Red Bull Poet Writes Humorous Odes to Black Coffee

With a tip of the campaign hat to both April Fools’ Day and National Poetry Month, Middle West Press LLC has today launched a new digital chapbook featuring 10 humorous “war poems” about coffee.

The $3 sampler, available as a Kindle e-book, collects new and previously published poems by the award-winning citizen-soldier-poet Randy “Sherpa” Brown, as well as the classic drill-sergeant essay “Listen Up, Maggots! It's National Poetry Month!”

Find the digital chapbook at Amazon here at this link.

Red Bull Rising mil-blogger Randy “Sherpa” Brown embedded with his former Iowa Army National Guard unit—the 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 34th Infantry “Red Bull” Division—as a civilian journalist in Afghanistan, May-June 2011. He served in uniform for 20 years, with one overseas deployment in 2003. He subsequently authored the award-winning poetry collection “Welcome to FOB Haiku: War Poems from Inside the Wire.”

He is a former editor of community and metro newspapers, as well as national trade and consumer newsstand magazines, and is now a freelance writer, editor, and independent publisher. His essays, journalism, and poetry have appeared widely both on-line and in print.

His on-cover book credits include co-editing the anthologies “Why We Write: Craft Essays on Writing War” and “Things We Carry Still: Poems & Micro-Stories about Military Gear.” Brown is a three-time poetry finalist in the annual Col. Darron L. Wright Memorial Writing Awards, administered by the Chicago-based literary magazine Line of Advance. 

Learn more about Randy Brown at: linktr.ee/randysherpabrown

Middle West Press LLC (www.middlewestpress.com) is a Johnston, Iowa-based editor and publisher of non-fiction, journalism, and poetry. As an independent micro-press, it publishes one to four titles annually. Its projects are often inspired by the people, places, and history of the American Midwest.

Great Books for Military Service Members, Veterans, and Family!

Three Middle West Press titles now make up something of a non-fiction trilogy for writers and readers of military themes and topics. As such, they make great seasonal and professional gifts for past- and present military service members, veterans, and family.

Writes Editor-Publisher Randy Brown: “One principle that drives our military-themed work at Middle West Press, is that not all veterans are American Snipers and Navy SEALs; be proud of who you were, what you did as a job and what you tried to do in your country's name, and who you are now.”

• Things We Carry Still: Poems & Micro-Stories about Military Gear playfully explores military life around a single idea—“show and tell” from our closets and footlockers—while offering new inspirations for future writing!

• Why We Write: Craft Essays on Writing War helps define a genre/practice of "Military Writing" as a big tent—one that includes veterans, service members, civilians, novelists, poets, scholars, science-fiction writers, etc.

• Our Best War Stories: Prize-winning Poetry & Prose from the Col . Darron L. Wright Memorial Awards showcases some of the very best of military writing, as exemplified by the Col. Darron L. Wright Memorial Awards. These awards, administered annually by Line of Advance journal, are one of The Aiming Circle’s highest-recommended venues for military writing.

Middle West Press LLC is a Johnston, Iowa-based editor and publisher of non-fiction, journalism, and poetry. As an independent micro-press, we publish one to four titles annually. Our projects are often inspired by the people, places, and history of the American Midwest.

Our titles are available for purchase via select museum gift shops and independent booksellers, as well as leading on-line bookstores. Library and bookseller rates available.

Shop all our titles on Amazon here, in both print and Kindle e-book editions: amzn.to/3zvWGmV

(Disclosure: Middle West Press LLC is an Amazon sales affiliate. As such, it earns a small commission from qualifying purchases using the above links.)

New on Kindle: Soldier-Poet Targets Moral Puzzles through Lens of TV Show

In the new Kindle e-chapbook Twelve O’Clock Haibun: Parables & Poems from a Classic TV Show, humor-loving soldier-poet (and former “Army lessons-learned analyst”) Randy Brown invites readers to view the 1964-1965 first season of the “12 O’Clock High” as a series of moral dilemmas and puzzles.

The TV series is now viewable on Amazon Prime Video, as well as Internet platforms.

In this standalone spin-off to the author’s ground-breaking 2022 lyrical meta-essay Twelve O’Clock Haiku: Leadership Lessons from Old War Movies & New Poems, readers can now match wits and wisdom with the charismatic and brooding Brig. Gen. Frank Savage (Robert Lansing), commander of the fictional 918th Bomb Group, as he and his heroic air crews stoically navigate tests of endurance, morality, courage, and loss.

A haibun is a Japanese form, comprised of a short prose narrative followed by a haiku. In haibun, the prose and poetry elements traditionally do not address each other directly, but they do relate thematically. Ideally, the impressions left after reading a haibun should be greater than the sum of its two parts.

The Twelve O’Clock Haibun project comprises brief, spoiler-free summaries of all 32 episodes of the TV show’s first season, plus one additional “final” episode in order to complete a narrative arc. For each, a prose section first describes an episode’s situational frame, without offering resolutions. A companion haiku then illuminates a moral question or dilemma suggested by the story. Readers are left to reflect on the implications of each situation. As in war, there are no easy answers. 

In addition to other accolades, Brown is a three-time poetry finalist in the Col. Darron L. Wright Memorial Awards, administered annually by the Chicago-based literary journal Line of Advance. His 2015 collection, Welcome to FOB Haiku: War Poems from Inside the Wire, was awarded a gold medal distinction from the Military Writers Society of America. His chapbook So Frag & So Bold: Short Poems, Aphorisms & Other Wartime Fun was published in 2021.

 

He is the co-editor of two non-fiction books: Reporting for Duty: Citizen-Soldier Journalism from the Afghan Surge, 2010-2011, published in 2015; and Why We Write: Craft Essays on Writing War, published in 2019.

 

As “Charlie Sherpa,” he blogs about modern war poetry at www.fobhaiku.com, and about writing on military themes at www.aimingcircle.org.

TWELVE O’CLOCK HAIBUN: Parables & Poems from a Classic TV Show (Middle West Press LLC) is available as a $2.99 Kindle e-book edition exclusively via Amazon.

Middle West Press LLC is a Johnston, Iowa-based editor and publisher of non-fiction, journalism, and poetry. As an independent micro-press, we publish one to four titles annually. Our projects are often inspired by the people, places, and history of the American Midwest.

