Spooky New ‘Red Bull’ Poem at Rawhead Journal!

A new poem by Global War on Terror (GWOT) writer and U.S. Army veteran Randy “Sherpa” Brown, author of the award-winning 2015 poetry collection “Welcome to FOB Haiku: War Poems from Inside the Wire,” is newly featured in the debut special issue of the literary journal “Rawhead.”

Brown’s poem is titled “at the Motel Mehtar Lam,” and can be accessed FREE on-line.

The on-line journal “Rawhead,’ write the editors, takes its name from “one of many folkloric bogeymen used to frighten children into obedience. In our numerous and varied myths, monsters emerge from cultural shadows, not only as instruments of fear or control, but also as mirrors of our shared humanity.”

The “Rawhead Presents: Bloody Bones” special issue features a seasonal mix of horror, Sci-Fi, Fantasy and other forms of speculative story-telling.

A 20-year retired Iowa Army National Guard veteran with one overseas deployment, Brown embedded with units of 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 34th Infantry “Red Bull” Division (2-34th BCT) as civilian media in Afghanistan, May-June 2011. 

“The poem ‘at the Motel Mehtar-Lam’ was inspired by a night I spent in the rustic guest quarters at Forward Operating Base (“FOB”) Mehtar Lam in Afghanistan’s Laghman Province, May-June 2011, says Brown. “I was laying-over with my old unit, the headquarters of Iowa’s 1-133rd Inf. ‘Ironman’ Battalion. My hooch was located right next to the helipad, and just off that pad was a cordoned-off, above-ground Afghan gravesite.”

“It was just after Osama bin Laden had been killed, and stealthy black-helicopters were everyone’s top-of-mind,” says the poet. “I’m haunted by the sound of muffled chopper blades, but I tell myself I just imagined that they sounded different than usual.”

The artwork accompanying Brown’s poem in “Rawhead” is an image of the snowy mountains surrounding the FOB and the adjacent Afghan town of Mehtar Lam, pop. 144,000. The prolific photographer was then-Staff Sgt. Ryan Matson, a U.S. Army Reserve soldier assigned to the 2-34th BCT’s public affairs section.

After returning to Iowa, Brown helped publish images and words such as Matson’s in “Reporting for Duty: U.S. Citizen-Soldier Journalism from the Afghan Surge, 2010-2011.” In addition to producing other Sci-Fi/Fantasy and war-themed anthologies, including “Giant Robot Poems” and “Things We Carry Still,” Brown most recently edited  “Cryptids, Kaiju & Corn: Poems and Micro-Stories about Modern Midwest Monsters.”