I can still see his smile as I settle into my desk and the normal morning wave shuffles in. First comes the pinstripe…
Tag: Iraq War
New Fiction from Colin Raunig: “What Happened in Vegas”
Since getting back from deployment, Frank had gone soft. He was still a massive block of muscle, but the edges had ro…
New Nonfiction from J.G.P. MacAdam: “Was His Name Mohammed Hassan?”
I don’t want to keep going back there. I’m damn near forty years old; too broke and tubby to deploy anymore. It’s my …
New Interview of Author Hassan Blasim, by Peter Molin
Hassan Blasim’s 2014 short-story collection The Corpse Exhibition captured American readers with its harrowing portra…
New Fiction from David P. Ervin: “Currents”
Grant crouched on the sandstone and leaned on his fishing pole. The sun warmed his shoulders as he stared through the…
New Fiction from David Blome: “Bodies”
On a bright December morning, the lieutenant told me the news. An insurgent group in Latifiyah had executed about twe…
American Exceptionalism: Quo Vadis?
In view of the failures of the COVID-19 pandemic in the USA, which has seen over 2 million cases and more than 115,00…
Poetry Review: Aaron Graham’s BLOOD STRIPES
1. I’m reading Aaron Graham’s war poetry. And I think violence is a volcano. How pressure builds. Between layers of r…
An Interview with Brooke King, author of WAR FLOWER: MY LIFE AFTER IRAQ
Andria Williams: Brooke, thanks so much for taking the time to chat with Wrath-Bearing Tree. We are all excited to fe…
Review of Jon Chopan’s Veterans Crisis Hotline
A few years ago, I had a conversation with a friend named Ted. Ted is a fellow veteran, and classmate of mine from th…
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 Fiction from Patrick Mondaca: “The Ministry of Information”
Too often your mind wanders back to those places where God has turned his face away. For example: the prison your pla…
New Fiction by Helen Benedict: WOLF SEASON
STORM The wolves are restless this morning. Pacing the woods, huffing and murmuring. It’s not that they’re hungry; Ri…
Lady Bird’s Pain
There’s an odd narrative thread in Greta Gerwig’s 2017 Lady Bird. The titular hero lives out her senior year of high …
New Fiction: “Plink, Rack” by Steven Kiernan
There are many moving parts in a gun. There’s the trigger, which most people mistakenly believe is what fires the who…
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…
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 …
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…
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…