Through Classic WW2 Movie, Humorist-Poet Explores Go-to-War Ethics

In a cheeky critique of the classic American air power narrative “Twelve O’Clock High,” award-winning soldier-poet, essayist, and humorist Randy Brown explores what it means to be a leader or follower at war—morally, physically, and psychologically. The book is packed full of insights into military life, as viewed through the lenses of war movies, history, and the author’s experiences as a one-time U.S. Army-trained “lessons-learned analyst.” 

“I started out to write 12 haiku poems about a favorite old war movie,” says the author, “but my ‘whimsical experiment in minimalist war poetry’ mutated into a ‘maximum effort’ mix of memory, media, and military culture!” TWELVE O’CLOCK HAIKU: Leadership Lessons from Old War Movies & New Poems now comprises poems both old and new, a lyric essay about the film, and a list of resources for enthusiasts of World War II bomber poetry, history, and movies.

 

Brown first encountered the 1949 movie when on temporary duty as a U.S. Army citizen-soldier. Whether as a novel, film, or late-1960s television series, the “Twelve O’Clock High” franchise continues to be a touchstone in 21st century Professional Military Education (PME) and business-class discussions about transformative leadership, ethics, organizational learning, and management techniques.

 

In addition to other accolades, Brown is a three-time poetry finalist in the Col. Darron L. Wright Memorial Awards, administered annually by the Chicago-based literary journal Line of Advance. His 2015 collection, Welcome to FOB Haiku: War Poems from Inside the Wire, was awarded a gold medal distinction from the Military Writers Society of America. His chapbook So Frag & So Bold: Short Poems, Aphorisms & Other Wartime Fun was published in 2021.

 

He is the co-editor of two non-fiction books: Reporting for Duty: Citizen-Soldier Journalism from the Afghan Surge, 2010-2011, published in 2015; and Why We Write: Craft Essays on Writing War, published in 2019.

 

As “Charlie Sherpa,” he blogs about modern war poetry at www.fobhaiku.com, and about writing on military themes at www.aimingcircle.org.

 

Starting September 18, 2022 (the 75th birthday of the U.S. Air Force !!!):

TWELVE O’CLOCK HAIKU: Life-Lessons in Leadership from War Poems & Films (116 pages, Middle West Press LLC) is available in a $14.99 trade paperback edition through Amazon and other booksellers, as well as a $9.99 Kindle e-book edition exclusively via Amazon.

Middle West Press LLC is a Johnston, Iowa-based editor and publisher of non-fiction, journalism, and poetry. As an independent micro-press, we publish one to four titles annually. Our projects are often inspired by the people, places, and history of the American Midwest.

Former 'Red Bull' Citizen-Soldier Writes New Poetry Chapbook

“Every poet,” warns journalist and poet Randy Brown, “has a heart filled / with shrapnel.”

In his new chapbook SO FRAG & SO BOLD, the former U.S. Army “brigade staff jester” takes aim at endless wars, parent traps, social media, and stodgy religious beliefs. It’s an iconoclastic cluster-munition that’s bursting with more hundreds of haiku, aphorisms, philosophical puzzles, and other experiments in pithy and pulpy poetry.

Brown’s careful constructions of line-breaks and language are intended to variously provoke chuckles, empathy, and thought. “Any poem is a device,” he writes, “improvised to explode with meaning [...] ignited by a trigger / word.”

In addition to other accolades, Brown is a three-time poetry finalist in the Col. Darron L. Wright Memorial Awards, administered annually by the Chicago-based literary journal Line of Advance. His debut collection, Welcome to FOB Haiku: War Poems from Inside the Wire, was awarded a 2016 Gold Medal distinction from the Military Writers Society of America (MWSA).

In May-June 2011, Brown embedded as a civilian journalist with the Iowa Army National Guard’s 2nd Brigade Combat Team (B.C.T.), 34th Infantry “Red Bull” Division. He subsequently collated and helped publish Reporting for Duty: Citizen-Soldier Journalism from the Afghan Surge, 2010-2011, an unabridged 668-page chronicle of that deployment. (Click here for short promotional video of the book.)

His poetry and non-fiction have appeared widely in print and on-line. As “Charlie Sherpa,” he blogs about modern war poetry at www.fobhaiku.com, and about writing on military themes at www.aimingcircle.org.

Starting Nov. 1, 2021:

SO FRAG & SO BOLD: Short Poems, Aphorisms & Other Wartime Fun (84 pages, Middle West Press LLC) is available in a $9.99 trade paperback edition through Amazon and other booksellers, as well as a $2.99 Kindle e-book edition exclusively via Amazon.

Middle West Press LLC (www.middlewestpress.com) is a Johnston, Iowa-based editor and publisher of non-fiction, journalism, and poetry. As an independent micro-press, we publish one to four titles annually. Our projects are often inspired by the people, places, and history of the American Midwest.

Poetry, War, and the Places They Meet

Editor’s note: As previously noted on this blog, April is National Poetry Month! This essay originally appeared in the April 2020 on-line edition of Consequence Magazine (recently relaunched as Consequence Forum).

No one gets into poetry for fame, glory, or money. As a “recovering journalist” (that’s a joke), I often quip that I’ve finally found a vocation that pays less than newspaper reporter: that of “citizen-soldier-poet.”

After years of writing and editing for newsstand consumer “how-to” magazines, concurrent with a 20-year career in the Iowa Army National Guard, I rediscovered poetry at a 2011 weekend writing workshop for military veterans. Hosted by a non-profit organization called “Writing My Way Back Home,” it was conducted on the campus of the University of Iowa, Iowa City.

After a 50-minute session reading soldierly poems—I don’t recall specific titles, so I’ll mention here Wilfred Owen’s 1917 “Dulce et Decorum Est” and Rudyard Kipling’s 1890 “Tommy” as two titles I now use in my own work with veterans—we were prompted to write freely for 10 minutes: “Write about smells, sounds, and other sense-based memories you associate with your experiences with the military.”

