My midwife first came to me and I asked for her, not to touch me. For I had recently been examined on admission and I was progressing as would be expected, for someone whose rhythms had been disrupted by the discomfort of driving to the hospital, and the cold, sterile environment of the assessment unit. Ten years today, and I still vividly remember how quickly I escaped the wheelchair and wandered to the confines of the b...

“Boy oh boy, it’s a hot one,” my wife exclaimed as she gave the sweating pitcher one last swirl before pouring each of us a glass. Exhausted and relieved, I sipped my iced tea while slowly rocking in the hammock of our screened porch. I savored my reward while my dog and I watched the movers close the back of their truck before driving away. Knuckles then curled up beneath me and fell asleep. This was me honoring our agre...

He sits and screams at nightVisions consume his dreamsFighting with no lightHe remembers all the screamsDeath all around Shells of bullets thereBodies on the groundEverybody saying prayersFear is all that's feltFighting all through the nightTakes his canteen from his beltHe's consumed with just frightHe lived and most friends diedDuring the Vietnam WarPain that makes him cryHe cannot take any moreBeen back for yearsHis ni...

Flashbacks that consume my coreFeelings of deep sorrowThese images are filled with goreHoping I'll feel better tomorrowNobody could really ever understandThe pain that happened over thereThis was never really plannedOnly God listens to my prayersThough I feel totally insaneMedicine blurs my mindAlthough it helps numb my painMy pain causes me to feel blindMy mind goes over those daysI just cannot rest you seeSo much pain i...

Dedicated to combat veterans and PTSD sufferers, wherever they may be...thank you for your service... An Enemy That Haunts My Mind... In the middle of the night I lie in bed, Fighting an enemy that’s in my head. An enemy that’s always there, An enemy that won’t play fair. An enemy that haunts my mind, An enemy that is not kind. The price paid for doing good, Of doing like I’m told I should. Serving my country in time of w...

A year after coming home..."Mommy! Mommy, my girl scout troop is walking in the parade tomorrow, do you wanna walk with us?" Kristi, 7, runs up and tugs on my shirt sleeve. Her smile is so wide and hopeful, I am conflicted in how to answer her. I know what I should say, to be a good mother, but I heard the parade here at home last year. They set it up so it's at the center of town, a good five miles from here. I should sa...

(All of the "If You're Reading This"s comes from the song titled "If You're Reading This" by Tim McGraw. The letter was inspired by that song and "Letters From Home" by John Michael Montgomery as well as "I'm Already There" by Lonestar and "A Soldier's Memoir" by Joe Bachman).The plane touches down and Jennifer stands when the other passengers do. Within this plane, at least, she seemed to be equal- the same as every othe...

Denial: a memoir of terror, written by Jessica Stern- experienced by Jessica Stern- talks mostly of Concord, Massachusetts and areas around it. It starts in the first couple chapters at the night that changed everything for her and her younger sister. They were then 15 and 14. It was October of ’73 and in Concord nobody thought anything like this could happen. Afterwards, speaking with police, even the police didn’t belie...

Fort Hood wasn't much different than Iraq had been. I laid awake listening to the war game's machine gun fire and loud explosions. Army helicopters hovered over my house because I lived next to the airfield. I was tired, my back twitched, my room was muggy and hot, and the noises…the noises. All three alarms were ringing and I was barely aware of them. They had been ringing for half an hour and the neighbor was joining th...

Ghost I can still feel the ghosts gathered around me like ancestors in reverse, where the children die and old warhorses get older in their place. (Elizabeth Bear, Worldwired) I do not know why I do this to myself. At the end of the Vietnam War an estimate of over 3.5 million human beings on all sides were dead. Of those, 1.4 million were combatants. Of the remaining 2.1 million deaths, the majority were children. I canno...