Short stories: Soldier tales

by Josh Ray

Forever on My Conscience May 27, 2004 In 22 years of life there have been many events that changed my life slightly, culminating in the person that I am today. These events have changed my life ever so slightly, save...read more

by Paul Morgan

Firing Party I'd never shot anyone before. Surprising really, because it was October 1943 and I'd been in the Army eighteen months, nearly a year in the front line or close to it: Algeria, Tunisia, Sicily and now Italy....read more

by Omotayo Olaoye

War in Africa. My name is Idaogun,' which means the Sword of war. But people used to call me Ida (Sword). I am from a small village, Oke, in the western part of Africa. The story I am telling you describes how I found m...read more

by Lawson Tree

trolley He sat there in pondering wonderment, or was it wondering ponderment, as he thought slightly about his peculiar peccadilloes there upon the gleaming trolley. Approaching Union, he saw her and rang the bell in...read more

by Josh Glassman

Requiem For a WWII Soldier I can taste the vomit in my mouth As the whaleboats reach the beachhead. I can hear my captain yelling Over the noise of the ship and the roar of the ocean. But I cannot understand him. ...read more

6 of 82

by James Hall

We march as one. Brothers of arms. I know not who walks beside me, I remember no-one. We are all the same, hidden by our disguise. Coated in armor that crunches in time with our mechanic steps as we reach the peak of the s...read more

by William Mattingly

The Truth of War The immense pressure inside my chest neared its breaking point. Sergeant First-Class Jack Thomson to my right was the only thing keeping me going through the thick woods of Vietnam. I can remember that ...read more

by Ollie Middlebrooks

Soldier of Love (To gain that which is worth having, it may be necessary to lose everything.) "Take it back." "Make me." I watched with something akin to horror as my boyfriend Tyler drew back his arms, muscl...read more

by Zachariah Langley

When most hear the word soldier they automatically think of a man or woman who serves in the military. Growing up on the East Side, the term soldier meant something different, but still the same... By the end of the Sixti...read more

by Jacqueline Sanders

The Long Road Home. He had been gone for months; now his feet could not carry him home fast enough. The dusty road that he had followed so many times as a child and as a newly married man still looked the same the wo...read more

by Candice Smith

It was a cold and empty night, with the barrage of mosquitoes baring down on us the only sound in the area. How were we so sure that the plague of stinging insects were the only ones to create noise? Any other movement, be...read more

by Tony Santos

Missed the boat... literally. Summer - 1984 Our first cruise of the Mediterranean was coming to a close. The USS Saratoga had a generally uneventful tour of duty. Essentially, the ship and attached airwing had such l...read more

by fromthegreenroom

An Extra- Ordinary Veteran Bob Johnson was an ordinary man, as ordinary as his name. The only reason anyone would pick him out of a crowd was the fact he missed both his legs. The military tried to be kind, when the m...read more

by Angela S. Young

As she rose from the baptismal waters, she saw her again. That new lady that had started coming to her church. She didn't want to talk to her because she kept bugging her to write her son. She didn't date unsaved boys, a...read more

by Martin Clark

The mission was clear that day, seek out and destroy the enemy. The sky rained helicopters as the sun rose up from beneath the ocean or so it seemed. The setting was a large village outside of Mogadishu Somalia where rebel...read more

by Bridget Spendal

"Knights in Sand" Night was always the most difficult; it was the darkness that allowed the quiet solitary to creep up on the men, it gave them the anonymity to permit themselves to cry. Despite the good natured pats on...read more

by Henry Piarrot

Every Day is Memorial Day By Henry Piarrot "A million men cannot take Tarawa in a hundred years." - Japanese Rear Adm. Keiji Shibasaki. Just before dawn on the morning of November 20, 1943, all eight of the USS Co...read more

by Ann Dennis

A Common Soldiers Tale Her voice was strained one moment and far away the next. She answered questions with short answers and didn't ask any. She only told him about his son when he asked direct questions. And change...read more

by Joilene Rasmussen

Dreams of a Traitor He lay on the hilltop again-the one like an overturned kettle in France. Gunfire all around. Dead bodies, crying men... This was war. This was what he had fought to get to, what he had disobeyed his ...read more

by Arthur Goodwell

The blood dripped from the eyes of the man who once saw, the man who once knew, the man who once felt, the man who was once...alive. - He didn't want to join the army, not at 19. Yet as Henry though, he knew that th...read more