, never.”

“You’re not in trouble?”

“I think I just strained, pulled something.”

“Or, you know, PTSD.”

“Time will tell, Tamra. I’m Lou.”

“I already know. I’m crazy.”

“Crazy like clairvoyant crazy?”

“Almost. I remembered your septum piercing.”

Lou lifts their hand to their nose. Barbell still there, no tearing.

“Where?”

“Aren’t you, working at NOM now?”

“Interesting, it’s, not that big a publication…”

“I flip through every page of every magazine we get.”

“Is that your department or something?”

“Nope, just control freak type thing.”

Lou tries standing. Nope. “Do you still have a copy?”

“Blah, it was last month, so no,” Tamra says, sitting down. Finally.

This is nice. “That’s OK,” Lou says, instead.

“You don’t have one?”

“I do, plenty. I was just going to tear my photo out.”

“What! You looked cute.”

“It’s insane, that they’d do a profile on me.”

“I think sweet, you looked cute.”

“I was just supposed to be the tech grunt, website content.”

“K, you already get a promotion then?”

“Sort of. The Editor, she just, up and left.”

“For real, forever?”

“Absconded to Massachusetts.”

“Smart lady.”

“Mary, yeah, that’s who Mary is.”

“You’re doing that mumbling thing, again.”

“You said I was cute, two times.”

“You were, are.”

“Sorry. I’m mad with power.” Lou stands, stable enough.

“I like it.”

“I don’t. I think I’m the new Editor.”

When Lou leaves, they’re still holding the Crisis Center card, Tamra’s number penned on the back.

#

The details on the malfunction are released within days. It may not be a malfunction. A young postdoc fellow at Dartmouth, Cindy, is being held in federal custody. Suspicious syntax in her code, an unusual amount of commented sections. She says it’s poetry. But officials are wary. They have avoided releasing anything thus far, but today a few sections were leaked to the press.

nh failure / experiment that only ends / with everyone pretending / autonomy means just for men

sycophants pull down / their pants to check who’s hardest / whose dick swells most for hurting girls / who’s the best bad bill / filer the granite state / has yet to spawn

i wish the adamantine beasts / below the flying blades / meet some sunny day / and crushed concrete / is indistinguishable / from their meat

Oof. That last one. Sounds damning, but, what does Lou know about verse?

They are looking up the word “adamantine,” when the first submission comes in. It arrives from the contact us link on NOM’s website. Lou still doesn’t have access to all Mary’s folders, inboxes, and has been dreading getting a complaint via the generic comment box, or a question they have no idea how to or if to respond to.

The submission’s not a complaint. It’s, more poetry. From someone “South of Manchester but with a White Mountains ethos.”

They say calamities insist

The weakest parts of us

Fall from our souls

And leave remaining

Only our best

To wrest the metal

Back in place.

This time, we rest

Only when our roads

Sparkle with a diamond

Shine, and we remember

Them, the blessed,

Who gave their lives

Without knowing why,

So we could attest

To undivided spirit,

Present, stressed,

Yes, but unbroken.

Lou is thinking, that was, sincere? Then they get another submission. And another. Some with real names attached, others anonymous. Lou wants to write each back, make sure they know they’re writing to a quarterly mostly food magazine. But, they make a new folder on the desktop, arrange them by time received, start playing with the layout, for a few, just in case.

By the end of the week, they have more than enough to go cover to cover. It would be a departure, but Mary’s run a few pages of poems before, when no new restaurants were opening, when the magazine couldn’t feasibly do another feature on the same corn maze or apple orchard it had already covered extensively, multiple times during previous seasons.

The question still remains, is sincerity enough? There are some obvious bad ones, but the majority seem, just fine, maybe a little trite, but how original can you be about a bloodbath that’s captured the entire country’s attention? Lou could get away with this, devoting an entire issue to these remembrances, these little poignancies, in honor of everyone injured or dead. Lou needs to get away with this, they’ve got literally nothing else. Accounts locked, Mary missing; shit, this is really how it is.

They send an email to the lawyer representing Cindy, why the hell not. Maybe she’ll elaborate on her leaked lines. Certainly not expecting an exclusive, her freshest criminal justice metaphors, not to NOM, at least. But, Lou’s thinking of a front cover. If they could get permission to use something from the villain (plaintiff…) herself, that would definitely get some attention, sell some ad space for the fall.

They make a call. Tamra answers.

“I was wondering how long you’d take.”

