The life-affirming embrace of the wilderness has always filled me with wonder, its green arms making me feel more vital and connected with every plant, bug, and scurrying creature. My father was a pilot, and I spent my formative years on Air Force bases overseas. In Japan, I was too young to wander on my […]
Army
Posted inNewsroom
They Survived an Iran War Drone Attack. Six Months Later, They’re Struggling to Get Care
The soldier wakes at 6 a.m. after getting only three or four hours of sleep. He showers, shaves, and puts on his uniform by 7 a.m., even as his head pounds from a traumatic brain injury. Sometimes, while walking to a mandatory daily roll call, the piece of shrapnel still lodged in his back catches […]
Posted inReflections
I Typed Forms While Other Men Went to War. That Shame Shaped My Life
On the day I left the Army, a sergeant in dress uniform took my hand and held it while he spoke. “On behalf of the president of the United States, the people of the United States, and myself, I want to thank you for your service to our country.” He called me Mr. Thompson. Not […]
Posted inNewsroom
Military Sexual Trauma Survivors Can’t Sue the Government. A New Bill Could Change That
When Mayra Diaz opened the door of her Army barracks room in 2022, she didn’t realize it was the beginning of the end of her military career. She had never met the soldier standing in front of her, Sgt. Greville Clarke. She didn’t know he had sexually assaulted three other women on base over the […]
Posted inReflections
Everybody Wanted to Visit the Wounded Soldier. I Wanted to Be Left Alone
It was only a month after the roadside bombing. I was still in Landstuhl Regional Medical Center, Germany, in June 2006, undergoing successive rounds of surgery. Rods protruded from my limbs, keeping the broken bones of my right forearm and left thigh immobile until the doctors could complete a series of bone grafts and insert […]
Posted inNewsroom
Shrapnel, Broken Bones, and Head Trauma: New Records Show How U.S. Troops Were Wounded in Iran War
The United States recorded at least 17 life-threatening casualties during the first phase of the war with Iran, according to newly obtained Defense Department records that provide the most detailed accounting yet of troops wounded in the conflict. More than 400 casualties were recorded between Feb. 28 and April 8, with Army personnel accounting for […]
Posted inReflections
Every Ambush in Vietnam Held Surprises. This One Ended in Death
More than five decades after 1968, an especially violent year of the war, the rain, hunger, and calamity in Vietnam’s Central Highlands remain etched in my mind. Death was the purpose of our ambush, and we found it. I was assigned to the 173rd Airborne Brigade, 3rd Battalion’s A Company as a forward observer, tasked […]
Posted inReflections
My Father Was a Decorated Black Soldier With a Secret: Me
There was no celebration when my mother learned she was pregnant—only a conversation. Three married adults sat in a room weighing what my existence might cost them: a rising soldier in the United States Army with a reputation to protect, a mother facing the weight of shame, and a husband willing to raise a child […]
Posted inReflections
I Watched an Execution. Was She a Viet Cong Spy—or Just Fighting for Her Country?
The sun was a physical weight that afternoon, an oppressive, wet heat that seemed to pin everything to the red dust of our base camp in Kon Tum, Vietnam. I was 19, a supply sergeant, and my world was defined by our perimeter wire and the daily inventory of survival. “Notice anything strange about her, […]
Posted inReflections
Yes, I Served in Iraq. But What if People Mistake Me for a Hero?
The Department of Motor Vehicles was a good place to lose your identity, not find it, especially 30 minutes before closing. I sat surrounded by strangers balanced on wobbly folding chairs, the endless announcements blared extra loud, and you could feel an edge to the air every time a new ticket was called. Without looking […]
Posted inReflections
A Combat Infantryman Stood In the Gap. Made the Calculation. Pulled the Trigger. But At What Cost?
A decade has passed since I last felt the thud of a mortar hitting the perimeter or the specific metallic scent of an IED-charred road, yet I’m still waiting for the “homecoming” to actually begin. To the person standing behind me in the checkout line, I am just another civilian. Perhaps a bit too observant, […]
Posted inReflections
We Were Winning in the Middle East. But the Civilian Casualties Kept Coming
I watched our medics and nurses work on a small child, one of several who arrived at our makeshift forward surgical unit in northeast Syria. We had been running traumas for eight months, and the team knew what they were doing. I could see that the child had a clear airway, his color looked good, […]
