The most versatile piece of equipment an infantryman carries is a four-letter word. It can be used in almost every co…
Nonfiction
New Review by Maggie Gamberton: Nancy Stroer’s Playing Army
A Game of Soldiers – A Review of Playing Army by Nancy Stroer LT Minerva Mills is a hot mess. Literally. We mee…
New Nonfiction from Patty Prewitt: “Missing Amy”
Missouri inmate Patty Prewitt has been in prison for almost 40 years. She is serving a life sentence for the murder o…
New Nonfiction from Tom Keating: “The Lobby”
I am careful with the coffee tray. It holds four coffees and one tea for my guys in the VA hospital lobby. Everyone w…
New Interview from Larry Abbott: “The Visual Diary of Danish Soldier Henrik Andersen”
Art After War: The Visual Diary of Danish Soldier Henrik Andersen As the memory of U.S. participation in the Afghanis…
New Nonfiction by Krista Puttler: “Traversing the Gate of Tears”
Dubai is one gigantic, grey strip mall. “Does anyone know why they call this place Dubai?” I look away from my bus wi…
New Fiction from Steve Bills: “Bombing Pearl Harbor”
29 April 1971 From: Naval Science Department To: Midshipmen Second Class, Navigation and Piloting 301 (NAV 301) Subje…
New Nonfiction from Kevin Honold: “The People of Cain”
But vnto Kain and to his offering he had no regarde: wherefore Kain was exceeding wroth, and his countenance f…
New Nonfiction by Dean Hosni: “The Cartoon War”
October 6, 1973. Los Angeles. The stack of newspapers sat in front of me on the brown shag carpet, and next to it was…
Peter Molin’s “Strike Through the Mask!”: The Clock Strikes Twelve
My year-long run as guest-columnist for The Wrath-Bearing Tree comes to an end this month. I’m not sure if WBT founde…
New Nonfiction by Larry Abbott: The Photographic Self-Portraits of Ron Whitehead
There Is No Such Thing as an Unwounded Soldier Ron Whitehead works in a variety of photographic series: Eye of the S…
So Say We All and Wrath-Bearing Tree Collaborate!
In collaboration with So Say We All‘s Veterans Writing Division, founder Justin Hudnall and The Wrath-Bearing T…
Peter Molin’s “Strike Through the Mask!”: The Great Contemporary War-Writing Quiz
30 questions; let’s see who knows their stuff. Answers below. 27-30 Correct: Expert 23-26: Sharpshooter 19-22:…
New Nonfiction from Ciel Downing: “Burn Baby Burn”
“Fire in the belly!” “Be all you can be!” “Get fired up!” Slogans to incite, ignite, excite and encourage living on …
New Fiction by R.L. Peterson: “Rules of Dying”
Every work day morning at 8 o’clock sharp, me, Juan, Marcus, and Willard stand at attention with hands over our heart…
Wild Delights: Patrick Hicks Interviews Brian Turner
Patrick Hicks: Brian Turner earned an MFA from the University of Oregon and taught English in South Korea for …
Peter Molin’s Strike “Through the Mask!”: Three Vignettes
Memoirs written by soldiers and Marines who fought in the Second Battle of Fallujah in Iraq and the Korengal Valley i…
New Review from Larry Abbott: “Corn, Coal & Yellow Ribbons” and “Midnight Cargo”
Corn, Coal & Yellow Ribbons. Poems by Kevin Basl and Nathan Lewis. Trumansburg, NY: Out of Step Press, 2021. Mid…
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 Review by Michael Gruber: “The Myth of the Clean Air War”
A review of Kimberly K. Dougherty’s Airpower in Literature: Interrogating the Clean War, 1915-2015 One of war’s most …
Peter Molin’s “Strike Through the Mask!”: Memory and Memoir in Afghanistan
The opening of this month’s column repeats much of a Time Now: The Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in Art, Film, and Lit…
New Nonfiction from Michael Gruber: Review of J. Malcolm Garcia’s “Most Dangerous, Most Unmerciful: Stories from Afghanistan”
Humanity in Afghanistan For the average American G.I. who served in Afghanistan, the country was of a different world…
New Fiction from Chris Daly: “The Rothko Report”
“My father’s work takes you to the edge of the abyss and invites you to look.” -Son of Rothko …
Peter Molin’s “Strike Through the Mask!”: Interment at Arlington
The vet read that the hero’s burial ceremony in Arlington Cemetery was taking place the following Tuesday. As it happ…
