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Honor Box by Janet M. Greenstreet
Worn and tattered, the Western Union telegram holds her heart within its folds. Shall I make wedding plans for Thursday or Saturday? She will wait for him to send word. Once received, she will secure a witness and the priest, bake a yellow cake with buttercream frosting and buy some…
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Maggie’s Drawers* by Janet M. Greenstreet
Beyond smoking scrub, a red flag rises on a rifle. I hear O’Malley curse the almighty as we all deflate: exhausted, hungry, lice-infested, frozen. Stillness shrouds our brooding group. More hours on this mountain means no one eats through zero-dark-hundred. I try to imagine what a hot shower feels like. I…
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A Memento, In Situ by Lisa Short
Baltimore, Maryland2009 “See here?” says the neurosurgeon, gesturing at the monitor mounted on his office wall with a laser pointer. A bright red dot flares to life, garish against the white oblongs marching down the middle of the black screen. “These are your lumbar vertebrae—L4, L5 and there, S1.” I…
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Lava by Robert Libbey
“You a thief like your friend?” called a voice from the back room. The tips of my fingers left prints on a dusty soap wrapper. “You have any tissues?” I shouted through a rack of comic books. “Never mind him,” said the old lady at the counter. “Third rack…
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The V.A. Waiting Room, PTSD Counseling, 11 a.m. by Ron Riekki
I am waiting.I am waitingto go from one roomto another room.I used to waitto go from one baseto another base.I went from a basewhere a guy committed suicideto a base where the instructor drowned a recruit during trainingto a base where a Marine put his gun in his mouthand another…
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When I write about the military by Ron Riekki
I get hot.I get hit by memories of the hot heat that ate our heads.When I write about the military, I get confusedabout dates,but I rememberthe fire,the way that ghosts come on so quickly,like now. You said not to push myself to hard,but do you understand I would never fucking writethen,that…
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Come Home Soldier by Christina Ciufo
American flag, half mass withthin canary lights penetrating through its creases, waving, while he solemnly walked downthe paved road, with his head half-lowered, veiled by the flag’s shadow. Green eyes dimmed, like a melancholy flame on a lighter, cast shattered remints of his sanity. Flashing thoughts, like the English Channel’s restless waves pounding against the sands, remembering dense air,…
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Omaha Beach, Normandy by Danny P. Barbare
Whatdoeshesee lookingoutthekitchenwindow smokingacigarette anddrinkingaMillerbeer? Statement from the author: I would get up in the middle of the night and dad would be drinking a Miller beer. Looking out the dark kitchen window. Sometimes I would ask him what he saw in War World ll. But he told me nothing about…
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Valor Concealed by Jason O’Toole
Finally, Paris.Way of Utah Beach,Battle of the Bulge, Buchenwald. “Now Entering GermanyCourtesy of the Super Sixth” Grandpa as a young tourist.First trip abroad,stops along The River Seine.Garand over shoulder slung. Handsome in his tanker jacket;kept him from freezing in Ardennes. Smiling broadlyunder M1 helmet,because that’s what one did! In those days,that’s what…
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A Graveyard for Soldiers by James Piatt
In a graveyard for soldiers under a frowning moon, birds eschew the crumbs of dry bones of dead warriors, dogs curve around the boundaries as they sense the odor of death, and mothers and wives, oblivious of these things place flowers on tombstones to celebrate life: A blind silhouette of…