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Archive for the 'War' Category

The Welcome Home Band

( Family and War )

It is 1971. I am nearly four years old. My mother has driven my brother and me to an airplane hangar in Alameda, California, where my father is scheduled to fly his Navy jet in from somewhere or another.

Dad has been gone for six months, a big chunk of my young life. I remember what [...]

I am breaking this one

( Conflict and Death and Life and Politics and War )

I recently received the following chain email.
You stay up for 16 hours
He stays up for days on end.

You take a warm shower to help you wake up.
He goes days or weeks without running water.

You complain of a “headache”, and call in sick.
He gets shot at as others are hit, and keeps moving forward.

You put on [...]

The few, the proud, the suicidal

( Conflict and Death and Politics and War )

CNN reported last week that suicide attempts among American military personnel are way up. In fact, they reported that the number reached over two thousand last year. Also, over the last few weeks the NY Times has been running a series of articles about the high level of violent criminal activity among returning [...]

A country for old men

( Class and Conflict and Geography and Politics and War )

In college I became so angry with the outrageous acts my government has commited, ostensibly on my behalf, that I researched renouncing my United States citizenship. This research was not merely about youthful anger, it was also guiding my honor’s thesis. My basic thesis was that the nation state was a problematic construction that [...]

Paul Franzoso, veteran

( Conflict and Death and Family and Life and War )

His parents passed through Ellis Island as part of the swell of Italian immigrants to the U. S. in the early 20th century, and settled in an area of New Jersey called the Lost Valley.
Though his parents were poor, they raised eight children – one of whom was adopted because his father couldn’t bear the [...]