(Here’s a quick pro tip: Framing the prompt that way works for “civilian” audiences as well. After all, as the calendar flips toward nearly 20 years of war, every one of us—taxpayer, voter, citizen—has at least some connection with the culture and consequences of war. )

A few months earlier in 2011, I embedded as a freelance journalist with a brigade of Iowa citizen-soldiers deployed to Afghanistan. There, I’d again experienced the familiar tang of diesel-truck fumes, the staccato-chop of helicopters overhead, and the lulling background buzz of Uncle Sam’s electrical generators. But I had also encountered the frictions of changed contexts and perspectives.

As a member of the media, for example, I was prohibited from wearing a camouflage uniform or carrying a weapon—foreign concepts to any graduate of Army basic training. More than once during those weeks, I woke up in my bunk, sweating and panicked, hands flailing in the dark, trying to find my AWOL rifle. You think old habits die hard? Boot camp habits die harder. Call it the Ghost of Drill Sergeants Past.

So, at the workshop, I wrote my first war poem. It was about a hug.

The hug had bothered me for months. It was not a big event. It was not “news.” It was a small and unworthy thing—insufficient materiel, I thought, for even a blog post or postcard back home. And yet, it irritated my brain with the persistence of grit in an oyster. When I first arrived in Afghanistan, my former brigade commander—a man I respected and still feared, and who commanded the lives of 3,000 of my fellow Iowans—had greeted me not with a handshake, nor with a salute (I was now a civilian, after all), but with a hug.

I had spent months trying to figure out what that meant.

It took a poem for me to figure it out.

Author and Iraq War veteran Jason Poudrier (Red Fields, 2012) once told me about how he uses the practice of writing poetry to freeze moments, and to hold them up to inspection from different angles. Poetry, he said, allows for metaphor, uncertainty, contradiction, nuance. One thing can mean many things. Memories can be acknowledged—even honored—without having to be resolved. Then, after they are written down, they can be placed on a shelf—perhaps to be forgotten, perhaps to be reflected upon again later. Perhaps, even to be published, and shared with others.

The words that resulted from 10 minutes of workshop-prompted reflection were later polished and published as “Normally, a serious man”:

Normally a serious man,

the brigade commander gives you a hug

and later a coin.

You keep turning up like a bad penny, he says.

You have followed him

across deserts and oceans.

First in uniform, now out of it.

You dress yourself these days.

Friends downrange frequently call attention

to your color-filled wardrobe.

You are only following the rules, you tell them.

Camouflage, according to the Army, might make you a target.

The colonel’s coins are numbered.

Two hundred and forty-nine have come before,

but you are a first:

once part of the tribe, but no longer in the fight.

You showed up like Justice,

who also jumped on the plane late.

He got killed while pinned down 

trying to secure a helicopter crash.

You are here to share in stories like that.

The coin is worthless, of course,

but it will pay your way back across the water,

once you have found yourself

at war.

“Why the hug?” you ask your buddies later.

It is because you are like a puppy, they say.

You remind the Old Man of better days.

You are no longer dangerous.

You are a puppy.

You are a penny.

You are home.

In 2019, I co-edited a Military Writers Guild-sponsored anthology, Why We Write: Craft Essays on Writing War. Our contributors included poets and playwrights, novelists and educators, soldiers and sailors, think-tankers, historians, and more. Each was a practitioner of writing about war and national security topics, across various genres, platforms, and literary forms.

In one essay, “Recovering the Rhythm of War,” author and veteran Bill McCloud told about how he generated a 2017 collection of poems after re-reading a stack of 52 letters—words he had originally written as a U.S. soldier serving in Vietnam in the years 1968-1969. “When we first return from war, many of us choose either to not talk about it at all (for a variety of reasons), or to talk about it strictly by describing our own personal experiences. We make no attempt, early on, to fit ourselves into the big picture,” McCloud wrote. “I was ready to fit myself, the everyman, into the puzzle.”

My part-time military career was full of disappointments and joys, but it was hardly the stuff of movies and recruiting posters. I’d been an average soldier—a middle-manager in uniform. I was never the smartest, strongest, or highest-ranking person in the room. My Army job involved pushing buttons, connecting wires, and delivering messages. I never fired my weapon in anger. I did sling a few sandbags at home in Iowa. And I got a “combat patch” for overseas peacekeeping duty. Still, as a National Guard member, I was proud to serve my community and my country. Through my service, I had experiences and made friends I’d never have otherwise encountered.

For me, poetry has been one way to assemble those fragments of memory, to add personal and historical contexts to them, and to extract potential meaning from them.

When I read Owen’s words from 1917, denouncing the platitude he calls “the old Lie”—that it is sweet and fitting to die for one’s country—I think about the betrayal some of today’s veterans feel when hearing about peace talks with the Taliban.

And when I read Kipling’s words about how civil society fails its military veterans—the 19th century equivalent to a meme about “Thank You for Your Service”—I think about how my fellow citizens spent a year “building capacity” on behalf of the Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, but returned to unemployment, uncertainty, and eroding civil rights at home.

And when I read McCloud’s essay and new poetry from the Vietnam War, I connect my own “everyman” military experiences to a larger societal puzzle: We are each part of a long narrative. We are each boots on the ground. We are all in this together.

Poetry makes this conversation possible. I’ve seen it during poetry readings and book events. I’ve also seen it during breakfast, while reading the social media feeds of my fellow poets. Recent war poetry from U.S. military service members and families is as rich and varied as that from World Wars I and II, as well as wars in Korea, Vietnam, and the Persian Gulf—and the Cold War years between.

Thanks to the Internet, war poetry has never been more accessible. As a start, consider this friendly barrage of verse from modern airmen, soldiers, Marines, spouses, and others:

• “Here, Bullet” by Brian Turner
• “Meeting in Amman” by Farzana Marie
• “leaving empty”  by Randy Brown
• “The Stars and Stripes is Free” by Eric Chandler
• “Happy Birthday, Army” by Abby E. Murray
• “This is a Test” by Nicole Goodwin
• “We are Not Your Heroes” by Jenny Pacanowski
• “The Burn Pit Detail at FOB Cobra” by Hugh Martin
• “jokes with civilians” by Anna Weaver 
• “Shush” by Maurice Decaul
• “The Throwing Gap” by Karen Skolfield
• “Armed Services Editions” by Jehanne Dubrow
• “Transmigration” by Pamela Hart
• “Widows Receive Free Tickets to the Birthday Ball” by Lisa Stice
• “Another Planet” by Dunya Mikhail
• “Retrieving the Guns” by Kate Gaskin

Poetry opens up the spaces for mutual empathy and understanding, for building metaphorical bridges across the equally metaphorical “civil-military gap.” So, military service members, veterans, families, and others: Write or read a war poem or two. Read it aloud. Share it with others. Talk about it.

