The YouTube walkthroughs have names, like action movies or episodes of a serial TV show. Judgment Day. Suffer With Me…
Tag: Afghanistan
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 Poetry by Randy Brown
Toward an understanding of war and poetry, told (mostly) in aphorisms Poetry is the long war of narrative. Poetry, li…
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…
The Long March Ahead: A Veteran’s Place in Resistance
The day after the election felt all too familiar. It felt like 9/11. Then, as now, that day only promised a long road…
Each Soldier a Thread
The violence that reached our shores left me at a loss—every attempt to conceptualize these tragedies failed to…
The Burn Pit Registry
It started with a cough none of us could get rid of. Sure I smoked. Lots of us smoked but the non-smokers had it too,…
The Unusually Literal World of Bowe Bergdahl
Military hyperbole is at the heart of Serial’s second season. Sarah Koenig has gambled that she can take a simp…
Wrath of UCMJ: Against Crushing Bowe Bergdahl
Americans have become jaded by injustice. Wealthy and elitist citizens like Robert Durst and John du Pont bully, rape…
Thoughts on the Zombie Apocalypse
A piece about who finds zombie narratives compelling and why.
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Some Thoughts on the Assassination of Osama bin Laden
During my first tour in Afghanistan in 2005, I was one of those who still thought that the war was justified a…
Why Don’t Afghans Love Us: Elliot Ackerman’s Green on Blue
There aren’t many “literary” fiction books out about Afghanistan, and almost none authored by…
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…
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…
A Veteran Relooks at War
We have collectively learned much in the last couple years about a secret and frightful new war machine — Unman…