An Alternate View of Moral Injury Introductory note: I originally composed this essay between 2022-23. I’ve gone back…
Tag: PTSD
New Fiction by Robert Miner: Shades of Purple
Danny Llewellyn hadn’t shit himself since he was a toddler, back when nobody minded. Since then, he’d joined the Army…
New Nonfiction by Avory Schanfelter: “Condition Black”
Time in a combat zone passes strangely. When you are surrounded by the incredible, the human mind has a tendency to d…
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 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…
New Fiction from Cameron McMillan: “Call Me Nobody. Let Me Live.”
I can still see his smile as I settle into my desk and the normal morning wave shuffles in. First comes the pinstripe…
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 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 Poetry by Ben Weakley: “In Some Distant Country” and “How Will You Answer”
In Some Distant Country We have seen this before, in booksand on the screen, like dust plumes risingin some distant c…
New Nonfiction from Bettina Rolyn: “Adjustment Disorder”
For thirteen years, I stored my boxes of army documents and medical records in various basements, closets, and attics…
New Poetry by D.W. McLachlan: “Tanana River” and “The Heaviness of Age”
Tanana River We followed your Hilux along the riparian zone,a green snake blooming through the desert brown,when you …
New Fiction from Damion Meyer: “Reverse Process”
Five days ago at morning PT, Nate wasn’t in formation. Everyone assumed he was at sick call, and we did our workout w…
Larry Abbott on Warrior Songs, Vol. Three: “The Last Thing We Ever Do: Vietnam Veterans Speak Truth”
Warrior Songs is a series of albums created under the direction of Iraq War veteran Jason Moon, profiled here in Wrat…
New Film Review from Larry Abbott: “This is Not a War Story”
Timothy Reyes (Danny Ramirez), a young Marine Lance Corporal veteran, spends his days riding subway trains throughout…
New Nonfiction from Sarah Haak: “Assimilation”
My husband has downloaded a sleep cycle app for his phone. Every evening he tucks the phone into bed with him, under …
New Poetry from Scott Janssen: “Bottle Tree”
On my first visit I askedA stock question about Whether you’d been in the military. Marines, nineteen sixty-six, you …
New Nonfiction from Erin Carpenter: “Fully Involved: A Trauma-Informed Approach to Date Night”
Part 1: The Healing Shed In 2016, my husband burned our guesthouse to the ground. He left a t-shirt over a lightbulb …
“Art-Making is My Light:” An Interview with Poet Suzanne S. Rancourt
As Suzanne Rancourt notes, her work is a bridge between disparate worlds, attempting to make connections between thes…
Poetry from Westley Smith: “Homecoming,” “On Not Dying,” “Nocturne”
Homecoming He doesn’t feel quite right, being there—same house, a little run down, dirtierthan he remembers. They smi…
New Poetry from Jacqlyn Cope: “Mission 376: Patient X,” “Prolonged Exposure Therapy,” “Doxies and Rum”
MISSION 376: PATIENT X There’s dirt in his mouth now &nbs…
Artist Profile: Musician Emily Yates
INTRODUCTION Emily Yates joined the Army at 19, spent six years in, from 2002 until her “release,” as she puts it, in…
New Fiction from Lisa Erin Sanchez: “Signatures of Ghosts”
He had one scar when I met him, a single blow to the back of his neck in the soft fleshy space between head gear and …
New Fiction from Daniel Ford: BLACK COFFEE
Excerpted from the collection Black Coffee by Daniel Ford, September Sky Press, June 2019. “Are we ever going …
New Fiction from Roz Wiggins: “Lucky”
I. Under a ceiling topped by swirling fans and surrounded by walls whose windows had no glass, the Private lay…
New Poetry by Antonio Addessi
You’d caught
the big one they said, you’d hooked a willow and
sank thigh deep into the muck. They hung up…
New Fiction from Ulf Pike: “Title and Price”
It was not rare to see horses on Main Street when I was growing up in this town. I was spindly and spry then, …
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 Poetry from Frank Blake
We came home And had nothing to do and nowhere to go and too much freedom and money and space and women and cars and …
Our Personal Community by Curtis J. Graham
It was in the news. On a bright summer day in Helmand Province, Lance Corporal Wickie did his duty and killed an insu…
New Fiction by John M. McNamara: “The Mayor of West Callahan Creek”
A bare bulb in a hooded fixture illuminated the sign. Fog obscured the wooden placard, and as Joseph neared it, the b…
New Poetry from JD Duff
Night Flash You’ve been having nightmares again. The cruel shaking of a body resisting slumber. Hands twitching, ches…
New Poetry by Lynn Houston
You Leave for Afghanistan If I’m writing this, it means I can’t sleep and that the rain outside my window drops blind…
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…
An Interview with Helen Benedict, Author of WOLF SEASON
Helen Benedict is the author of seven novels, five books of nonfiction, and a play. Her most recent novel, WOLF SEASO…
New Fiction: Excerpt from Jay Baron Nicorvo’s The Standard Grand
The veterans of the Standard had been back from their wars for some time, trying to figure out how to live lives in t…
New Fiction: “Old Wounds” by Therese Cox
The YouTube walkthroughs have names, like action movies or episodes of a serial TV show. Judgment Day. Suffer With Me…
In Laurent Bécue-Renard’s Of Men and War War Is Not Tragic But Embarrassing
In The Great War and Modern Memory, Paul Fussell argued that every war is ironic because every war is worse than…
Suicide and the Military
There are two substantial issues facing the American military and veteran community today. The first, a logical and n…