MEMORIAL DAY 2008

I got an e-mail from David Stanford recently. He's the duty officer over at Doonesbury.com, and also a great guy who is editor of The Sandbox anthology.

He asked if I wanted to be on a local call-in radio show here in Salt Lake City called K-Talk. The host is a really nice lady named Sethina. She had actually been reading the book at the library and found David's contact information in the introduction. She wanted to interview him on the show and wondered if he had any of the authors available. Well, as luck would have it I'm in Salt Lake City too.

I said yes. I was on the air with Sethina and David for the full hour. There were several callers, and she even asked me to read one of my pieces on air. I really appreciate being recognized for my service and being able to speak my piece. Among other things, I said that browsing military blogs is the best way to get your news from Iraq. I really believe that.

You can download the entire broadcast here, but it will only be available for 5 more days. 

Sethina mentioned that she had read some of my essays from The Sandbox, and found me to be a very "nostalgic guy."

When it comes to the writing in the book, I think she's right. In Iraq I was always nostalgic, sending my thoughts back home to the life that was changing in so many surreal and overwhelming ways, and it came through in everything I wrote.

Dusty sentences. Mortared mornings. Superheated life. Pallette bridges. Plastic bathrooms.

Today it's all back. I'm thinking about veterans, which leads me to hi def memories of everything that happened to make me a veteran. I smile at the proud fact that I survived to return home and take care of my kids, and at the work we did over there.

I remember writing for the New York Times and blogging from Iraq. The reader support was inspiring.

Yes, the vastness and nostalgia are back upon me. I sense the weight of a long fight across the Atlantic. I feel the long miles between Salt Lake City and the Sunni Triangle. I remember the taste of Iraq's dust in my mouth, and that cranium-baking sun.

Memorial Day. Memory Day. Soldiers. Military. Veterans. Combat. The United States of America. Five years of war in the new millenium. Soldiers fighting right this very minute in the desert. Some soldier in my old room. Midnight here. Morning there. My old office.

Hundreds of thousands of us home now, re-building lour lives at every level of society.

Whatever happens, I'm proud of us.

THE SHAMELESS PLUG:

DESERT SUN Writing and Editing is officially open for business!

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