Gallery
I didn’t set out to show just pictures of me in the Army. Except for my class picture from the Police Academy, I couldn’t find any pictures from my time in uniform. The camping and kayaking pictures ended up accompanying my essay and that’s exactly where they belong. The Army pictures show a progression of sorts over fifteen of the twenty-four years that I was a part-time soldier. A twenty-year-old Specialist in peacetime, taken by my dad in his kitchen on a vintage camera. To the far right, seven years later as a First Lieutenant on my first deployment (Kosovo 2000), the guy holding the cup of coffee next to me is Ron. We would deploy twice more together, Iraq in 2003 and then in 2008 when we were finally on the same team, this time he was my team sergeant. The top left corner is in Northern Iraq (we called it Kurdistan) in 2003. The middle two are Kirkuk, Iraq in 2008, L-R “Pretty Boy”, Ron, “G” and yours truly. The fifteen years covered represent some of the most formative experiences in my life and are part of the DNA of my writing.