April is National Poetry Month. Have you hugged a war poet today?

*****

Randy Brown embedded with his former Iowa Army National Guard unit as a civilian journalist in Afghanistan, May-June 2011. A 20-year veteran with a previous overseas deployment, he subsequently authored the 2015 poetry collection Welcome to FOB Haiku: War Poems from Inside the Wire. He also co-edited the 2019 Military Writers Guild-sponsored anthology Why We Write: Craft Essays on Writing War. Since 2015, he has been the poetry editor at As You Were, the literary journal of the non-profit organization Military Experience & the Arts. As “Charlie Sherpa,” he blogs about poetry at www.fobhaiku.com, and about military-themed writing at www.aimingcircle.org.

Mil-Writing Contest Expands to Include Family

Darron L. Wright PHOTO: Line of Advance

Editors of Chicago-based non-profit literary journal Line of Advance have announced an expansion of the Col. Darron L. Wright Memorial Writing Awards will include additional prose (includes fiction, creative non-fiction, and hybrid forms) and poetry categories for spouses, parents, and children of U.S. service members and veterans.

Since 2016, the Wright Awards have annually recognized excellence in prose and poetry by U.S. military service members and veterans. With today's announcement, the Col. Darron L. Wright Memorial Writing Awards expands to four categories. Cash prizes of $250, $150, and $100 will be available in each of the following:

• Service Member/Veteran Prose (includes fiction, creative non-fiction, hybrid)
• Service Member/Veteran Poetry
• Family Member Prose (includes fiction, creative non-fiction, hybrid)
• Family Member Poetry

“The Line of Advance proudly serves as a leading venue for the best of ‘veterans-lit,’ with works by men and women who have served in all uniforms and in all eras,” says the journal’s editor-in-chief Christopher Lyke, who will also edit the anthology. “We are also grateful to the underwriters of our cash prizes, who, through their generosity, help promote creatively crafted veterans’ stories to wider audiences.”

“Also, by expanding the contest to include family members, we hope to better recognize the scope of sacrifices military families make on our behalf, in war and peace,” Lyke says. “Some of today’s most insightful, inspiring literary engagement on themes of war and service is coming from military-adjacent writers.”

In February, Line of Advance announced that a forthcoming print and e-book anthology will collect the winning entries from the first five years (2016-2020) of the competition. The anthology will be published in October 2020. This year’s Darron L. Wright award finalists will be included in the anthology.

Submissions for the 2020 Darron L. Wright awards open May 1, 2020 and close May 31, 2020. Winners will be notified not later than Aug. 31, 2020. More details are forthcoming.

Administered by the journal since 2016, and underwritten by the Blake and Bailey Foundation, the awards commemorate a U.S. Army leader and author who was killed in a September 2013 parachute training accident. Darron L. Wright, 45, had deployed three times to Iraq, and was author of a 2012 memoir “Iraq Full Circle: From Shock and Awe to the Last Combat Patrol in Baghdad and Beyond.”

Middle West Press LLC is a Johnston, Iowa-based editor and publisher of non-fiction, fiction, journalism, and poetry, with projects that feature the unique voices of the American Midwest. As an independent micro-press, we publish one to four titles annually. The Line of Advance/Col. Darron L. Wright Awards anthology will be the sixth of our titles involving war and military themes.

Anthology to Celebrate Darron L. Wright Awards

Editors of Chicago-based non-profit literary journal Line of Advance have announced a forthcoming print and e-book anthology will collect the winning entries from the first five years (2016-2020) of the annual Col. Darron L. Wright Memorial Writing Awards.

The awards annually recognize excellence in prose and poetry by U.S. military service members and veterans. Cash prizes of $250, $150, and $100 are available in each category.

“The Line of Advance proudly serves as a leading venue for the best of ‘veterans-lit,’ with works by men and women who have served in all uniforms and in all eras,” says the journal’s editor-in-chief Christopher Lyke, who will also edit the anthology. “We are also grateful to the underwriters of our cash prizes, who, through their generosity, help promote creatively crafted veterans’ stories to wider audiences.”

This year’s Darron L. Wright award finalists will be included in the anthology. Submissions for the 2020 Darron L. Wright awards open May 1, 2020 and close May 31, 2020. Winners will be notified not later than Aug. 31, 2020. More details are forthcoming.

The projected release date for “Line of Advance: A Celebration of Darron L. Wright Memorial Awards Finalists, 2016-2020” is Oct. 13, 2020.

Administered by the journal since 2016, and underwritten by the Blake and Bailey Foundation, the awards commemorate a U.S. Army leader and author who was killed in a September 2013 parachute training accident. Darron L. Wright, 45, had deployed three times to Iraq, and was author of a 2012 memoir “Iraq Full Circle: From Shock and Awe to the Last Combat Patrol in Baghdad and Beyond.”

Middle West Press LLC is a Johnston, Iowa-based editor and publisher of non-fiction, fiction, journalism, and poetry, with projects that feature the unique voices of the American Midwest. As an independent micro-press, we publish one to four titles annually. The Line of Advance Darron L. Wright Awards anthology will be the sixth of our titles involving war and military themes.

'Red Bull' Author to Speak in Iowa City & Des Moines

Author Steven L. Moore, a former Iowa National Guard citizen-soldier who deployed with the 2nd Brigade Combat Team (B.C.T.), 34th Infantry "Red Bull" Division (2-34th BCT) to Afghanistan in 2010-2011, will conduct book talks in Iowa City and Des Moines, Iowa, Jan. 23 and Jan. 24, 2020.

A 2010 graduate of the University of Iowa and now a resident of Oregon, Moore wrote "The Longer We Were There: A Memoir of a Part-Time Soldier," a collection of essays that won the 2018 award in non-fiction from the Association of Writers and Writing Programs (A.W.P.).

