Memoirs written by soldiers and Marines who fought in the Second Battle of Fallujah in Iraq and the Korengal Valley i…
Tag: Iraq
Peter Molin’s “Strike Through the Mask!”: Fallujah-Korengal/Korengal-Fallujah
In my blog Time Now: The Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in Art, Film, and Literature I rarely reviewed memoir and non-f…
New Fiction by Joe Millsap: Dreamland
Muhamet reaches for a plastic water bottle resting on the metal filing cabinet that serves as a nightstand. He drinks…
New Nonfiction by I.S. Berry: “Math and Other Things I Learned from War”
Numbers don’t lie, they say. 2 + 2 = 4. No matter how you rearrange it; no matter how you solve it. Turn it into subt…
New Fiction by Cam McMillan: “The Colors of the Euphrates”
She came from the south, wearing a bright red dress and carrying a light blue backpack, weaving through the well-worn…
New Nonfiction from Larry Abbott: Review of Joy Damiani’s “If You Ain’t Cheatin’, You Ain’t Tryin'”
Joy Damiani: If You Ain’t Cheatin’, You Ain’t Tryin’ (and other lessons I learned in the Army) Available on Amazon i…
Peter Molin’s Strike Through the Mask!: A Review of Andrew Bacevich’s “Paths of Dissent”
What did you do if you were deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan and believed the wars you volunteered to fight were uneth…
New Nonfiction from Lauren Kay Johnson: “Inheritance of War” an Excerpt from The Fine Art of Camouflage
I swore I would never become a soldier like my mother. She called it a blip, a few months out of an otherwise enjoyab…
New Nonfiction: “Survivor’s Paradox” by Chris Oliver
When I first saw the photo of David Spicer in a 2009 Army Times, I was excited to recognize my friend there on the pa…
New Fiction from M.C. Armstrong: Excerpt from Novel ‘American Delphi’
Note: M.C. Armstrong’s new novel, ‘American Delphi,’ will be out October 15, 2022 from Milspeak Boo…
New Review from MaxieJane Frazier: “Mapping Fault Lines in Kate Schifani’s Cartography”
Kate Schifani’s memoir, Cartography, maps faulty practices and question of fault over her year serving in Iraq as an …
New Fiction from Benjamin Inks: “Jack Fleming Lives!”
Okay—let me set the record straight. It started as a bunch of rumors first, before we lost control of it. But it real…
New Fiction from Steve Kiernan: “War Ensemble”
Holding Dick Cheney’s shotgun is not exactly how I thought I’d be spending my time when I joined the Marines. It was …
New Review from Michael Carson: “Cherry” by Nico Walker
Early on in Nico Walker’s Cherry, the narrator, working a dead-end shoe store job to pay for drugs while his parents …
Loyal to the Corps: A Review of Teresa Fazio’s ‘Fidelis’
The motto of the U.S. Marine Corps, or USMC, is “Semper Fidelis.” Commonly translated to “always faithful,” the motto…
New Nonfiction from Teresa Fazio: “Light My Fire”
The following excerpt is from Teresa Fazio’s Fidelis: A Memoir, reprinted with permission from Potomac Books.&n…
New Fiction from Brian Van Reet: “Lazarus”
We were the HMDs: the human mine detectors. In a sense the job was easy, but impossible to do well. There was no good…
New Review: BRAVO! Ben Fountain Scores a Touchdown on Reality
Americans do not genuinely support the troops. This is the impression Ben Fountain’s 2012 war novel Billy Lynn’s…
Dissent in Iraq
By M.C. Armstrong and Noor Ghazi Protestors in Iraq have a great deal in common with the new wave of protestors in th…
New Essay by Joshua P.F.: Bombs in the Trash
It was a relatively clear and cool night in the spring of 2008 on our fortified U.S. compound, Camp David, which was …
New Fiction from Ken Galbreath: “Checkpoint”
In high school, I was invisible–acne and braces, last year’s wardrobe. I didn’t have close friends. My grades w…
New Poetry from Amalie Flynn: “Celebrate”
1. Celebrate them. 2. Celebrate the soldier who went to war Just to kill. This soldier accused of shooting and Killin…
New Poetry from Aaron Graham
