May 21, 2025

Soldier’s Home by Sharon Dean

Soldier’s Home by Sharon Dean

*Featured image courtesy of KaraSuva on Pixabay.com* I cross the street to the main campus that shows off its New Hampshire beauty as if it were posing for the cover of Yankee Magazine. The grass, green from spring rain and freshly mowed, slopes to buildings bathed in sunlight. Students walk in and out of Murkland and Hamilton Smith Halls carrying armloads of books. I read the inscription on the façade of the library that I’d read so many times as an undergrad. “Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free.”   When I go into the library, the dizzying stripes of its carpet remind me that this isn’t 1964 and that my now graduate student self has learned to ask “Whose truth?” UNH is a different place. Gone is the concept of…

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June 4, 2024

“All’s Fair in Love and War” by Brandon Breen

“All’s Fair in Love and War” by Brandon Breen

*Featured image courtesy of Jack Ward on Unsplash* This piece by Brandon Breen takes us on an emotional journey that also gives us some insight into Italian history. This is truly a special piece and we hope Brandon shares with us again in the future. Padua, Italy, 1968 Everything was about to change in Gabriella’s own country. Not everyone had the foresight to see that the revolutionary spirit brewing inside the students would soon be turned out onto the failures of Italy itself. There were so many injustices going on in Italy and the entire world and it was ironic that it was an occurrence on a worldwide scale that reflected the lens back towards Italy. Others were convinced that fascism was dead and gone and ignored the fermenting of familiar ideology. What most people…

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May 23, 2023

“Can We Ever Atone?” by Thom Wainwright

“Can We Ever Atone?” by Thom Wainwright

It’s a memory so dark and shameful that words almost fail me. It’s been hidden away for some five decades now. The details of the incident now present as both hallucinogenic and mundane. At times, it banishes me to that terrible place where no one would ever dare to come find me.  We were on a dusty red road just outside of Cu Chi. Stevens and I were setting up a broadcasting post on this well-traveled section of Highway 13, which links the City of Tunnels with the capital city of Saigon. It was well known that the Viet Cong frequented this stretch, usually under cover of darkness, to brazenly plant land mines in the clay and stone of the road bed. Mamma-san and baby-san would be posted along the roadway during daylight hours, purportedly…

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