Military Writers Society of America 2016 Gold Medal in Poetry winner! SHERPATUDE NO. 26: "HUMOR IS A COMBAT MULTIPLIER ..." Has your war become workaday? Does life on the Forward Operating Base (FOB) now seem commonplace? Armed with deadpan snark and poker-faced patriotism—and rooted in the coffee-black soil and plain-spoken voice of the American Midwest—journalist-turned-poet Randy Brown reveals behind-the-scenes stories of U.S. soldier-citizenship. From Boot Camp to Bagram, Afghanistan. And back home again. Here’s a taste: Three Cups of Chai-ku 1. I had hoped, I guess, for something more like Starbucks, not yellow water. 2. We build our nations one tea party at a time. They serve, we protect. 3. No one here can lead this endless talk of action. "Que shura, shura."

Welcome to FOB Haiku: War Poems from Inside the Wire

Literature & Fiction

Brown, Randy

Poetry

Middle West Press LLC

IT WAS THE BIGGEST YEAR, IN OUR LONGEST WAR ... Here, collected for the first time, are must-read stories of history-making missions, written and photographed by those who were "in the fight" themselves! Perfect for historians, military supporters and veterans, and family genealogists!At the height of the "Afghan Surge," more than 100,000 U.S. and coalition troops were committed to a mission of "clear, hold, and build" on behalf of the Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan: CLEAR the countryside of insurgent fighters. HOLD the terrain, alongside Afghan security forces. BUILD infrastructure, commerce, and rule-of-law. As part of this wave, the 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 34th Infantry "Red Bull" Division deployed more than 3,000 citizen-soldiers to Eastern Afghanistan. It was the largest call-up of Iowa troops since World War II--and one of the only times a U.S. National Guard brigade was designated as a "battlespace owner" during Operation Enduring FreedomThroughout the year-long mission, soldiers trained and tasked as journalists documented the hard days and off-duty activities of their brothers and sisters in arms. For the first time, Reporting for Duty collects these stories and photographs in one place.This is an unabridged, indexed, primary-source document for historians, educators, veterans, military family members, and other readers! More than 285 easy-to-read articles! More than 360 black & white news photos! Indexed by unit, place, soldier names, and more! Content includes 2010-2011 news coverage of units operating in Kapisa, Laghman, Nuristan, Paktya, Panjshir, and Parwan provinces.These include, but are not limited to:2nd Brigade Combat Team, 34th Infantry Division; "Task Force Red Bulls"1-113th Cavalry Regiment; "Task Force Redhorse"1-133rd Infantry Regiment; "Task Force Ironman"1-168th Infantry Regiment; "Task Force Lethal"1-194th Field Artillery Regiment2-34th Brigade Special Troops Battalion334th Brigade Support Battalion; "Task Force Archer"832nd Engineer CompanyAgribusiness Development Teams from Kansas, Kentucky, and OklahomaProvincial Reconstruction Teams from the United States and the Republic of KoreaVermont's 86th Infantry Brigade Combat Team; "Task Force Wolverine" (preceded Task Force Red Bulls)Oklahoma's 45th Infantry Brigade Combat Team; "Task Force Thunderbird" (replaced Task Force Red Bulls)

Reporting for Duty: U.S. Citizen-Soldier Journalism from the Afghan Surge, 2010-2011

History

Americas

A PERFECT GIFT OF POETRY FOR MILITARY SERVICE MEMBERS, FRIENDS, AND VETERANS--AND THE PEOPLE WHO LOVE THEM!With humor and grace, Lisa Stice (author of the previously published "Uniform," Aldrich Press, 2016) lovingly interrogates and illuminates life in a military family. "Her close observations of childhood magic and household routines, quietly set against ever-present question-marks of wartime deployment and displacement, are essential and timely insights into the modern military family experience," says the publisher. "If you've ever been a military kid, parent, or spouse--regardless of age or branch or era--you'll find a welcome home in her words." Together with her toddler daughter and little dog Seamus, Stice explores the in-betweens of separation and connection, and the quest for finding one's place in the world--whether child or adult. Stice's signature style is open and accessible--this is poetry for people who think they don't read poetry. Frequently, for example, she borrows phrases from texts she finds readily at hand around the house, including quotations from Sun Tzu's "The Art of War," and Dr. Seuss's "The Sneetches." In another point of entry, the family's beloved Norwich Terrier often appears as a sentry, companion, and guide. In one poem, "The Dog Speaks," Stice writes: He says, I can't leave. This place is mine-- I claimed all the trees. I say, There will be more. After all the temporary homes and all the stops in between, this whole country will by yours.

