by Travis Switalski, Sr. Ryan Weaver is this generation of country music performers’ version of the great Kris Kristofferson, who also served as an Army Aviator before his career took off in the late 60s. Weaver is a former Army intelligence analyst, recruiter and aviator. He recently performed at Bridgestone Arena with Charlie Daniels in … Continue reading
The Other Side of the Gunfire: Life in a Battalion Aid Station
By Sean Tyler There are plenty of firsthand articles about the life of a door kicker. This isn’t one of them. I don’t want to paint the picture that I’ve ever experienced combat first hand. I was an enlisted infantryman prior to OIF/OEF, and then a medical platoon leader/headquarters company executive officer in an infantry … Continue reading
Veterans’ Daughters
by Daniel Buckman It was a veteran’s daughter who read my first attempts at fiction, written in spiral binders at Fort Bragg, and mailed in letters to her Dekalb, Illinois’ dorm room. She talked to me about my writing through one of fifty payphones outside the First Brigade snack bar from her university in the … Continue reading
On Telling War Stories
by Jerad W. Alexander In a bar in the Poncey-Highland neighborhood of Atlanta, I sat across from a woman with eyes like wet iron and watched through cigarette smoke as she explained how her boyfriend had been murdered. He had been killed the previous May at a popular drive-in theater. After the movie had ended … Continue reading
Our Own Medicine
by Daniel Buckman In 2009 my fourth New York novel was circulating in paperback. I wrote and published four of them in ten years and became terrified at the prospect of sitting in a room alone for another decade. I said goodbye to all of that after those four novels and writing time in Paris … Continue reading
Traditional Students and Veterans: Using Drama to Bridge a Difficult Gap
By Gaby Bedetti “Fantastic show, that’s what education should look like!” said Travis Martin’s generous e-mail in response to our class’s attempt to capture the experience of war and its aftermath in a play. “A wonderful, often moving piece of theatre,” wrote a professor about “From Shiloh to Afghanistan.” Neither suggested a disconnect between war … Continue reading
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