Month: November 2013

Elan Gale’s On-Flight Fake Fight

Be sweet, Lewis, be sweet. Those were the words Mama Grizzard spoke to Lewis each morning as she sent him out the door into the big wide world of elementary school. That's southern-speak for be kind, be patient, be forgiving, be compassionate, be slow to[..]
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30 11 , 2013 No Comments
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It’s My Birthday

It’s my birthday. The very first in my life without the woman who birthed me. I’d post one of those photos here. You know the kind with the mother kneeling beside her daughter or son, as they blow out their candles, but I don’t[..]
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12 11 , 2013 No Comments
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After the Flag has been Folded: Excerpt II

Daddy’s last instruction to me was to stop crying because it upset Mama. I tried as best I could to do as Daddy had asked. But what he didn’t know then is that Vietnam would upset a lot of people. I learned at an early[..]
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08 11 , 2013 No Comments
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After the Flag Has Been Folded: Excerpt

In one of the letters he sent Mama from Nam, Daddy referred to their first date: “I remember when I took some good looking girl to the carnival in Kingsport. Do you remember?” The letter arrived shortly after Daddy died. In that same letter, he[..]
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06 11 , 2013 No Comments
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Hobbling Along

I took an ailing veteran to the VA Center in Boise, Idaho this week. He's a young fellow, in his mid-forties. A big lug of a guy, 6' 3", and hauling around too much weight on his broken frame of a body. Twenty years ago,[..]
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06 11 , 2013 No Comments
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If Oprah ever asks what one thing I know…

She stood across the table from me unable to speak. A catch in her throat, she said. You see, I read your other book, A Silence of Mockingbirds, the one on Karly Sheehan. I started following your blog. It was such a powerful book. Can[..]
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02 11 , 2013 No Comments
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HEROES OF HOPE AND HEALING

This was posted first at the Vietnam Memorial Wall Foundation blog. By Karen Spears Zacharias Some people know them as the “Yellow Hatters”, the familiar park service volunteers dressed in bright yellow shirts and matching hats who stand ready at The Wall. Ready to help with a pencil[..]
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01 11 , 2013 No Comments
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