Tracy Crow - Red, White, and True: Stories from Veterans and Families, World War II to Present

Red, White, and True

Stories from Veterans and Families, World War II to Present

Edited and with an introduction by
TRACY CROW

2014 by the Board of Regents of the University of Nebraska

Acknowledgments for the use of copyrighted material appear on page 275, which constitutes an extension of the copyright page.

All rights reserved. Potomac Books is an imprint of the
University of Nebraska Press.

Manufactured in the United States of America.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Red, white, and true: stories from veterans and families,
World War II to present / edited and with an introduction
by Tracy Crow.

pages cm

ISBN 978-1-61234-701-1 (pbk.: alk. paper)

ISBN 978-1-61234-707-3 (pdf).

1. VeteransUnited StatesAnecdotes. 2. Veterans

United StatesFamily relationships. 3. Veterans
familiesUnited StatesAnecdotes. 4. Soldiers

United StatesAnecdotes. 5. United StatesArmed

ForcesMilitary lifeAnecdotes. 6. United States

Military historyAnecdotes. I. Crow, Tracy, editor of
compilation. II. Title: Stories from veterans and families,
World War II to present.

UB357.R42 2014
305.906970973dc23

2014007438

Set in Minion Pro by L. Auten.

In memory of you who have gone before us.
You will not be forgotten.

The world breaks every one and afterward many are strong at the broken places.

ERNEST HEMINGWAY, A Farewell to Arms

MATT FARWELL

LEAH HAMPTON

KATHLEEN M. RODGERS

CALEB S. CAGE

LORRIE LYKINS

KEVIN C. JONES

ALAN JONES

ANNE VISSER NEY

CHRISTAL PRESLEY

GERARDO MENA

LINDA ADAMS

BEVERLY A. JACKSON

JON KERSTETTER

MAX JOE DALTON

STEPHEN WILSON

ALEJANDRO MUJICA

LEILA LEVINSON

AMBER JENSEN

BROOKE KING

DARIO DIBATTISTA

KIM WRIGHT

TRACY KIDDER

JEFFERY HESS

THOMAS VINCENT NOWACZYK

CAROL EVERETT ADAMS

RONALD JACKSON

DONALD MORRILL

REBECCA MCCLANAHAN

CHERYL LAPP

DAVID ABRAMS

ELIZABETH LIBBY OBERG

TONIA STACEY-GTTING

Truth is, the idea for this anthology was not even a thought creeping in and out of consciousness until my dear friend Jeffery Hess, who is himself the editor of two military fiction anthologiesHome of the Brave: Stories in Uniform (2009) and Home of the Brave: Somewhere in the Sand (2013)and now a contributor here, suggested nearly two years ago that I compile an anthology of nonfiction.

Jeff warned against all the hard work, namely, the difficult selection process that befalls an editor when too much good work continues to find its way into your in-box, even long after your deadline. And he was right. He was also right about the rewards. I have never enjoyed a writing project more, for I believe I can speak for all of us when I state that Red, White, and True has become a labor of love. Thank you, Jeff, for your unwavering encouragement and support of this project and of everything I do with my writing life.

After my conversation with Jeff, I contacted the one person with whom I most wanted and needed at the helm: Bridget Barry, my editor at the University of Nebraska Press. Bridget immediately responded with Jeffs level of enthusiasm, and within twenty-four hours of that discussion with Jeff, the first call for submissions was relayed to the world.

I would like to thank the Military Writers Society of America for helping with calls for submissions. Thanks, too, to MFA writing faculty around the country and to those folks closely associated with the Veterans Administration (VA) for encouraging veterans to submit their stories and for everything you are doing in your writing programs for veterans and their families.

For their personal recommendations of talented writers whose voices had not yet been discovered, a special thanks to Dinty W. Moore, Michael Steinberg, Ron Capps, and Jessica Handler.

I am enormously appreciative to everyone who contributed to this book. Thank you for trusting me with such intimate material. Thanks, especially, for your service to our country. Reading your workwhether your work appears between these two covers or notprofoundly affected me and helped to guide and shape the overall tone. And to the thirty-two contributors within, I owe a debt of gratitude that I will never be able to adequately repay.

Many thanks to Sabrina Ehmke Sergeant, Annette Wenda, and the entire University of Nebraska Press and Potomac Books team. Thanks to my former colleagues and students at the University of Tampa who continue to support my writing projects. A special thanks to my incredibly loyal Queens University of Charlotte MFA and Eckerd College families for their emotional support of this project and, frankly, of everything I do; I could not want for a more supportive community.

And to my dear friends, family, and adoring husband, Mark, who offered all sorts of gifts related to the needs of an editor on deadline, thank youthank you for loving me that much.

I was in my forties and a returning college student when a professor asked why I was not writing about my ten years in the Marine Corps for her memoir class. Because I did not think anyone would care, I said. What she did not know is that for years, I had worked hard to repress most memories, and for good reason. I found it too painful to look back at what many would consider a failed military career, despite the ribbons and medals and writing awards I had accumulated in the 1980s.

But that evening after the night class, and while standing in the middle of a brightly lit parking lot, my professor issued what I took as an order. So I went to work, nervously, I might add. A week later I returned with a story about my first experience on a rifle range during which I had mostly hit everyone elses targets before finally learning to hit my own. However, the heart of the story, according to my professor and fellow students, was really about my struggle to balance a meaningful military career with marriage and motherhood. They urged me, pushed me, really, down the rabbit hole toward a deeper exploration of self and motive, which is exactly what I had been avoiding for years, yet exactly what I had to reveal, if I ever hoped my writing would connect with readers. In other words, what they truly wanted to read is what writer William Faulkner referred to as storytelling that reveals the human heart in conflict with itself.

What I have learned in the years since is that everyone has a story. Everyone has a heart that at some point has wrestled with conflict. Everyone, if they live long enough, experiences loss and grief, possibly shame and humiliation, and hopefully love if they are fortunate and open enough to it. As the Hank Williams song goes, well never get out of this world alive.

Maybe not, but we can certainly help one another along the way by sharing our personal survival stories. As memoirist Patricia Hampl states, You give me your story, I get mine (quoted in Robert L. Roots The Nonfictionists Guide on Reading and Writing Creative Nonfiction). Maybe this explains why we are so drawn to true-life stories, or at least to the good parts where the human heart is in conflict with itself, for in doing so, writer and reader are making a most profoundly human connection with one another.