“Tell me everything you know about poetry.”

#

Turns out, not much. But, Tamra suggests an outing. Flyer she’s seen tacked to the Books a Million community board, picture of a peace sign, open mic night in Warner, thirty minutes north or so, at a cafe called Warless, local poets promised.

Warner, interesting. Lou may not be a reporter, but some easy searches show that’s where Cindy grew up, graduated high school from, a decade ago. If she wasn’t being held in federal prison, who knows, maybe the kind of place she’d hang out, congregate with rural creatives, farm type beatniks.

While Lou’s driving up there, Lionel calls.

“Please tell me you are not still in New Hampshire.”

“I am still in New Hampshire.”

“Come back to civilization, Lou!”

“Don’t you know I’m very important now.”

“How bad was it?”

“Twisted ankle. Lots of smoke. Things I can never unsee.”

“Jesus, Lou. I really thought, when Alex left.”

“I’d rather not say, the mortgage, a lot.”

“Mass real estate is insane.”

“Yeah I’m stuck here. Got a date, though.”

“Hot damn! Go get em, tiger.”

“Tyger, tyger, burning bright…”

“Impressive. All the readings I invited you to.”

“I know. I’m late to the game.”

“Poetry is very serious, Lou, not a game.”

“I’m headed to an open mic night, right now.”

“For your date?”

“Yeah, work maybe, too.”

“Good luck, have fun.”

“If I need some like, line break, advice…”

“You call me. You call me if you need to escape south, also.”

“I did call you, your voicemail saved me, I think.”

“I’m not kidding. Your state is devolving.”

“They just copy Texas, Alabama, we’ll get a heads-up.”

“Do you think that kid fucked with the code?”

“Fuck if I know, Lionel. I wouldn’t blame her, though. Is that OK?”

“Suffering aside, in a vacuum, lots of people would agree.”

“New Hampshire’s worse that devolving.”

“Seriously I know some well-off jerks, love to have you, however long Lou.”

“New Hampshire’s a fucking hole, a black hole, it for real sucks in all the loonies nearby, your state, the Berkshires aren’t all Tanglewood and roses.”

“I know, there’s a new gun shop, down the road from the Norman Rockwell museum.”

“Idiots in Vermont, idiots in western Maine, pent up rage from worse people in better states than mine, who come here, to fulfill their worseness.”

“I pray for women, every day.”

“Gonna take more than prayers, Lionel.”

“Amen. Have a fun time tonight.”

#

Warless Cafe is attached to the back of the town’s Unitarian Universalist church. Lou meets Tamra outside, little hug, both squeeze onto a bench near the order counter. Inside, the place is packed, mostly because it’s small, probably thirty people or so. Lou’s steadying their coffee as the barista keeps walking past, delivering drinks. Tamra’s balancing a BLT on a plate, on her lap, it falls, she lets out a big sigh and eye roll.

They talk briefly between poets reading elegies very similar to the ones Lou’s received since the tragedy. Maybe it’s the setting, this unsubtle conscientious objector vibe in here, lots of protest photos on the wall, that makes each recitation feel tired. Like, how terrible how terrible the wounds, but also how strong how strong we must be, we must not meet violence with violence, we must acknowledge the pain, but seek counsel with our better angels.

You know. No details of the shards of glass and human flesh bouncing past the bystanders’ faces. Where’s the poem like that? For sure, it would kill the mood in here, but Tamra already seems bored. Maybe Lou’s paying too much attention to the acts? They try to ask Tamra about the bookstore, or her life, or anything. Is she still mad about the BLT? Wasn’t this her idea, what else did she expect from a small town? Lionel wouldn’t be caught dead in here. It’s nothing great, but again, it never promised to be, the cafe name is a bad pun, should be a warning, right off.

Lou’s about to suggest maybe they go out for drinks, real drinks, somewhere else, instead. But then the barista passes them again, delivering nothing but himself to the microphone stand. He’s about to speak, puts a finger up, behind the counter briefly, dims the lights, giddily reappears. A ham, yeah, so Lou’s expecting something very melodramatic. But the guy starts performing a, poem? Something, from memory, or he’s making it up on the spot. It sounds, a lot like Cindy. Bits about the hopelessness of men, how they’re the dregs, some strange metaphors involving sediment, gathering up useless matter, setting it ablaze. It doesn’t make a ton of sense, it contradicts itself. It has hushed the crowd. Even the what-seems-to-be regular knitting club clique near the back, stop their work, listen.

