INCOMING. INCOMING. INCOMING, said Giant Voice. PFC Tullis made himself small in the low-slung concrete bunker alongside the 105mm howitzer position on the eastern edge of the FOB and prayed Lord Jesus please get me out of this country alive.… Continue Reading
The priest stood knee-deep in the shallow water of the bay, watching his town burn. He’d been awakened by the guns at dawn, forced to flee soon after. It was late afternoon but still they blazed on, though the siege… Continue Reading
The mournful wailing froze Conn O’Neill’s blood, as it always did. People said the sound the stuka dive-bombers made came from sirens the Germans fitted to their planes. Well, maybe. But Conn, fighting for Allied forces in northern France, knew… Continue Reading
There is a kind of fog in this city that seems to put everyone on edge. Sometimes too there is a cold hard rain, and not just in the winter months. Between the fog and the rain it can be… Continue Reading
Assi pulled the dusty, khaki knapsack between his legs and hunkered behind the low parking garage wall. There was just enough room between two burned out cars for him to kneel and watch the snipers in buildings across the traffic… Continue Reading
When Johnny was ten he stole his father’s screwdrivers and hammered them into trees so he could climb them. He took the powder out of his dad’s bullets for the bombs he made to strap onto chickens. He got his… Continue Reading
I gaze down at the new body they’ve slotted me into. It’s a hulking one this time, all slick black and gunmetal gray with a hint of red. The limbs meticulously designed, the metal folded over each other like overlapping… Continue Reading
This is it. I turn my back to them, twist my wrists against the rope and give Churchill’s vee. I am to be their last spiteful act before they flee from the guns of my advancing countrymen. A hand’s width… Continue Reading
Through the hazy watercolor of a child’s memory, those months stand out with clarity even into my ninth decade. They start with the bombs dropping in the village streets. Even a child couldn’t mistake the bone-shaking howl, the blinding flashes… Continue Reading
“Say again, Control. Should I cut the red or the blue wire?” I wait, cutters poised in mid-air above both. Status reports scroll through my eyeline, but I ignore them. Every previous time I’ve dealt with an Improvised Explosive Device… Continue Reading