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46th Parallel North

Alguire

Army

Building Blocks of Life

Elusive Enemy

Hamilton

Hunger is my Friend

Iraq

Marines

Navy

Post

Printer

Ruspantine

Ryan Gonch

Strickland

Such Tooth

Taps

Unknown Angel

Vietnam

War

Warrior

Wiedenhoeft

Zephrine

war

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I Was a Warrior

October 19, 2015

|

Frances Wiedenhoeft

I was a warrior in Iraq and Afghanistan

A warrior against death

Piecing together the bits of gristle and bone

Running out into the haze of explosive powder and death

Titrating mixtures to ease pain

Bringing blessed sleep

 

We were closer to our patients,

Closer to God​​

Than to...

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Elusive Enemy

July 21, 2015

|

Frances Wiedenhoeft

Never the soldier

With the flag

Draped over my heart,

 

I looked for the enemy

Diligently

In every bloody cavity

 

I peered into bullet holes

Of eleven year old

Taliban fighters,

 

Down the dissected gash

Of a known Al Qaeda operative

Split lengthwise by a Hellfire missile,

 

Through...

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War, Or What I Know of It

July 13, 2015

|

Frances Wiedenhoeft

You hang over the entrance to my tent

Pale couldn’t even describe you

Gritty ashy gray

Like volcanic eruption from Mt. St. Helens

There is no blood

No pool at your feet

No trickle off your fingertip

There is no sound

The eerie quiet of heavy snow on a country night

 

Shaking ear...

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46th parallel north

June 22, 2015

|

Frances Wiedenhoeft

The intensity of the cold

 

Presses in on my body,

A physical force

Like a vice.

 

Two or three breaths up through the sinus

And my brain is frozen,

Thought slows,

Sensation is hazy.

 

All I know

Or have ever known

Is the pressure

Of the polar vortex.

 

How do I explain cold this inte...

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Unknown Angel

June 22, 2015

|

Frances Wiedenhoeft

An arm

Firmly Grasping

Pulling me from the wreck of my sweet little black Matrix—

Now mangled little boat

Of compassion

Rescuing my family

Shipwrecked in a sea

Of explosions, collisions, foreclosure and Despair,

“I’ll get that electric bill for you

And oh by the way I have a tu...

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Building Blocks of a Life

June 19, 2015

|

Frances Wiedenhoeft

I always thought of humans as an integrated organism. All of our parts: mind, heart, body, indelibly working together until death; the identity and placement of each block critical to the function of the whole human being.

 

War tore through my life like a massive explos...

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Hunger is my Friend

June 15, 2015

|

Frances Wiedenhoeft

Hunger Is My Friend.

The empty

Hollowness of it

 

Fueling

A measured flow

Of adrenaline,

Sharpening senses

 

So that I can hear

More acutely

Changes in the multi-tonal

Beat of my patient’s heart,

 

Like the deep croaking of an old bullfrog,

RrrrBttt 

RrrrBttt

 

Monitor the w-h-o-o-s-h,...

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Homeward Bound

September 9, 2016

Journey Home from War

January 14, 2016

I Was a Warrior

October 19, 2015

A Different Battle in the Same War

August 5, 2015

Elusive Enemy

July 21, 2015

My Cup Runneth Over

July 13, 2015

War, Or What I Know of It

July 13, 2015

Taps in the Dead of Night

June 24, 2015

46th parallel north

June 22, 2015

Unknown Angel

June 22, 2015

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