If you’ve been around veterans long enough, you’ve heard someone mention the veteran suicide phenomenon plaguing our community. The statistics range Continue Reading
A Human Shield Taught Me How to Live
The convoy stalled somewhere just north of Baghdad. The mechanized beasts we controlled lurched to a halt in a fractured herringbone formation. Daniel Continue Reading
Carpe Diem or Die Trying
When I was twenty-one years old, I wrote my own will. Although I had no assets and nearly no earthly possessions, I still had to divvy up what little Continue Reading
Only Your Armor Fits
I have a good friend and mentor who spent nearly twenty years as a pastor but still felt like he wasn’t following his exact calling. He believed there Continue Reading
Where Doubt Breaks
I was given a writing prompt of just one word—“Threshold”—recently in a veteran writing class. Instead of writing about the obvious threshold I Continue Reading
What the Stump Knows
Is it just me, or is anyone else really confused by how a seemingly dead tree—a mere stump—can send up shoots of new life? Essentially, new trees Continue Reading
What Soldiers Know About Love
I haven’t read the Bible in a while—unless you count the few times a week that I read the daily scripture sent to my phone from the Bible app. Continue Reading
The Audacity to Be Enough
I’ve spent my four decades on this planet chasing my dreams. At times, it has felt more like chasing my own tail, but chasing something nonetheless. Continue Reading
The Day Death Lost Its Grip
About a year into the pandemic, my morning was interrupted by a tragedy in my neighborhood. My elderly neighbor was pacing on my porch, debating Continue Reading
Millennials Become the Church
Reluctantly, I must admit something to you, dearest reader. It’s not something I’m entirely proud of, but rather something I was born into: I am a Continue Reading
We Hid a Copperhead
My family has always used humor to get through tough times. Almost twenty years ago, when I lived at my grandmother’s house, I kept quite a few Continue Reading
The Jerk of a Trigger
My dad wasn’t a hunter. He was raised in the city and abhorred guns. As a teenager, he witnessed his best friend’s father kill himself with a 12-gauge Continue Reading