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 from F. Ahmeti: Bunker Mentality
“The home of the Albanian belongs to God and the guest.” Kanun Durres reminds me of the Jersey Shore. The mix of fami…
New Review by Adrian Bonenberger: John Milas’ “The Militia House”
In the Mind of Madness There is a nightmare I used to have with some regularity even before my time in the military, …
Peter Molin’s “Strike Through the Mask!”: The Afterlife of Words and Deeds
A recent Los Angeles Times review of A Line in the Sand, the latest novel by Kevin Powers, the author of seminal Glob…
New Review from Adrian Bonenberger: Jaroslav Hasek’s “The Man Without a Transit Pass and Other Tales”
There are few things I like better than sitting down with a copy of classic Central or Eastern European literature fr…
New Nonfiction from Andrew Davis: Korta Za: Go Home
Andrew Elliot Davis was born July 1, 1990 in Worcester, MA; his family moved to Milford, NH, where he graduated high …
Peter Molin’s “Strike Through the Mask!”: Spotlight on MilSpeak and Middle West Presses
Major publishing house enthusiasm for war, mil, and vet-themed books has noticeably waned in the past few years, but …
New Review from Larry Abbott: Lauren Kay Johnson’s “The Fine Art of Camouflage”
Camouflage can exist on a number of levels. There is the basic military definition of disguising personnel, eq…
New Review from Rachel Kambury: David Chrisinger’s “The Soldier’s Truth: Ernie Pyle and the Second World War”
The War of Little Things A review of David Chrisinger’s The Soldier’s Truth: Ernie Pyle and the Story of World War II…
New Nonfiction from Laura Hope-Gil: “The Train”
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 S…
Peter Molin’s “Strike Through the Mask!”: American Veterans and the Ukrainian Crisis
Bordentown is a pleasant town located on the New Jersey side of the Delaware River about twenty miles north of Philad…
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 Nonfiction by M.C. Armstrong: “Murder Most Foul: The Role of Lyndon Johnson in the Murder of John F. Kennedy”
What is the truth, and where did it go? Ask Oswald and Ruby, they oughta know. “Shut your mouth, ”…
Peter Molin’s Strike Through the Mask!: “So Say We All and the Veterans Writing Workshop”
Justin Hudnall, the founder and director of the San Diego-based performative writing-and-reading collective So Say We…
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…
New Nonfiction from Thomas Donovan: “After the War”
There was a heavy snowfall that February night in 1946. A six-year-old boy watched from his bedroom window as the big…
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 Antoinette Constable: “A Hundred Roses for Olga Herzen”
To some people outside our circle, Charles Rist was seen as a saintly hero. Charles Rist, our grandfather, was a famo…
New Nonfiction from Patrick Hicks: “A Woman’s Place”
Ravensbrück did not fall from the sky. It was planned. It was built. It was managed. The only all-female concentratio…
Peter Molin’s Strike Through the Mask!—Elliot Ackerman’s “The Fifth Act: America’s End in Afghanistan” and Jamil Jan Kochai’s “Haunting of Hajji Hotak and Other Stories”
It’s a commonplace that America largely ignored the long war in Afghanistan while it was being fought. Now, aft…
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 from Joan Stack Kovach: “What He Wore”
He was always a very sharp dresser. Firstborn child, he toddled around in a merino wool coat from Lord&Taylor and…
New Nonfiction from J. Malcolm Garcia: “Othello Avenue”
In the cold autumn dawn shadows blanket Othello Avenue, the parked cars and vans little more than gauzy, damp lumps, …
New Nonfiction from MaxieJane Frazier: “A Military Liberal Education”
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 F…
New Nonfiction: “One Woman’s History of Sexual Abuse in Prison” by Patty Prewitt
Missouri inmate Patty Prewitt has been in prison for almost 40 years. She is serving a life sentence for the murder o…
New Nonfiction: “A Bridge” by Kent Jacobson
Take me to the alley Take me to the afflicted ones Take me to the lonely ones that Somehow lost their way …