Widely published in literary magazines and journals, Moore was recently featured in the Military Writers Guild-sponsored anthology, "Why We Write: Craft Essays on Writing War." A selection of his work can be sampled FREE on-line at the author's website here.

In 2018, AWP awards judge Dinty W. Moore wrote about Steven Moore's work:

"The Longer We Were There" is both a tale of our longest war and an astute coming of age memoir, the story of an English major who finds himself filling sandbags as an Iowa National Guardsman one day and deployed on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border the next. The prose is marked throughout by his compelling voice and precise description, and like Heller, Herr, and O’Brien before him, he understands that war can often be most hellish in its tedium. The Longer We Were There is an honest, absorbing, sharply-observed narrative that questions both the nature of war and the nature of the stories we tell ourselves.

Moore will speak at the following times and places:

Thurs., Jan. 23, 2020 at 7 p.m.

Prairie Lights Bookstore
15 South Dubuque St.
Iowa City, IA 52240

Fri., Jan. 24, 2020 at 6:30 p.m.

Beaverdale Books
2629 Beaver Ave. #S1
Des Moines, IA 50310

Two 'Red Bull' Soldier-Writers Featured in New Book!

Featuring more than 60 leading and emerging writers of military- and war-themed fiction, non-fiction, journalism, poetry, and more, the anthology "Why We Write: Craft Essays on Writing War" launches TODAY, Dec. 10, 2019 in both print and Kindle e-book formats! The Middle West Press LLC project is in partnership with the Military Writers Guild. Contributors include service members past and present, as well as scholars, historians, journalists, and civilians with experiences in international relations and national security.

The book coincidentally features a number of current and former Iowans—including two former members of the Iowa National Guard's 2nd Brigade Combat Team (B.C.T.), 34th Infantry "Red Bull" Division. Steven L. Moore, author of "The Longer We Were There: A Memoir of a Part-Time Soldier," served in Laghman Province during the brigade's 2010-2011 deployment to Afghanistan. Anthology editor Randy Brown helped produce a print collection of the brigade public affairs journalism from that same deployment.

The anthology's title echoes Frank Capra's patriotic "Why We Fight" films of World War II, the cover by illustrator Paul Hewitt of Battlefield Design reinterprets propaganda poster images from the same era.

Response to the anthology from other war writers has been overwhelming and positive:

"Page by page, line by line, these men and women—veterans and civilians of various eras and nations—speak the truth about what it is like not just to fight, but to write," notes U.S. Army veteran Doug Bradley, author of "Who'll Stop the Rain: Respect, Remembrance, and Reconciliation in Post-Vietnam America" as well as other non-fiction and fiction about that war. "'The power of a good story is as important as the sharpest policy paper,' writes one Vietnam-veteran senator's son. As a U.S. Navy chopper pilot who himself flew in Afghanistan, he couldn't be more accurate. Read this book and discover what he means!"

U.S. Marine veteran and literary agent Tracy Crow says: "A notable first, 'Why We Write' delivers immeasurable, experiential wisdom from an impressive range of military voices regarding the power and impact of writing—on the self, on the truth, and ultimately on the world. […] The courageous contributors within 'Why We Write' are filling a disturbing void for humanity by expressing a sense of urgency and historical reflection about the complexities of war—whether writing and reflecting on the insanely humorous, or the insanely atrocious."

Crow also serves as president of the national non-profit MilSpeak Foundation, Inc., and is the author of six military-themed fiction and non-fiction titles, including "On Point: A Guide to Writing the Military Story."

The "Why We Write" anthology comprises four sections, each loosely organized around a theme:

• Calls to Action, Calls to Arms: Stories of how-to and inspiration toward engaging the public and/or the military profession through writing!

• War Stories: Stories of writing success and lessons-learned!

• Building Bridges & Platforms: Stories of how-to and inspiration toward building connections, communities, organizations, author platforms, etc.!

• The Arts of War & Writing: Essays about writing literary fiction, genre fiction, poetry, history, and more!

Women make up approximately one-third of the anthology's contributors. Approximately two-thirds of the contributors are past or present members of their respective countries' armed forces, with the remaining one-third being "civilians"—journalists, scholars, historians, and more. Military Writers Guild members comprise approximately one-fifth of contributors.

To order the $19.99 (U.S.) print version via Amazon.com, click here!

To order the $9.99 (U.S.) Kindle e-book version, click here!

To order via an independent bookstore, contact Beaverdale Books, Des Moines, Iowa at: 515.279.5400. Phone orders only. Shipping & Handling approximately $4 (U.S.).

Anthology co-editor Randy Brown is an award-winning war poet (Welcome to FOB Haiku: War Poems from Inside the Wire) and U.S. Army veteran who embedded as civilian media in Afghanistan in 2011. A former newspaper and magazine journalist, he previously edited the book Reporting for Duty: U.S. Citizen-Soldier Journalism from the Afghan Surge, 2010-2011.

Widely published in literary journals and anthologies, he has also written the Red Bull Rising military blog since December 2009. He writes about military-themed writing techniques and markets at The Aiming Circle blog. He is a member of the Military Writers Guild. On Twitter, follow him at: @FOB_Haiku

Steve Leonard is a retired U.S. Army strategist, a program director in organizational leadership at the University of Kansas, Lawrence, and the creative force behind the web comic Doctrine Man!! He is published widely, including in the anthologies Strategy Strikes Back: How Star Wars Explains Modern Military Conflict, and Winning Westeros: How Game of Thrones Explains Modern Military Conflict. He is a member of the Military Writers Guild. On Twitter, follow him at: @Doctrine_Man

Established in 2017 for the purpose of promoting professional collaboration in the practice of writing, the national non-profit Military Writers Guild has grown to comprise more than 150 past and present service members, as well as civilians with experiences in international relations, national security, journalism, and intelligence.

Middle West Press LLC is a Johnston, Iowa-based editor and publisher of non-fiction, fiction, journalism, and poetry. As an independent micro-press, it publishes one to four titles annually. “Why We Write” is the first of its projects conducted in partnership with an association, and the fifth of its titles involving war and military themes.

