Essay published in the Missouri Humanities & GreenTower Press anthology: Proud To Be: Writing by American Warriors, Vol. 13
Marion, Indiana is a struggling rust belt town up SR 69 from Indianapolis. The Mississinewa River is the prettiest geographic feature of the city, and Matter Park stretches for green miles along it. Marion was my home for seventeen years. Most days, I walked along the river, looking for blue herons standing on one leg in the shallows. Then I crossed over a little hill in the park to visit a memorial to the young soldiers who died in Iraq and Afghanistan. I wandered along the curved pathway and said a silent prayer for each of the dead boys represented by the eight plaques that line its bricked sidewalk.
It continues to tell my response to that awful day when we got the news that our son, David, had been blown up by an IED outside of Baghdad. He survived. So many troops didn’t come back home. This essay is an homage to them and a note of thankfulness that David did.
I am very proud to have had my words published in this esteemed anthology and receive an honorable mention for my essay.
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