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Release of BLUE NOSTALGIA, Vol. 4

MEA is proud to present a new edition of Blue Nostalgia: A Journal of Post-Traumatic Growth, our fourth installment of the title. Blue Nostalgia is a unique publication in that it contains stories of veterans’ and family members’ stories of how they face the challenges of post-traumatic stress as well has how they grow in spite it – or even because of it.

Volume 4 contains works from the perspective of family members of WWII veterans as well as from Vietnam and Cold War veterans. They have in common the bravery to share their deeply personal stories in order to educate the public and let other veterans and families know that they are not alone.

Read Blue Nostalgia: A Journal of Post-Traumatic Growth, Vol. 4 by clicking on the titles in this post or by navigating drop down menu under “Publications.”

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Cover image: “Where to Go From Here,” woodcut print by Brandie Dziegiel

Release of AS YOU WERE: THE MILITARY REVIEW, Vol. 9

MEA is proud to announce the release of As You Were: The Military Review, Volume 9 on Veterans Day, 2018. This edition contains over thirty creative works of poetry, fiction, and non-fiction that represent several generations of military veterans and families. It includes work from new writers as well as award-winning poets, most of whom collaborated with editors to revise and polish their creations.

Take a look at As You Were, Vol. 9 and learn about the lives of the greater military community through their own words.

On Our Next Stop In Modern War

By Jerad W. Alexander

“I said, ‘SHOOT HIM!’”

A machinegun rattles. A man dies.

He does not pass away like the elderly or terminally invalid—lying in a hospital bed in the soft receiving haze of curtained sunlight, each breath labored and forced until they’re not anymore. No spectacled doctor in a trim white lab coat waits with two fingers on a flat artery. No one announces the time.

The dead man is the fucked-up earthy brand of dead. He is OD’d dead, murder-victim dead, and taste-the-shotgun-barrel-on-your-tongue dead. He swam the machinegun waters and is now lemming dead. He is dead in every kind of way except peacefully dead. He chose the path of most resistance. He is firefight dead.

Now his body is a barrier we have to cross, the final shattered remains of an insurgent strongpoint boiling with smoke. We move slowly and with purpose. I am number three in the column. We are still alive but could be dead inside too, and the tiny hairs on the back of my neck stand like cactus needles.