PIXELATED WOMAN, WEBCAM SHADE Pixelated woman, even your shadowI know as my lover.It whispered.Ash-white dry-erase li…
Stuck
Ozzy stuck pennies in Huey’s door, wedging it shut, and we all stood in the hallway and laughed as he tried to get ou…
New Nonfiction from Brooke King: “Ghosts” and “The Only Stars I’ve Seen”
Ghosts The young Iraqi girl stared back at me, her face covered over in black; only her eyes shown out from under the…
New Essay from Jerad W. Alexander: An Exchange of Fire
I don’t know your name, but we tried to kill each other once. Do you remember it? It happened on November 5, 2005, on…
New Essay from Claudia Hinz: The War at Home
Michael Florez felt called to the Marines. “No greater love than dying for your brother,” the 42-year-old Oregon resi…
New Fiction by Matthew J. Hefti: “Jean, not Jean”
Jean, not Jean by Matthew J. Hefti When I look in the mirror, I think I look stupid. Otherwise, I don’t even t…
New Poetry by Amalie Flynn for the WWI Centennial
Zone Rouge (for the centennial) 1. When the land was. 2. Full of bodies dead. And twisted. 3. When the fighting was. …
New Movie Review: In “The Interpreters,” Home Is No Place At All
“The Interpreters,” a new documentary film by directors Sofian Khan and Andres Caballero, is a raw, emotionally vigor…
Interview with Matt Young, Author of Eat the Apple
Matt Young is a writer, teacher, and veteran. He holds an MA in Creative Writing from Miami University …
New Fiction: Excerpt from Hilary Plum’s Strawberry Fields
An excerpt from the novel Strawberry Fields. Alice, a reporter, and the detective Modigliani are both working on the …
New Essay: Axe by M.C. Armstrong
I met a woman on my way to Iraq. Just before I stepped onto the midnight plane to Baghdad, she asked me what should …
New Poetry By Abby Murray
13 WAYS TO APPROACH A THREE-HEADED DOG I. Those who tell you to carry raw meat have never met me. Bones are better, t…
Interview with Jay Baron Nicorvo
Jay Baron Nicorvo’s novel, The Standard Grand (St. Martin’s Press), was picked for IndieBound’s Ind…
FOB by Daniel Ford
An excerpt of the debut novel Sid Sanford Lives! by Daniel Ford Sid stepped into the desert surrounding the cramped f…
New Poetry: “What Great Grief Has Made the Civilian Mute” by Jennifer Murphy
To watch soldiers load into planes on television To ignore veterans who manage to make it home To cry out when an air…
New Poetry by J.J. Starr
Concerning whether or not I am a horse I strap torso & press arms to diaphragm with breath deep the distressed vo…
New Fiction – “Iqbal” by Dan Murphy
Across the eight-lane roadway from the observation post was a gas station where Iraqis waited for days, siblings and …
Sebastian Junger with WBT’s Drew Pham on “Tribe”
How can a society so disconnected from its wars welcome back its fighting women and men? What do we lose when we priv…
Each Soldier a Thread
The violence that reached our shores left me at a loss—every attempt to conceptualize these tragedies failed to…
Thoughts on the Zombie Apocalypse
A piece about who finds zombie narratives compelling and why.
…
Preparation For The Next Life – What We Want Is Not What We Will Get
After war, most societies look for love. Instead of dealing with the various manifest issues that remain after y…
American Sniper and the Hero Myth
American Sniper, a new film based on the book of the same name, is being released on Christmas Day. Directed by Clint…
The Wrath of Islam
I read a piece on Vox recently (compliments of former roommate and exceptional human being Damien Spleeters) the poin…
Reaction to Helen Benedict’s “The Moral Confusion of Post-War America”
Thought experiment. Someone you know, and who knows you, but not very well, says in public that you have no integrity…
Passive Aggressive: Understanding the Tenor of New War Literature
The suicide bomber came from the wrong direction. He drove a maroon Toyota Corolla into the middle of a group of Afgh…