Reflections

One minute.I can breathe. Inhale for four beats, hold for four, exhale for four, hold for four, then repeat. In. Hold. Out. Hold. Our front yard is filled with mourners, all in black. A bead of sweat rolls down the nape of my neck, melting…

He stood in front of me in a pile of his own vomit. The remnants of his bottle and bile were spattered down his shirt, and he screamed that he wanted spaghetti for dinner. At the same time, no more than three feet away, sat a plate of…

I think of Haiti as a country that just can’t catch a break. Beyond environmental challenges—deforestation, hurricanes, earthquakes—violence is commonplace, exacerbated by crushing poverty, crime, gangs, and drugs.Throw in the country’s…

It’s Saturday morning in Lynchburg, Virginia, shortly before sunrise. I lace my Nikes and head out the door for a weekly run with my dad. I’m 12 years old.I tiptoe down the steps and gently open and close the front door so I don’t disturb…

Author David Chrisinger spent the past four years walking in war journalist Ernie Pyle’s footsteps for his new book. This excerpt first appeared in “The Soldier’s Truth: Ernie Pyle and the Story of World War II,” from Penguin Publishing…

When the casualty notification team arrived at the door down the street, you dropped everything, and in a blinding rush toward her, saw that she was in the car in her driveway, the ignition on and her eyes fixed forward on infinity. Her son…

I’m proud of my service. Let me get that out of the way up front. But I don’t parade my service around. I don’t wear clothes that advertise it. There are no bumper stickers on my car. I rarely bring it up in conversation.Most people are…

There were things that I expected to miss when my husband deployed. His laugh, his smell, sleeping next to him in bed. His him. And then there were things that snuck up on me.Katalina in June 2016. Photo courtesy of the author. I missed…

When I returned from Vietnam in February of 1969 I had a bad attitude—a very bad attitude.I joined the Air Force to escape college and a broken heart (another story entirely). It turned out that the discipline, order, and focus the Air…

Marine Maj. Andrew Hesterman first saw combat up close as a grunt during the Gulf War. His career culminated as an officer in the Iraq War, where he directed air support for the Marines in Fallujah. In this excerpt from Radioman: 25…