Permanent Change of Station

Stice, Lisa

Literary

For military service members, veterans, and families—and all those who write about them!
Tap into PUBLISHING INSPIRATIONS, WRITING MARKETS, and CREATIVE TECHNIQUES with advice from MORE THAN 60 BEST-SELLING, ESTABLISHED, and EMERGING AUTHORS of military, national security, and war topics!
Whether you're writing military-themed genre fiction or literary non-fiction, strategy or policy analysis, history or journalism, or even modern war poetry, Why We Write: Craft Essays on Writing War puts an arsenal of innovation and expertise at your fingertips!
Choose your weapons: Podcasts! Memoirs! Novels! Book reviews! Short stories! Op-Ed essays! And more!
Entertaining, informal, and accessible, this first-ever Military Writers Guild-sponsored anthology is ideal for:
<ul>
<li>Individual creatives and scholars</li>
<li>Writing workshops</li>
<li>Classroom discussions of war literature, literary history, and popular culture</li>
<li>Professional development forums</li>
</ul>
 Contributors include such leading authors as:
<ul>
<li>
Phil Klay (Redeployment)</li>
<li>
Vanya Eftimova Bellinger (Marie von Clausewitz: The Woman Behind the Making of “On War”)</li>
<li>
David Abrams (Fobbit and Brave Deeds)</li>
<li>
Alex Finley (Victor in the Rubble and Victor in the Jungle)</li>
<li>
Gayle Tzemach Lemmon (Ashley’s War and The Dressmaker of Khair Khana)</li>
<li>
Thomas E. Ricks (Churchill &amp; Orwell: The Fight for Freedom; The Generals; Fiasco; The Gamble)</li>
<li>
Kate Germano (Fight Like a Girl: The Truth Behind How Female Marines are Trained)</li>
<li>
Peter Van Buren (We Meant Well and Hooper’s War)</li>
<li>
Kori Schake (Safe Passage; Warriors and Citizens)</li>
<li>
Max Brooks (World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War)</li>
<li>
Jessica Scott (The Coming Home; Falling; and Homefront romance series)</li>
<li>
Carmen Gentile (Blindsided by the Taliban: A Journalist's Story of War, Trauma, Love, and Loss)</li>
<li>
Hugh Martin (In Country; Stick Soldiers; and So, How Was the War?)</li>
<li>
Robert L. Bateman (No Gun Ri: A Military History of the Korean War Incident and Digital War: A View from the Front Lines)</li>
<li>
P.W. Singer &amp; August Cole (Ghost Fleet: A Novel of the Next World War)</li>
</ul>

Why We Write: Craft Essays on Writing War

Biographies & Memoirs

Leaders & Notable People

Inspired by great works of visual art, writing, and sculpture, as well as small moments observed alongside her small child and dog, a seasoned poet and spouse of a U.S. Marine explores through poetry the invisible forces and frictions at work in our lives.

Forces: Poems

United States

"Every poet," warns Randy Brown, "has a heart filled / with shrapnel."\nIn 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 hundreds of haiku, aphorisms, philosophical puzzles, and other experiments in pithy and pulpy poetry.\nBrown'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."\nGet ready for amusement, bemusement, and plenty of pyrotechnics!

So Frag & So Bold: Short Poems, Aphorisms & Other Wartime Fun

Part memoir, part multimedia experiment, part catharsis, Amalie ("ah-MAHL-ee-ah") Flynn explores how the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 both shatter and echo in us--both as individuals and as a culture.Flynn is author of the 2013's Wife and War: A Memoir, and is also the poetry editor of the monthly literary journal The Wrath-Bearing Tree.Her poetry collection September Eleventh grew first from a 2011 series of blog posts at https://septembereleventh.wordpress.com/, which the artist in 2021 subsequently recrafted as a random-access constellation of 130 social media posts and companion YouTube videos. The book can be read sequentially, or accessed by flipping among pages."Leave it to a poet to unlock something fresh and new in the space of 'remember when' stories," writes the publisher. "Here is a narrative that both invites participants to recall their own experiences of a collectively traumatic day in history, while also recreating the immediacies and uncertainties of what it was like to live through it."In the print edition, each micro-poem is presented along with a shortened URL link to a corresponding YouTube video. In the Kindle e-book edition, each URL is a "live" hyperlink to that poem's video. Each edition also features a scannable QR code to readers to the entire set of 130 videos.

