Home of the Brave – Stories in Uniform, edited by Jeffery Hess

This short fiction collection, edited by DD-214 Writers’ Workshop director Jeffery Hess, serves up a diverse offering of contemporary short stories set against the backdrop of the American military experience, from World War II to current conflicts in Iraq and elsewhere. Penned by some of the best writers of our time, many of whom have served in the military themselves.

Among these stories by writers, including Kurt Vonnegut, Tim O’Brien, James Salter, Tobias Wolff, Chris Offutt, Benjamin Percy and many others [like me!].

http://www.amazon.com/Home-Brave-Stories-Jeffery-Hess/dp/0982441606

Politcal Posturing over AIG – a letter from my senator

I recently received an e-mail from Sen. Tom Harkin expressing outrage over the AIG bonuses and vowing to ‘pass legislation that completely taxes those bonuses away,’ and ‘send a message to AIG and other companies who received bailout money.’

While I think the anger is well-founded, I fear it misses the point.

Government should never have entered the business of giving our money to failing companies. The line between government and private enterprise is now perverted. Because of the bailouts, politicians are now posturing by interfering in businesses they know little about, and businessmen (bankers in this case) now have more reason than ever to lobby and influence politics.

The whole process is outrageous. Bad companies should simply go bankrupt. There are plenty of banks here in the Midwest that have been responsible. If we lived in a free society, they would find themselves in a position to buy assets from the hugely irresponsible and incompetent New York banks. Instead, money is taken from the competent and given to the incompetent.

At the same time, politicians are pretending to have stuck it to the man. Scolding AIG over several hundred million in bonuses after handing them several hundred billion is ridiculous.

If Congress wants to scrutinize something, they should scrutinize the Federal Reserve. Instead of worrying about AIG’s millions, they should provide transparency to the Fed’s trillions. (from press-citizen.com)

Iraq Revisited

In their March/April 2009 edition (online), STANFORD Magazine published this brief essay, a rebuttal to my own perspective, Email from Iraq, from five years earlier.

“. . . . I have not been victimized by my military experiences, or by the Army. Claiming so is such a common refrain among veterans I’ve been tempted to adopt it, simply because it would require less explanation. In truth, I’ve benefited from my experiences. I have no complaints about pay, though I would likely have done better following through with my long-forgotten computer science degree. I haven’t suffered from shortages in benefits or care, though I don’t doubt others have. I enjoy the respect and credibility veterans seem to get for free and entirely independent of their competence. I’ve made many friends, and got to bear witness to that mysterious and heavily mythologized thing called combat. The great responsibilities I’d been entrusted with”leading men in combat as a platoon leader, preparing paratroopers as a jumpmaster, serving as a diplomat with Iraqi councilmen or Afghan tribal leaders”taught me much about myself and about people.

I think the breadth and depth of these responsibilities overwhelmed my perceptions when I wrote “E-mail from Iraq.” To me, now, it reads like war propaganda “a demonstration of the goodwill, energy and character of war’s participants, while beckoning the reader to ignore how we got there. . . .” (Read more at STANFORD Magazine)

Kilimanjaro: Climbing Africa’s Tallest Mountain

From the Lava Tower, we began a two-and-a-half day traverse of Kili’s southern slope. That afternoon, we descended to the beautiful Baranco camp, with steep cliffs on either side of the broad valley, the snows of Kilimanjaro peaking through the clouds behind us, and villages glimmering through the blue haze on the distant plane to our front.

Cartoon-like trees called Senecio Kilimanjari in my guide book stood throughout the valley.

The porters, who’d walked directly from Shira to Baranco, had already set up camp. They rested in their crowded little tents or stood with hands in their pockets, joking with one another.

I was lucky. My body adjusted well to walking and altitude and I had been wondering if it wouldn’t be truer to the spirit of adventure to carry my own tent, food, fuel, but I quickly grew accustomed to the luxury porters provide.

My only task upon arrival at camp was unzipping the door of the tent they had pitched, pulling some belongings from my pack, and waiting for the assistant cook to summon me in his broken English to dinner. (Read more from GoNomad.com)

Also, see more photos here.

Healthcare and our Ever-Expanding Government

Our government, which already directly employs a seventh a America’s labor force (22 million people), is doing what government does best. It is growing – in size, cost and invasiveness.

Its growth into the healthcare industry is particularly interesting to me because of the enthusiasm with which so many of my liberal friends welcome it. . . .

Once government is paying for our healthcare . . . they’ll eventually claim dominion over our diets and health-related habits.

(Read more at press-citizen.com)

Monsters

“. . . And excited children would run the streets, announcing the monster’s arrival, and the school master, first folding his spectacles, then replacing a bookmark in the yellowed pages of some long-forgotten text, would shuffel to the schoolhouse, iron key heavy in the pocket of his night gown, children bouncing alongside, beside themselves with anticipation, and he would grip the sweat-blackened rope, the little hands of as many children as could crowd around him joining in the task, and with a slow, grave cadence of his shoulders and back, the school master would sound the bell whose peal proclaimed the arrival of the monsters who lived in the caves in the mountains by the sea . . .”

Published in Nethra, Vol. 10 No. 3, A non-specialist journal for lively minds
Edited by Ameena Huseein
(buy the issue at icescolombo.org)

Climbing in Kunar

Rusty & Pack Animals.

I don’t imagine too many people would vacation nowadays in Afghanistan, especially not in Kunar Province, but maybe. The most likely (and cheap) way for an American to get there is to be in the Army, or, as in my case, get called back to the Army after three years of civilian life for one more combat tour.

Bull Hill was the name of one of the observation posts overlooking my base. Usually, we changed guards on Fridays, because Fridays are the weekend in Islamic countries, and a good day to reorganize. There were generally fewer attacks.

Also, since we were a Provincial Reconstruction Team and did business with local government officials, tribal elders, contractors and other Afghan big shots, there wasn’t often reason to run missions on their weekend. . . .

Anyway, Bull Hill. Occasionally, I joined the soldiers making the climb to relieve last week’s guards. . . . (Read more on GoNomad.com)