Reflections

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…

Editor’s note: This is Part II of a two-part story. Read Part I here.IMPACT plus one second Tumbling end over end, the remaining intact portion of the number four aircraft plummeted toward earth with Vince strapped to his ejection seat. He…

IMPACT minus 2 hours and 1 minuteYou could always identify the schedulers. They were the ones who ran from room to room attempting to fill flight sorties when instructor pilots had canceled for some reason or another. That morning was no…

I turned off the patient’s ventilator and stood over him as his heart slowed and his breathing grew shallow. It was his own body killing him now—and he would die with none of his family there to witness his final breaths.He was a stranger,…

The city swirled around me in a kaleidoscope of colors: high-rises that gleamed in the sun like pastel-colored mirrors, palm trees with dancing emerald leaves, women in beautiful sparkly heels that peeked out from beneath their burqas. A…

Drop a pebble into a pond and, after the initial splash, ripples spread across the water. It’s a familiar image, one we know so intuitively that everyone understands immediately what you mean by the phrase “ripple effect.” Yet, even when…

My stepfather, brother, and I served in Afghanistan and Iraq. We are still there, frozen in the suck—a boomer, a Gen Xer, and a millennial—ducking mortars, mourning dead colleagues, and waiting for care packages curated by Mom. For seven…

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