Book Review: 'Still Come Home: A Novel'

Fiction Book Review: "Still Come Home" by Katey Schultz

Katey Schultz is an educator and author based in North Carolina. In 2013, Schultz delivered "Flashes of War," an award-winning collection of 31 short stories, generated around U.S. involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan. Each story is each told from the perspective of a single character, and many resolved in only two or three pages. Writing in the mode of "flash-fiction" forces an author to pare down one's prose, but also to infuse meaning and metaphor to optimize each word.

As a writer, Schultz is a master of one of the principles of war: "economy of force."

In a new, 260-page novel, "Still Come Home," Schultz deploys her Spartan words to deliver what others have not: She distills the seemingly never-ending war in Afghanistan to a relatable scale, articulating through her characters the questions that can be asked about war, and duty, and family. In doing so, she illuminates the complex emotional calculations of regular people caught up in war, be they "friend," "enemy," or seemingly indifferent. Her work serves the highest calling in a heartless world: to create opportunities for empathy, and for reflection.

The action of "Still Come Home" takes place over three days, in a handful of settings near Tarin Kot, a real place in Southern Afghanistan's Uruzgan Province, as woven together through the voices and threads of three main characters.

(More geography: The novel settles into spaces between a semi-fictional Forward Operating Base ("FOB") Copperhead, and the fictional town of Imar, pop. 300. Potentially noteworthy to the readers of the Red Bull Rising blog, the base is likely modeled after FOB Davis (aka FOB Ripley). FOB Davis was a coalition installation originally established in 2004 with help from the Iowa National Guard's Task Force 168.)

There is Nathan Miller, a former farm-boy valedictorian who joined the active-duty Army right out of Indiana high school. Now a member of the North Carolina National Guard, Afghanistan is his fourth deployment. Miller is soon to return stateside to his semi-estranged wife, with whom he has one child and has lost another. There is the teenaged and possibly infertile Pashtun woman Aaseya, who seeks to establish the stability and legitimacy she enjoyed before her family was killed in an explosion. She suspects the assassination took place after the family had been wrongly reported to the Taliban as U.S. collaborators. And there is her brick-maker husband Rahim, 37, her late father's cousin, who is a victim of the institutional sexual abuse of male children known as bacha bazi.

Based on such relations, readers might incorrectly anticipate melodrama or comic-book soap opera. While engines of hope and shame drive much of the plot, however, the narrative never feels one- or two-dimensional. Complexity happens. Objectives change. Characters move out smartly, based on their intelligence. Most importantly, in all of this, the author treats her Afghan characters with care and content equal to their American counterparts.

War is hell, after all. On everybody. Especially family. And everyone's got family.

In a typical selection, Schultz describes a three-vehicle convoy's arrival in Imar with semi-automatic rhythm:

The convoy nears the main part of the village. A vendor selling kebabs works frantically to hold his makeshift cart intact as the Spartans vibrate past. Miller can see actual residences now—mud-cooked family homes, the occasional two-story dwelling. Coils of smoke lift from several courtyards. Some homes have no windows or openings at all, just a hand-built wall surrounding each compound of small, interconnected dwellings. Others have cut tiny spaces to welcome the light and air, faded red or yellow curtains flapping thinly in the breeze. Three little girls hurry from a hiding spot behind an outbuilding. The oldest shuffles the other two away from the convoy and looks over her shoulder at the men, moving with the practiced hustle of war. Even here, at the far reaches of nowhere, they seem suspicious.

Schultz has just as carefully curated the time of her story, as much as she has chosen the place. The year is just before the "Afghan Surge" of 2010-2011; just before Humvees are banned from deploying outside the wire; and just after a controversial new set of Rules of Engagement ("R.O.E.") has been issued to coalition troops by U.S. Gen. Stanley McChrystal.

In the posh think-tank phrasing of the day, the counter-insurgency tactics were intended to "win hearts and minds" by exercising restraint in the application of violence. Nobody wants to kill civilians, of course, but many rank-and-file soldiers chaffed at the ROE, feeling as if they'd been told not to defend themselves.

As both metaphor and at a meta-level, this mix of time and place is an ideal observation point from which to consider American involvement in Afghanistan. At no other time did the country's declaring victory and coming home seem more likely than 2010. (At risk of self-promotion, this trailer video for "Reporting for Duty" captures something of the hopeful "clear, hold, build" spirit of the time.) Through her storytelling, what Schultz exposes is not necessarily that these "strategies" (tactics and techniques, really) were wrong, but that we were asking the wrong questions.

War is hell, after all. And hell is a koan.

Schultz writes: "Miller calls to mind the [ROE] directive, its ominous sentiment: The Taliban cannot militarily defeat us, but we can defeat ourselves. Like grabbing fistfuls of sand—that's what this war is. Like trying to hold onto the impossible."

Later, as Miller is about to move out with his men, he inventories his squad emotionally, noting each soldier's customized need for redemption. "And with that, the war is theirs. They will fight it for these reasons. Not for freedom. Not for politics. Not for God or country or trucking companies. But for the individual things. The needles of hurt across a spectrum of life."

Against this, the troops collectively face, an unseen, random, and constant threat. "They all know the risks," Schultz writes. "No front lines in this war. Enemies, ambushes, and IEDs popping up willy-nilly, a stomach-churning child’s game of anticipation. It could be now. Or now. Now."

This game of roulette is what we have asked of our soldiers, our fellow citizens. For 18 years and counting.

At readings and other events, and on her website, Schultz tells audiences that "Flashes of War" stemmed from the urge to understand, as a citizen and educator and artist, what her country was doing in her name. Somehow without ever traveling downrange herself, her stories include sounds and smells and slang that consistently ring true. In "Still Come Home," Schultz's prose is similarly well-researched, and carefully targeted. Through her fiction, Schultz has not only successfully captured the cultural landscape of Afghanistan in 2009, but the on-going equation of American involvement in Afghanistan. And she's packaged it in an easily accessible form, without judgment.

Not, however, without hope.

