Great Red Bull Book & Holiday Gift Ideas!

Here are some new finds and old favorites for this year's grab-bag of holiday gift ideas for 34th Infantry "Red Bull" Division service members, veterans, family, and other boosters:

"Reporting for Duty: U.S. Citizen-Soldier Journalism from the Afghan Surge, 2010-2011," edited by Randy Brown, chronicles the year-long deployment of the Iowa National Guard's 2nd Brigade Combat Team (B.C.T.), 34th Infantry "Red Bull" Division (2-34th BCT) as one of the only U.S. National Guard brigades to engage in Full-Spectrum Operations in Operation Enduring Freedom. Relive all the missions—humanitarian and combat, morale-building and training—from the largest deployment of Iowa troops since World War II!

("Citizen-Soldier," a 2016 documentary film about Oklahoma National Guard's 45th Inf. "Thunderbird" BCT, which replaced the Red Bull in Eastern Afghanistan's Laghman Province, makes a great companion gift!)

Not a big reader? There's a "Red Bull Rising" Zazzle store with holiday cards, ornaments, and other designs! One favorite? This "Red Bull" snowflake ornament!

"Roaring Bull: The 34th Infantry Division in the Global War on Terror" by Brian Leehan is a 220-page yearbook-style collection of oral history, chronology, and photographs, tracing the division's multiple deployments between the years 2002 and 2016. (Leehan is also author of the civil war history "Pale Horse at Plum Run: The First Minnesota at Gettysburg." That unit's lineage is maintained the modern-day Red Bull's 2nd Battalion, 135th Infantry Regiment.)

Underwritten by the 34th Infantry Division Association, Johnston, Iowa, the "Roaring Bull" book project will be an essential foothold for future family and unit historians. The 8.5-by-11-inch hardcover features interviews with approximately 60 current and former Red Bull soldiers, and more than 250 color photographs and maps. Cover price is $39.99. It can be mail-ordered with personal check or PayPal (for $37, including $5 shipping and handling), or purchased for $32 at the following locations, while supplies last:

• Iowa Gold Star Military Museum, Camp Dodge, Iowa
• Minnesota Military Museum, Camp Ripley, Minn.

"Deming, New Mexico's Camp Cody: A World War One Training Camp" by Jim Eckles is a fun tour of the training hardships faced by the citizen-soldiers of Minnesota, Iowa, North and South Dakota who first organized as the U.S. 34th Infantry Division. While the unit has always been represented by the distinctive shoulder patch designed by painter and solider Marvin Cone of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, it was first named the "Sunshine" and then "Sandstorm" Division, the latter based on conditions in the dusty, hardscrabble camp. (The unit's "Red Bull" moniker was a World War II invention.)

The book's production and the author's tone are both friendly and accessible—reading it is a bit like conversing with a knowledgeable museum guide. The facts and anecdotes come freely, and, while readers may struggle to place each nugget into context, they'll certainly walk away entertained and informed. One favorite factoid? On April 7, 1918, the Chicago Cubs faced off in an exhibition game with players from the 34th Inf. Div. The Cubs won, 8-0.

"Welcome to FOB Haiku: War Poems from Inside the Wire" by Randy Brown is an award-winning collection of snarky poetry that often packs a powerful emotional punch. Brown takes from his experiences as a former "Red Bull" citizen-soldier, and as a civilian journalist who briefly embedded with the Iowa National Guard's 2-34th BCT in Afghanistan. (A 3,000-word essay by the same author, titled "Marvin Cone Goes to War," is featured in the latest volume of "Proud to Be: Writing by American Warriors" anthology series.The essay describes how artist Marvin Cone, then a private first class, came to design the Red Bull insignia.)

In one "FOB Haiku" poem, titled "From a Red Bull in Winter," Brown describes the Red Bull patch and the people it represents:

[…] The army wears its stories on our sleeves.
Every scrap is a battle, every stitch is a past.
We are canvas, leather, dust, and blood.

At airport gates and main street parades,
the right shoulder patch carries with it
Africa and Afghanistan, Italy and Iraq.

But you are more than these threads, these fragments, those bones:
You continue the march. You are the present, armed.
You are the “Attack!”