September Eleventh: an epic poem, in fragments

Flynn, Amalie

Benjamin B. White was pursuing a career in baseball when a worn-out shoulder diverted his life's course. After an enlistment in the U.S. Army, White ended up as an officer in the U.S. Coast Guard.Now, in dispatches filled with insight and humor, he reveals what he learned along the way.Established in 1790 as the Revenue Cutter Service, the modern Coast Guard is the maritime security, search-and-rescue, and law-enforcement service branch of the U.S. Armed Forces. Its motto is "Semper Paratus"--"Always Ready!"Retired from uniformed service, White now teaches human resources, business administration, and college success courses from his home in Albuquerque, New Mexico."Veterans and military families of all eras and branches will delight in White's sharp humor and storytelling. His stories of adventures and misadventures are sure to variously inspire laughter, reflection, and patriotic pride," says the publisher. "Who doesn't love a good sea story?"

Always Ready: Poems from a Life in the U.S. Coast Guard

White, Benjamin B.

In a cheeky critique of the classic American airpower 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: Life-Lessons in Leadership from War Poems & Films 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, management techniques, moral injury, and veterans' healing.

Twelve O'Clock Haiku: Leadership Lessons from Old War Movies & New Poems

Business & Money

Business Culture

A prolific creator of books and anthologies centered on Northern Michigan and the Upper Peninsula, Ron Riekki now delivers an insightful, poetic exploration of wartime trauma and healing.Riekki is an author of poetry, fiction, memoir, theater, and film. He is also an Operation Desert Shield/Desert Storm veteran of the U.S. Navy, as well as the U.S. Air Force Reserve."With gusty cuts and scalpel grace, Ron Riekki is clear-eyed and unsentimental as he navigates his own human terrain back from war and other traumas. Military veterans and families of all eras will appreciate how Riekki lights his way-his waypoints may differ from yours, but our journeys are often the same," says U.S. Army veteran Randy Brown, editor and publisher of Middle West Press.&#9670;&#9670;&#9670;&#9670;&#9670;I tell My PTSD counselor that I spent a hundred bucks at a strip club and I feel like hell. He asks, "Why hell?" And I say that I was suicidal. And he says, "And it helped you forget?" And I say, "Yeah." And he says, "So?" And I stare at a fish tank that has no fish in it. It's just a tank. And it's quiet. And then the counselor tells me that soldiers used to bleed to death. He says they'd get shot in the arm, the leg, and the medics would try to save them. They didn't realize the importance of tourniquets, that you can lose the arm and save the life. He asks me if I'd rather lose my arm or stay alive. I tell him I'd rather stay alive. There are a lot of tourniquets, he says, just don't use them too often or you'll lose your arms, your legs&#9670;&#9670;&#9670;&#9670;&#9670;Here's what others are saying about Blood / Not Blood ... Then the Gates: "Ron Riekki stares into the violence and aftermath of prisons and poverty and addiction and especially war, sometimes unflinchingly, other times with such true, human flinches that I feel them in my own hands as I hold the pages. Individually, many of these poems are almost unbearable in their relentless and ugly truths, but taken collectively their beauty is that of a path, like Dante's, through what infernos we have made, to a saved life and-somehow-deeper humanity." -Jonathan Johnson, author of May is an Island and The Desk on the Sea"Riekki does not leave us hopeless as he progresses into post-traumatic growth-'controlling my breath, my thoughts, my history that I was creating [...]' If you are sincere in your desire to support and understand Veterans, then you need to be reading contemporary Veteran literature." -Suzanne S. Rancourt, author of murmurs at the gate and Billboards in the Clouds"Ron Riekki won't let you think poetry is just for your head. His book drags our bodies into the game. The work swirls and revisits past events, the visceral drumbeat of painful memories. The faint hope at the end gives perspective to where Riekki has been. This collection is like his description of swimming in a frigid river: It's a sort of cure." -Eric Chandler, author of Kekekabic and Hugging This Rock"'The war is language, ' wrote Allen Ginsberg in 'Wichita Vortext Sutra.' Ron Riekki's gone to war and proved that the pen is mightier than the M60 machine gun. In these poems, he douses flaming helicopters with the water of poetry, he translates tortured screams into English, into poetry, into sighs of relief. War is Hell, and Ron Riekki is the Virgil we need to walk us through it." -Tom C. Hunley, author of What Feels Like Love

Blood / Not Blood Then the Gates: Poems

Health, Fitness & Dieting

Riekki, Ron

Mental Health

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