fact or fiction
Is it fact or merely fiction? Fact or Fiction explores the myths and beliefs we hold about the military and the physical, logistical, emotional and moral obstacles involved.
War
The US Army was being chased from behind and had to get to the other side of the lake, but it was frozen solid. This was during the time of cold war and the Soviets had just crossed over the border to attack the armored vehicles could swim, but the ice had be broken up. But time was of the utmost importance. The commander ordered all available men out onto the ice with mattocks' and pix axes. He had us breaking the ice up by hand. I told my commander that if I fell in and drowned my grandmother wouldn't like him anymore.
Lawrence Edward HincheePublished 4 months ago in ServeTwo Soldiers
Our story starts in France in a woefully bad time. World War II had been raging for years and the end was finally in sight. The Americans had joined the war after The Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. Edward was an eighteen year old straight out of high school and had signed up to fight for his country alongside his best friend Charlie. The two had been inseparable since Edward had moved into town when they were nine. By now they had been through so much together, from the times that they would explore abandoned buildings in their town as kids to getting caught drawing graffiti as teenagers, but there was something Edward hid from Charlie that he thought he would take to his grave. Edward was in love with Charlie.
Caleb GeigerPublished 4 months ago in Serve
Coming Home
It had been five years since Jason had last stood in front of his home. At that time war was brewing, and Jason’s group of friends decided to join the Army because it sounded like fun. “Fun” was far from his view of it, Jason had long thought of the military and its servicemen as arrogant punks who just liked killing things. He saw no glory or honor in it, why defend a country that was so oppressive anyway? However, jobs were scarce, and with no real vocational ambitions or desires to further his education after high school, he joined up with the four of them. He had stood in front of his California home, his clean-shaven face still stinging from the resentful removal of his scraggly beard, hugged his parents and bid them a last goodbye before heading to the processing station where he would be shipped off to Basic Training.
Dawn HunterPublished 4 months ago in Serve
The Red Heart Shaped Locket
The day the world ended I was in a cell under the ground. A cell stored with food and water, enough to last for a year. The world ended in every way I knew it could. It ended in the sense that there was no longer an endless supply of food which one could purchase with green paper. There was no longer clean water in the faucets. There was only death and suffering everywhere I looked. Scorched grounds without crops. Water polluted with dead fish, and dead carcasses everywhere there used to be animals and humans.
Melissa MeintjesPublished 4 months ago in Serve
Reality
In the Real; The Apocalypse? I hesitate to use the word love, so often misused and quoted and if I’m honest with you that would be a far lesser description to use for how I felt about my experiential reality now.
Justin “Jud” HaywoodPublished 4 months ago in ServeWar: A Creative Nonfiction Piece
Sunlight poured in from the window, the rays gentle and warm, promising a relaxing day. An old man sat in a tan recliner nearby, listening as voices young and old wafted through the open windows of the porch. Bird chatter and chirping insects joined in. A fresh breeze blew through, and the old man closed his blue-grey eyes with a wheezed sigh.
Victoria RussoPublished 5 months ago in Serve
Are we alone?
Are we alone? The sonar picked up the first indications, long before the view in the periscope showed anything. Even with the magnified view, the horizon was empty. Yet the continuous beep from the sonar demanded attention. The officer of the watch decided against a general action stations but she did call the captain.
Peter RosePublished 6 months ago in Serve
The Final Battle
The Mast pierced the horizon, a shadowed blur slowly formed before the rising sun. Another large ship, bringing death and destruction to his people.
Jason BasarabaPublished 6 months ago in Serve
Phantoms of the Seas
“Conn, Sonar, we have a surface contact! Designate Sierra Six-One!” The Captain, a trim man with curly blonde hair and grey-blue eyes looked up from the navigation chart at the announcement over the 1MC intercom. He reached for the handset dangling from the low ceiling and keyed it.
David ThomasPublished 6 months ago in Serve
MAN OF WAR
1. MAN OF WAR Man of War. My ship, on the horizon, anchored off the desert shore. The US Navy deployed the helicopter carrier to engage in a joint military exercise with Oman’s forces. My assignment: video document the action.
Richard E. McCallumPublished 6 months ago in Serve
The Elusive Merlot
The soldier rubbed his hands together as he stepped out into the crisp, autumn air. The blue hour had just receded, and night had fallen. Smoke from the barrel fires wafted past him in thick clumps. Street lamps lit the path ahead of him, the path that would take him through the cracked concrete streets of Gospic. He turned left of the barracks, tucking his chin into his jacket collar, and then made his way past the football field, the crumbling apartment blocks and finally the government building that stood tall on the corner, unaware of its insignificance in the grand scheme of the world. He nodded to passing locals, parents of friends he had known since high school, relatives he actively avoided interacting with unless he was forced to at family engagements.
Monique KostelacPublished 6 months ago in Serve
THEY FOUGHT BARE BREASTED
The 1st Tennessee Cavalry Volunteers for the Union were on the Northern side of a raging Chattahoochee river, and the Rebels were camped out on the Southern side to protect Atlanta from General Sherman. They had all just survived a rowdy homemade 4th of July celebration where General E. F. Noyes lost a leg, and Sherman almost got hit himself, so they were in fine spirits for their next venture, and it was just around the corner. Meanwhile the two sides engaged in “trash talk”.
Roxy LentzPublished 7 months ago in Serve
