The Campaign Blog
Our authors submit collections of patchwork stories—memoirs from those who served and those who have supported—sewn together into one voice that resonates as a hero’s journey.
Each story alone is one of many. Not a single one the same, yet they all share something in common—they are all personal odysseys—journeys and struggles to war and back.
You will hear the voices of our heroes, their struggles and successes. Each story is just as important as the next, and with The War Writers’ Campaign, they come together in one voice and direct advocacy for impact.
October 19, 2015
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...
July 21, 2015
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...
July 13, 2015
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...
June 22, 2015
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...
June 22, 2015
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...
June 19, 2015
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...
June 15, 2015
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,...
Featured Posts
Recent Posts
September 9, 2016
January 14, 2016
October 19, 2015
August 5, 2015
July 21, 2015
July 13, 2015
July 13, 2015
June 24, 2015
June 22, 2015
June 22, 2015