Category: War & Veterans
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One by one
Sonia Sethi Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States My mother was only five years old when my grandmother went off to war. She remembers waving goodbye, not comprehending the gravity of the situation until her mother embraced her and a teardrop fell silently on her forehead. My grandmother kissed her children, one by one, before leaving…
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Union or Confederate, American Women Played Crucial Roles in the Civil War Effort
Sarah Bahr Indianapolis, Indiana, United States Filling Cartridges. Women working at the U.S. Arsenal, Watertown, Massachusetts. From Harper’s Weekly, July 1861. (Image: Library of Congress) “I may be compelled to face danger, but never fear it, and while our soldiers can stand and fight, I can stand and feed and nurse them,” Clara Barton,…
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“Dust Off” and the power of perseverance
Robert Robeson Lincoln, Nebraska, United States Dust Offs over Da Nang Harbor. March 1970. Photo by Chief Reporter Gunter Stiller, used with permission “…I think I should say one word, too, a special word, about the ‘Dust Offs’–the Medevacs. This was a great group of men. All those who flew them, all those who did…
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A message
Mira Talaja Split, Croatia Standing in a clearing on Lake Peruca, I awaited the completion of the negotiations and approval to pass through occupied territory. It was late autumn 1993, and I accompanied the Red Cross medical corps and served as a translator. International forces came to the area to reach a ceasefire agreement,…
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The American Civil War as a biological phenomenon: Did Salmonella or Sherman win the war for the North?
Michael Brown Chicago, Illinois, United States Reexamining Civil War deaths Patients in Ward K of Armory Square Hospital – Washington, DC, 1865 A demographic historian, J. David Hacker, recently discovered an unfortunate truth; using newly digitized data from the 1860, 1870, and 1880 censuses, he constructed new estimates of Northern and Southern Civil…
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Mentally ill and Jewish in World War II
Mary Seeman Toronto, Canada Introduction In 1928, my grandfather was admitted to the Clinic for Psychiatry and Nervous Diseases in Vienna for a recurrence of the manic-depressive illness he had suffered from since youth. The clinic director was Julius Wagner-Jauregg who one year earlier had been awarded the Nobel Prize for fever treatment of…
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Requiem for the Beast: a memoir
Mara Buck Windsor, Maine, United States Hercules and the Nemean lion, Peter Paul Rubens. Uploaded by Sailko via Wikimedia Commons. His world was tough and he the toughest in it, exploiting smarts and size. As he matured, he learned intimidation on an intellectual level so he seldom had to resort to the earlier violence.…
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Found and Lost in Vietnam
Lynn Sadler Burlington, North Carolina, United States War alters, shapes, and re-shapes far different ends even for members of the same family. Clarence Leon (“Boone”) McNeill (1947-1969) and Joseph Nelson Hargrove (1951-1975) are illustrative not only in that telling way but also salute the tenacity of Americans in honoring their veterans. Their names are…
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Lilac hideout
Lidiia RiabovaCherkasy, Ukraine Klym was lying wounded, shell-shocked on the hot black soil. The reflection of a distant, cold sky and the silent copper sun mirrored in his wide open eyes. Only he had survived the battle. The watch on his wrist was glinting in the sun. Somehow it remained undamaged. It was caked with…