Weight of My Armor, The

Creative Nonfiction and Poetry by the Syracuse Veterans' Writing Group

Ivy Kleinbart, Peter McShane, Ivy Kleinbart, Peter McShane

• Publisher: Parlor Press, LLC
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN:
  9781602359482
• eBook ISBN:
  9781602359499
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Military Biographies
• Index: History

The essays and poems in The Weight of My Armor represent the work of twenty-three members of the Syracuse Veterans' Writing Group, which meets monthly on the Syracuse University campus. Since 2010, the group has served as an intergenerational community where veterans and military family members write about their lives in and beyond the military. The Weight of My Armor offers creative nonfiction and poetry that spans a range of military experiences, including overseas deployments and combat, military acculturation and training, adventure and camaraderie, shock and loss, and endurance and survival. This collection also addresses aspects of the military experience that receive less public attention such as gender oppression and military sexual trauma, the long-term physical and psychological costs of warfare, the complex challenges of familial and social reintegration, and the experience of growing up in a military family. In honest and courageous voices, these writers bear witness to events and circumstances that were largely beyond their control. They also reflect on their service, representing it with the accuracy and specificity unique to first person narratives. Taken together, these pieces encourage dialogue about the personal, social, and economic costs of our nation's wars, both past and present.

Table of contents

• Front cover
• Series page
• Title page
• Copyright page
• Acknowledgments
• Contents
• Introduction
• Essays and Poems
• Gallows Humor by Jennifer Jeffery
• Echoes by Don Western
• February 7 by Robert Marcuson
• Getting off the Bus at Boot Camp by Dawson Brown
• Tough Enough by Andrew Miller
• Lost by Jordan Robinson
• Through the Looking Glass by Ralph Willsey
• Honors by Ralph Willsey
• My Father by Marissa Mims
• Daddy, Did You Kill Anybody in Vietnam? by Peter McShane
• Nuclear Bomber Commandos Arrive in a Rice Paddy by David Vercelloni
• The Vietnam Marathon by Doug D’Elia
• Morning, 1944 by Benita Rogers
• Betrayal by Steven Kever
• Military Relations by Ginger Star Peterman
• Kimmy by Bill Cross
• The $8 Timex Watch by Dawson Brown
• A View by Frank Hobitz
• Fort Carson Snowman by Robert Marcuson
• Accessorizing by Heather Faulkner
• Air Force Brats Conquer Alaska by Lee Savidge
• Away From Home by Andrew Miller
• Fearless Leader by Tim Hansen
• Lessons in Leadership by Terry J. Mitchell
• Awakening the Toad by Bill Cross
• Anniversary Day by Len Fallis
• Photographs by Elizabeth (Hall) Wilmer
• Demons by Ralph Willsey
• The Crow by Jennifer Jeffery
• The Trip Home by Dan New
• War Games by Peter McShane
• Epilogue
• You Don’t Have to Stop Your Thoughts by Diane Grimes
• Contributors
• Back cover