Army
Leftovers
Trying something different today. Here are three small pieces I tried and failed to flesh out into something bigger but liked too much just to leave in a drafts folder.
Army
memoir
Arguing With Myself
That undiluted dose hit me like a freight train. It slammed into me like a tsunami. That shit felt AMAZING. It felt like the euphoria of dying.
memoir
Toxic Guy
Guy got laid. Guy was never alone. Guy never got cheated on. Guy never pined away. Guy never had to hide drunken tears in a latrine shower. Guy was always smiling. He always had a girl on his arm.
fiction
Jody Chapter One
...barracks ethics made her off limits and as much as Pierce disliked the machine gunner from New Jersey and liked the little dark haired girl from California he couldn't act on it. He wasn’t a Blue Falcon, he wasn’t Jody. Normally...
memoir
The Night Jim Struck Out
Turns out even twenty-two years old, three thousand miles from home, drunk in the parking lot of a foreign motel I’m not that guy.
memoir
Copenhagen
I was a redneck kid with redneck friends and it’s hard to sneak a cigarette in High School but it’s easy to sneak a dip. Shop teacher didn’t even pretend not to notice. Smokeless tobacco ruled the high school bleachers. I started, like all St Tammany Parish kids do, with Skoal Bandits
memoir
Fathers, Sons, Soldiers, and Poetry
We both hid a part of ourselves behind a soldier’s body armor and camo paint and when that didn’t work we retreated behind the smile of a beer drinking buddy.
memoir
El Paso
After thirty years how it all ended doesn’t matter. Those missed signals, my idiot roommate, Lorrie’s unrequited crush, a strange new soldier, and the United States Army don’t mean a fucking thing...
commentary
Past Sins
The inevitable Graham Platner rant.
commentary
Thoughts and Prayers and Thank You For Your Service
...I pity them. I feel genuinely sorry for all of them with their yellow ribbon stickers and “would’ve served but” because I experienced something else during those dark days, something they will never experience for themselves.
memoir
Fear and the World's Greatest Turkey Sandwich
It was little better than prison food. Three slices of cold roast turkey in between two sliced of white bread, no condiments, just a Styrofoam cup of water to wash it down and lime Jello for dessert.
memoir
An Outlaw's Prayer
For a long time I thought there was something wrong with me, that the reason I didn’t have faith was because I was bad or broken. I don’t believe that anymore, but I still don’t understand. How is it everyone I love takes comfort in religion and I find none?