In present-tense, Schultz artfully but explicitly traces each main character's shifting wants and needs. Grabbing at their own fistfuls of sand, Miller, Aaseya, and Rahim continually triangulate their respective decisions with their individual desires for safety, security, and family. Miller, for example, volunteered to deploy without first soliciting his wife's opinion. She assumes he wants to play soldier again. In reality, he hopes to make up for past mistakes—some of which have occurred on the battlefield, and some that have happened back home. At one point, as Schultz succinctly states: "This tour is Miller’s final chance to find his cool again, forget he ever drafted a suicide note, and land softly back home, back into marriage, composed and capable as ever."

The obvious question would seem to be, can he still come back home?

The essential question is, can we?

P.O.W. Book-turned-Opera Comes to Des Moines Area

When military reporter Tom Philpott first encountered the tragic story of an Army family that lost its way during the wartime captivity of its patriarch, Floyd James "Jim" Thompson, he could hardly have predicted the journey would include more than a decade of reporting; publishing his work not as journalism, but as oral history; and soon to be an English-language opera to be performed Nov. 16-18 2018 on the campus of the Iowa National Guard's Camp Dodge, located in Johnston, Iowa.

Performances of "Glory Denied" are:

• 7:30 p.m. Fri., Nov. 16
• 7:30 p.m. Sat., Nov. 17
• 2 p.m. Sun., Nov. 18

Tickets are $45, and may be purchased via the Des Moines Metro Opera at 515.961.6221 or www.desmoinesmetroopera.org. On Fri., Nov. 16, there will be a 5:30 p.m. reception featuring the opera's composer, Tom Cipullo.

A FREE preview will be presented to veterans, currently service members, and their guests 7 p.m. Thurs., Nov. 15. Contact the Des Moines Metro Opera for registration.

According to press materials:

America’s longest held prisoner of war returns to a country he no longer recognizes and a family who barely recognizes him. "Glory Denied" speaks to the plight of so many of our veterans who nobly fight for their country but face huge challenges when it comes to repatriation—and their longed-for civilian lives—after service. This true story of Vietnam veteran Colonel Jim Thompson explores the unimaginable bravery asked of soldiers and even the nature of hope itself.

Following each performance, cast members and Iowa National Guard veterans and soldiers will participate in a curated talk-back session with audience members.

This is Des Moines Metro Opera's second collaboration with the Iowa National Guard. In January 2017, a production of David T. Little's rock-infused "Soldier Songs" was also conducted at Camp Dodge. See the Red Bull Rising coverage here.

The story behind "Glory Denied" was previously covered on the Red Bull Rising blog in a Jan. 11, 2013 post.

Thompson, the longest-held U.S. Prisoner of War (P.O.W.) in American history, spent 9 years in North Vietnamese captivity. The first five were in solitary confinement. He attempted to escape five times. He came home in 1973.

"He dreamed in his mind of building this dream house when he got home. It turns out that his wife was living for eight or nine years with another man, who was posing as the father of the children," says Philpott, in the 2017 Red Bull Rising interview. "The boy, who was the only boy of four children, born the day after he was shot down, was called in at 9-years-old and told, 'This is not your dad. Here's a picture of your dad. He's coming home.'"

Then a reporter for the Army Times, Philpott first wrote a magazine-length article about Thompson in 1986. Thompson had suffered a stroke in 1980, and was living alone in Key West, Fla. To get past his expressive aphasia, Thompson played for Philpott a tape recording of a local media interview he'd given after his return.

Philpott ended up interviewing more than 150 people to further flesh out the story. "I didn't want to just tell his story," he says. "I wanted to tell about the impact of his captivity was on his whole family." The book-length oral history was published in 2001, with each friend's and family-member's recollections presented in their own words. Inspired in format by a 1982 book titled "Edie: American Girl," which relates from multiple perspectives the story of one of Andy Warhol's constellation of personalities, Philpott's book reads much like the script of a play. Or, as it turns out, a libretto.

"I had tape-recorded everything," says Philpott. "When I was writing the book, I found that the voices were so powerful and poignant and truthful—and the story was so unbelievable—I thought that if I wrote it as a single-narrator, people just wouldn't believe it. It would lose the poignancy of what they were telling me."

Following the publication of "Glory Denied: The Vietnam Saga of Jim Thompson, America's Longest-Held Prisoner of War" as a book, composer Tom Cipullo contacted the author regarding the possibility of presenting the narrative as an opera.

While in development, portions of the 2006 work were presented by the New York City Opera at an annual festival. The Brooklyn College Opera Theater put it on. Then, the Chelsea Opera Company "got some really beautiful talent behind it," says Philpott. "That attracted review in the New York Times." The work was subsequently performed in May 2007 by the Brooklyn College Opera Theater.

Presented in two acts, the 78-minute opera is written for two sopranos, a tenor, a baritone, and a small orchestra. The males respectively play the younger and older versions of Jim Thompson, while the females depict the younger and older incarnations of his wife, Alyce. Past reviewers note the opera's interwoven narratives, brute-force emotions, and a modernist angularity that isn't afraid to occasionally carry a tune.

"It was only in the Arlington performance that I heard the entire libretto—the instrumentation didn't overwhelm it for the first time," says Philpott. "I could understand everything that was said. [Cipullo's] choices were all from the book—he had used all these oral histories, the words from these people, who had said them to each other. It was masterful."

Philpott credits the opera with reawakening interest in his book, which was re-released as a trade paperback in 2012. He is currently a syndicated newspaper columnist on military topics.

Thompson died of a heart attack in 2002. He was 69.

Wanted: Women-Warrior-Poets

U.S. Army Reserve Staff Sgt. Briana Popp donned her drill sergeant hat during a graduation ceremony at Fort Jackson, S.C. March 8, 2017. Popp earned the titles of Iron Female and Distinguished Honor Graduate and will be a drill sergeant with the 98th Training Division (Initial Entry Training). Popp was the first female Distinguished Honor Graduate in the past six cycles and happened to graduate in March, which is Women's History Month. Coincidentally, Popp's graduation day was International Women's Day as well. Popp is married to active duty drill sergeant, Staff Sgt. Victor James Popp, Echo Company, 2-19 Infantry Battalion, 198th Infantry Brigade, at Fort Benning. (U.S. Army Reserve Photo by Maj. Michelle Lunato.)

Listen, up, Maggots! It's still National Poetry Month!

