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Essays



Spring 2013

 

 


Medic in the Green Time
by Marc Levy

Medic walking toward female POW. Song-Be Vietnam 1970

Medic walking toward female POW. Song Be, Vietnam 1970. Photo: Jeff Motyka

After the shooting stops, after the wounded girl is hoisted away, after we walk past the bodies and the man with no head, after the RTO curses after stepping in brains, the lieutenant says,"You gonna put me in for the Purple Heart, Doc?"  Read Story




 

 

Ghost Train: Transylvania to Bucharest
Extract from Facing the Music, Chapter 14
by Patrick Henry

Joseph Cotten as writer Holly Martins (left) and Orson Welles (right) as Harry Lime in The Third Man (1949)
Joseph Cotten as writer Holly Martins (left)
and Orson Welles (right) as Harry Lime
in The Third Man (1949).
Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/
wiki/Orson_Welles

Waldemar's network must know of my journey now. I looked around the compartment. No Carpetbaggers nor Civil Servants, nor Luigi's Boys, nor the Auschwitz Woman. No Irish Soccer Lads, who'd be handy when things turn rough. Five people shared my section. Anyone talking about Opera would give a clue. That phase maybe ended. All over for me. But not as in crime movie jargon. One hoped.

I must have mumbled all this aloud. The young man nearby, thought I spoke. I asked, "What time do we reach Bucharest?" To cover this indiscretion. He shrugged.   Read Story

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Gathering: The Poets Laureate Anthology,
ed. Elizabeth Hun Schmidt,
by Carl Rosenstock

According to a well-regarded (albeit hoary) etymological dictionary (courtesy of W. W. Skeat), the word "anthology" derives from the Greek, and means literally a "gathering" or "collection" of flowers.  Read Story