Pacific Light

by David Ackley

Like convicts, draftees were prone to claim it was all a big mistake, which didn’t mean we were wrong; for the half-million of us called-up that year the case was clear. We’d expected to be ground to slime under the tank treads of the Soviet divisions massed in Eastern Europe, but although the shooting war was cancelled and instantly redundant, we were sentenced regardless to spend the next two years eating mess hall slop, sleeping arm’s length apart in clamorous and foot-fetid squad bays; acquiring firsthand the jittery lassitude of an army in peacetime.

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Churchkey

by Catfish McDaris

Wilber asked Churchkey to come with him to examine the newest house he bought, he said it was foreclosed on by a bank and he’d gotten it for a song. The previous owner had killed himself, he had never recovered from the war in Vietnam. All the windows were covered with red paint and blue dots were painted on all the walls and on every item in the house. The only thing without blue paint was a framed flag with a Purple Heart, a Silver Star, and a Combat Infantry Badge; Churchkey knew these were high honors. Wilber threw the frame in a pile of garbage. Churchkey retrieved the flag and medals and walked out of the house. He went home and sat in his favorite chair in the backyard. He brewed a pot of steaming sumptuous coffee over a hot fire in his hobo pot and wrapped his Navajo blanket around his shoulders. His grandfather from Quanah in the panhandle of Texas had given him a Comanche arrowhead, when Churchkey wanted a special brew; he added it to the burnt blackened pot. Thinking about the mountains, his ladies, and his cat he wondered about it all. Later he heard that Wilber had found $30,000 in the rafters of the basement and rather than finding the family to return the money to, he had kept it. Churchkey called his amigo Jesus and said he had some poetry readings around Providence and in New York City. He quit working for Wilber; he hoped his greed would swallow him like a Burmese python.

Catfish McDaris is an aging New Mexican living near Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He has four walls, a ceiling, heat, food, a woman, a daughter, two cats, a typing machine, and a mailbox. He writes mostly for himself and sometimes he gets lucky and someone publishes his words. He was in the Army artillery from July ’71 to July ’74.

USA

by D. Troy Johnson

I was in the foxhole with Mickey in ’69. Vietnam was not just a war; it was hell – pure hell.

“Incoming!” I heard Sgt. Cohen shout. He was a few yards to the left of me and Mickey.

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Deployment

by Margi Desmond

Some civilians may reason that saying goodbye before a deployment becomes easier the more military families endure them. It doesn’t. Families understand the process better and already know items covered in the pre-deployment briefs, but the goodbyes are always hard.

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