New War Poetry: Eric Chandler's 'Hugging This Rock'

In a new collection of poetry about life and war as a pilot, parent, and outdoor sports enthusiast, Northeastern Minnesota author Eric “Shmo” Chandler delivers plenty in laughs and love—of family, of country, and of navigating one’s place in the world. Whether soaring at 40,000 feet, or carefully considering the flowers he encounters by the trail, his words are rich with insight and humor.

Published this week by Middle West Press LLC, "Hugging This Rock: Poems of Earth & Sky, Love & War" (116 pages, trade paperback) is now available in a $9.99 print edition, as well as a $5.99 e-book via Amazon.

A cross-country skier, marathon runner, and former F-16 fighter pilot, Chandler is also author of the 2013 collection of essays "Outside Duluth," and the 2014 military-themed novella "Down In It." His fiction, non-fiction, and award-winning poetry have appeared widely both on-line and in print. He blogs at: https://ericchandler.wordpress.com/

Chandler is a two-time winner of the Col. Darron L. Wright Memorial Writing Award administered by the on-line literary journal Line of Advance. He is a member of the Lake Superior Writers organization, the Outdoor Writers Association of America, and the Military Writers Guild.

A 1989 graduate of the U.S. Air Force Academy, Chandler retired after a 24-year military flying career with the U.S. Air Force and the Minnesota Air National Guard. He is a veteran with three deployments to Saudi Arabia for Operation Southern Watch; three deployments to Iraq for Operation Iraqi Freedom; and one to Afghanistan for Operation Enduring Freedom. He flew over 3,000 hours and 145 combat sorties in the F-16.

Now a commercial airline pilot, Chandler lives in Duluth, Minnesota with his wife, two children, and a rescued dog named Leo.

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

Same Mission, Different Verse: The Aiming Circle

When I first started writing the Red Bull Rising blog in December 2009, it was partly because I needed to learn about blogging technology and practice for a then-upcoming full-time Army job, and partly to document for my very young children what had been so gosh-darn important that I had to leave home for a year.

Later, when I got dropped off the deployment list for Afghanistan, I found myself writing in order to translate and document the experience for my buddies' families.

I eventually traveled to Afghanistan on my own dime (and my wife's airline miles), and embedded with my former unit as civilian media in May-June 2011.

In each and all of these endeavors, I've followed the same mission statements:

• To explain in plain language the roles, responsibilities, and routines of the U.S. citizen-soldier, with particular focus on the U.S. 34th Infantry "Red Bull" Division.

• To illuminate ways in which citizen-soldiers past and present--as well as their families--can be remembered, supported, and celebrated.

After I retired from the Army National Guard, I found myself exploring different forms of art and writing other than journalism, often during events that brought service members, families, and veterans together to share military experiences. Since then, I've been published many times as a poet and essayist.

I wrote an award-winning book, "Welcome to FOB Haiku: War Poems from Inside the Wire," which was published in 2015.

I also helped collect and edit a 668-page book of news articles and photographs generated by the 2nd Brigade Combat Team (B.C.T.), 34th Infantry "Red Bull" Division during its deployment. That book is "Reporting for Duty: U.S. Citizen-Soldier Journalism from the Afghan Surge, 2010-2011," published in 2016.

As I've continued to generate poetry, essays, and other military-themed writing, I've sought to encourage and enable others do to the same. I regularly signal-boost publishing opportunities via a special "Get Published" page on the Red Bull Rising blog. I conduct how-to workshops and seminars. I edit the poetry section of the non-profit Military Experience & the Arts' "As You Were" literary journal. I peer-mentor via conversations with my fellow members of the Military Writers Guild.

Having grown beyond military blogs, "Veterans Lit" is now a vital and vibrant field of practice. I'll include in this label any man or woman, military or civilian, who attempts to build community and mutual understanding through art and writing. This is not just writing to express one's feelings (as it is so often dismissively regarded)—this is doing the hard work of stitching society back together.

It may be time to expand the effort to include more fronts, and to ask for more active engagement by my fellow practitioners.

You can continue to read about citizen-soldiers and how to support them at the Red Bull Rising blog here, and at the related Facebook page here. That includes occasional humor, news, events, and reviews of books, movies, and other media of potential interest to military service members and their families.

You can continue to read about my adventures as citizen-soldier-poet at the FOB Haiku blog here, and at the related Facebook page here.

And now, if you are a fellow practitioner of military writing—poetry, fiction, non-fiction, essay, you name it—you can help support and explore a growing amount of how-to coverage at The Aiming Circle blog here, and at the related Patreon page here.