The barista excoriates the state. Begs for annexation from Canada, Mass, New York, anyone. He speaks of his hometown and the shame, the shame of still being here, and strangely the people here, in this very hometown, are nodding their heads. At the end, he references Cindy’s last name, in a long list of names, of those working towards disMENbering the status quo, misquotes her leaked code:

anyone defending / autonomy for men / is good as dead / already

When he’s done, the lights go back up, it’s intermission, Joan Baez on the speakers. He thanks the other barista, is about to make someone a latte, does a double take. He walks right up to Lou, bends down, peers close at their face, rummages through the book rack near the entrance, comes back to the bench holding the previous month’s pages of NOM.

“Please don’t do a feature on us.”

“Jesus, if I knew a nose ring would, do this.”

“I beg you. The food is terrible.”

“Wouldn’t know, you knocked my date’s sandwich over.”

He appears to notice Tamra for the first time. Gives her the once over.

“I may have saved you from diarrhea, for real.”

“Refund, apology?”

Tamra is standing up, is adjusting her bag as she gives a weird wave.

“Soooo I should be heading back.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah, I’ll call.”

“Um OK.”

She leaves. The barista sits down next to Lou, who is still processing the goodbye.

“That’s some shitty customer service.”

“I’m not kidding, the bread’s stale.”

“I kind of do now, wanna write something.”

“This is me, imploring you.”

“We’re technically a lifestyle publication…”

“The owner, he’s delusional, cheap.”

“…with merely a heavy focus on food.”

“So NOM, like Not Only Meals?”

“North of Manchester.”

“That’s classist as fuck.”

“You’re rude as fuck.”

“I’m Zeke, I’m sorry, where’s your friend?”

“My date, probably blocking my number.”

“Could be worse, in federal prison.”

“You know Cindy?”

“Know her? We were practically the same person.”

“So you should be locked up, too?”

“Maybe, if anyone would publish me.”

“That why you never left home?”

“Low blow. I did move out, last year.”

“You stayed here, though, in town.”

“Yeah. Cindy was always way smarter.”

“She’s on trial for conspiracy.”

“Wait here.”

Lou shouldn’t. Zeke seems like a tool, Tamra’s stormed off, they already have enough material for the fall issue, last thing they need are angry musings from a semi-eloquent hick.

What Zeke brings back to the bench, though, aren’t poems. They’re pictures. The first ones he pulls out he says aren’t the best; it’s Cindy being presented with medals, trophies, in various auditoriums, in her teen years.

“She was, is, a genius. Math bowl, debate, spelling bees.”

He shows Lou more. The good ones. Photos of Cindy writing in the hallway of some school building, head down, in a notebook. Apart from the awards photos, and a few with her laughing next to an awkward looking younger Zeke, she is alone. She is jotting down something furiously, or gazing off into a distant space. She is walking her dog in the dark, lost in thought. She is in her car, arms straight out, but chin thrust to the roof, exasperated. She is someone New Hampshire was bound to lose, one way or another. She is presented first place ribbons, pinned to her by quote reasonable men, who denounce very obvious evils, like the Confederate flag, but who then, since they are so quote reasonable, take their self-assessed moderate cred, and come up with quote sensible voting restrictions, laws for female bodies, lower taxes to make the schools quote earn their place in the community. They were going to lose Cindy. They have her in custody, but they’ve lost her.

#

The state loses Lou, too, shortly after Zeke gives them the albums.

They accepted the photos, the good ones, decided to scrap the poem content, publish a whole issue with portraits of Cindy inside. They left Warless, Warner, tried to call Tamra, had no luck, emailed Cindy’s lawyer again. Zeke swore he had permission, owned the copyright, everything was taken with his camera, but Lou wanted to make sure.

A week went by, nothing from the lawyer, simplistic texts from Tamra, she saying no no all is good, just busy, maybe in a couple weeks? The New Hampshire Legislature, in a special session held in honor of their fallen colleagues, doubled down on the abortion law, no exemptions for incest, rape. Then, they passed a real Rumpelstiltskin of a state terrorism bill, everyone who read it said it couldn’t pass federal muster, everyone who didn’t read it chanted its talking points, loved it, considered it law already.

The lawmakers must have directed the state troopers to their positions, as well, comprehensive strategy, scary version of safety. Lou hadn’t been keeping up with the local news. They were stressed, they were picturing overturned cars as they showered, as they slept. They were out of weed.