Today's hip-pocket soap box is about how war poetry could be more inclusive!

U.S. Navy officer and fellow military writer Andrea Goldstein (@AN_Goldstein) asked recently on Twitter:

In 17 years, why is it that the post- 9/11 "warrior-poets", vets who earn well-deserved critical & popular acclaim are all white men? Women & [People of Color] are writing—and writing beautifully.

Who gets published? Whose story is considered "credible"? Whose is considered marketable?

Goldstein's query echoes those generated by an on-going personal poetry project of mine, light-heartedly titled the MOA21CWPL—the "Mother of All 21st Century War Poetry Lists." Of more than 40 individual poetry titles that regard 21st century wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere, only a handful are by women who have served in uniform.

That's not necessarily to say that women and poets of color aren't generating poetry—but that such poetry seems difficult to locate in concentration. In collection. In books of their own.

Criteria for inclusion on the MOA21CWPL may be skewing the results in favor of male, white, middle-class, officer-centered voices. Potential reasons include, but are not limited to:

• These listings are "published" (print and/or on-line) collections or anthologies. A typical collection comprises an estimated 50 or more individual poems. Collections and anthologies are "literary" venues that are traditionally white, and are often based on college campuses and in MFA programs.

• They are published as written forms, rather than spoken, video, audio, or other, alternative poetic forms and formats.

It may be that women-veterans and other less-heard voices are still generating art—evidenced by work found in "veterans lit" and other journals—but have not yet generated sufficient quantities to collect as books. Or perhaps they just need some encouragement to submit their work to publishers as whole manuscripts.

Personal anecdote: I didn't realize that I had enough poems for a collection of my own, until someone asked me to put together some of the works I'd sent to Veterans Writing Project and other outlets. A folder of print-outs became a binder; the binder became a manuscript; the manuscript became "Welcome to FOB Haiku: War Poems from Inside the Wire" (2015). I've been gratified at its reception by readers, and hope that it might inspire others to do likewise. Just because I wasn't a grunt, didn't mean that people didn't want to hear my story.

It may also be that artists are choosing to "publish" their work via means other than printed books or e-books. YouTube videos, for example. Or spoken-word events.

Still, in the following women-only extract of the MOA21CWPL, only a handful of titles appear to be works by women-veterans: Nicole Goodwin (U.S. Army, enlisted); Karen Skolfield (U.S. Army, enlisted); and Farzana Marie (U.S. Air Force, officer). There should be more.

It's National Poetry Month. As a consumer and reader and sometime poet, I'm pleased that there is so much recognition in the poetry marketplace of wartime narratives other than those involving traditionally "male" domains. (Women-in-war narratives have, after all, always been with us, just as war has always been with us.)

Still, I would like to read more poetry by sailors, soldiers, Marines, and others who have worn the uniform in defense of their countries. And I'm sure I'm not alone.

(I know of at least one that is actively pinging for poetry collections of less-heard voices of military experience, regardless of geography.)

We've been at war for 17 years. Women veterans, fellow citizens, where are your musings of fire?

*****

WAR POETRY COLLECTIONS WRITTEN BY WOMEN:

• "Stateside" (2010) and "Dots & Dashes" (2017) by Jehanne Dubrow. Poems from the home front.

• "Clamor " (2010) and "Sweet Insurgent" (2017) by Elyse Fenton. Poems from the home front.

• "Drone" (2016) by Kim Garcia. Red Bull Rising review here.

• "Warcries" (2016) by Nicole Goodwin. Red Bull Rising review here.

• "Unguarded" (2018) by Lynn Marie Houston. Poem-letters to a deploying lover. 

• "When the Men Go Off to War" (2015) by Victoria Kelly. Poems from the home front.

• "The Explosive Expert's Wife" (2018) by Sara Lessley

• "Letters to War and Lethe" (2014) by Farzana Marie

• "Reaper" (2017) by Jill McDonough

• "The War Works Hard" (2005) and "The Iraqi Nights" (2014) by Dunya Mikhail. Iraqi-American poet, born in Baghdad.

• "How to Be Married After Iraq" (2018) and "Quick Draw: Poems from a Soldier's Wife" (2013) by Abby E. Murray. Poems from the home front.

• "The Warrior: A Mother's Story of a Son at War" (2009) and "Voices of the Guard" (2010) by Frances Richey

• "Frost in the Low Areas" (2016) by Karen Skolfield

• "Uniform" (2016) and "Permanent Change of Station" (2018) by Lisa Stice. Poems from the home front. Red Bull Rising review of "Uniform" here.

ANTHOLOGIES FEATURING WAR POETRY BY WOMEN:

• Consequence Magazine's 10th Anniversary edition (2018) focuses on women's writing.

• "Enduring Freedom: An Afghan Anthology" (2011; pending re-release August 2015). Poems from U.K. military service members, veterans, and family members.

• "Load Poems Like Guns: Women's Poetry from Herat, Afghanistan" (2015) translated by Farzana Marie

• "Heroes: 100 Poems from the New Generation of War Poets" (2011). Poems from U.K. military service members, veterans, and family members.

• "Homefront" (2016) by Bryony Doran, Jehanne Dubrow, Elysse Fenton, Isabel Palmer. A four-poet collection comprising the works of two mothers of British soldiers serving in Afghanistan (Doran and Palmer); a U.S. Navy spouse (Dubrow's "Stateside"); and a U.S. Army spouse (Fenton's "Clamor").

• Veterans Writing Project's "O-Dark-Thirty" journal Winter 2016, Vol. 4, No. 2 focuses on women's writing. Available FREE as PDF at link here.

• "Washing the Dust from Our Hearts: Poetry and Prose from the Afghan Women's Writing Project" (2015). Works in English from participants in the program's videoconference workshops.

FREE! ON-LINE MIL-POETRY JOURNALS:

• "Collateral" magazine. Stories from perspectives of those affected by others' military service.

• "The Deadly Writers Patrol" journal

• "Line of Advance" journal

• Military Experience & the Arts' "Blue Streak" and "As You Were"

• Veterans Writing Project's "O-Dark-Thirty"

• "War, Literature and the Arts" journal

• "Wife and War" poetry blog by memoirist Amalie Flynn