Natural Bridge Special Veterans Selections

Natural Bridge Fall 2014 (#32) includes a special selection of veterans-themed poetry and fiction. Guest Editor John Dalton writes that though the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are said to be ending, “These wars, it turns out, have their own afterlife. Perhaps no one understand this better than the men and women who’ve returned to us as veterans.”

Dalton hopes that this feature will help others better understand the “strangeness” in the role of military service: “to be asked to travel across the world and fight and kill and die in a culture you only partially understand, and perhaps a stranger thing to come home and figure out who you are and just what your service has meant.” It is a conundrum with which we all continue to struggle, and for which we continue to turn to writing to help us navigate as individuals and as a society.

Writers featured for this selection: Marilyn Johnston, Wendy Dunmeyer, John Twobey, Jack Vian, Ty Burson, Nandini Dhar, and Arthur Davis.