Down to Massachusetts, since it still wasn’t legal in New Hampshire. As they crossed from Nashua to Tyngsboro, they noticed the brown and yellow Dodge Charger, not hiding at all, parked right behind the Bienvenue! Lou assumed they were being paranoid, pulled into the gas station instead, but sure enough the state trooper pulled out, as soon as the first NH plate to leave the dispensary did, crossed over the border, lights on. Oh fuck that. They tried Methuen, same thing, even goddamn Salisbury, little beachbum Salisbury had a cop on the north side of Lafayette, ready to pounce.

They couldn’t go more east, the ocean, didn’t feel like going more south, so headed back towars Concord only to collect their things and call Lionel, to ask for his wealthy friends’ numbers.

#

A little stoned, in the basement of a retired college president’s harborfront villa, Boston, board member of the Humanities something. Lou gets an email from Cindy’s lawyer. No, the defendant does not authorize any use of her writing or likeness, for any popular culture publication. Furthermore, the defendant has no idea who any person named Zeke is, strongly advises that any purportedly consensual images be immediately destroyed. Anything less than full cooperation will result in…

Lou zooms in on the photos, the ones with Zeke and Cindy together. Shit, of course those are photoshopped. Of course they almost went to press with the collected works of a stalker as their total content. Of course they try Mary again, line still disconnected, decide to leave a rabid voicemail on a completely rando person’s number.

They could reinsert all the mediocre poems, still make the printer’s deadline, but they draft something for NOM’s website, instead.

The resignation is not necessary, will not be read by many. Lou types up their account of the devastation. It lacks sentiment, dwells on the lone umbrella left to them to shield their body, their head, from debris. They work themself into a sweat, remembering. They take off their shirt, it gets stuck on their septum piercing. They yank the cotton and accidentally rip the ring out. It bleeds, it hurts, Lou curses, Lou cries. Lou takes a picture of their own, uploads the wound underneath their homepage statement. They google “great disaster” and find this, from a 1912 New York Times op-ed:

“…the hundreds and hundreds of people who have sent us verses about the loss of the Titanic…may be moved to share our own wonderment at the audacity they showed in attempting to deal with such a subject. For very few of those hundreds and hundreds of people had any other excuse for trying to write, other than the fact that the great disaster had excited in them strong feelings of sympathy and horror. They all took it for granted that, being thus moved, their verses would give poetical expression to their emotions.”

And then, below the picture of their inflamed nostrils, they list the names, actual and fake, of every person who sent the magazine some stanzas. Just the names, no comments about or excerpts from their work. They close their laptop, dial Alex.

“Why are you calling me.” No pleasantries, icy. She left in winter and forever wrapped the season around her.

“We’re both on the mortgage,” Lou says, throwing up in their mouth a little.

“We had an agreement.”

So did we, Lou wants to say. “I left, I’m never setting foot in New Hampshire again.”

“Good, don’t blame you.”

“You must know someone in real estate.”

“I’ll get on it, this weekend, Lou.”

“Handle it, everything.”

“That’s fair, thanks.”

“Just take care of it Alex.” Also, I still love you, but better to be all business, aloud, and romantic on all the silent frequencies, where it doesn’t count for shit.

“Fine, Lou, but I’m not splitting –”

“And don’t ever call me again.”

“What? You called me –”

They hang up. Another edible. They ruin the retired college president’s towels. They make good on their word; in the future, they don’t so much as cross the Ipswich River. Cindy is found guilty. Zeke moves back in with his parents. Tamra takes off for Burlington. Lionel passes away, respected and loved. There’s another attack, another draft. Warless in Warner goes up for sale, is turned into a tanning salon. Unicopters become ubiquitous, but are called something else, and look different. Amateurs write banal but mostly harmless rhyming couplets. A few idiots are prosecuted for incitement. Many idiots are not prosecuted for upholding the “law,” denying human rights because a bunch of doofs wrote down their discrimination and got some other doofs to sign it. The UN is ignored. The Supreme Court’s expanded, but it doesn’t go well, it gets worse. A lot is ricocheted, lobbed through the air without much force, returns stronger than anticipated. A lot of people don’t like this, a lot do.

On the next major anniversary of the sinking of the ship, the New York Times reprints the op-ed Lou found. With every tragedy, more and more of us investigate our mood, as if that mattered. We pencil our enthusiasm, wonder how a thing could happen, wonder at the pieces put together, afterward, as if our words were stone, and supported anything, except their own created tension.