During the Wall of Remembrance portion of Grief Dialogues: Memorial Day, something cracked open when I stepped onto the dimly lit stage. Another world slipped into the space of Ensemble Studio Theater/LA—the same space where I have stood, walked, and talked so many times before. But this time was different.

It’s hard to believe you were only 74 when you died. How fitting it was that you were sitting in your La-Z-Boy in the house you loved in Hollywood Beach, Florida. It saddens me to think of you dying alone. Your younger sister and my mom, Mary Jane, will be 100 years old this year. I can only imagine the party you would’ve thrown for her if you were still alive.

Thomas Paul Cassiday Born on January 11th in the year 1920. First Lieutenant of the Army Air Force. Bomber in the 376th Bombardment Group. Activated on October 31st in the year 1942. Inactivated on November 10th in the year 1945. Forever changed by war.

Hey, Sloan said, / there’s a Cobra down in the river. / He ducked into the bunker for binoculars. / I squinted across the valley at the Ba Long. / Olive motion on jungle green, / a gunship wheeled, / hung nodding at a point on the far ridgeline, / circled to clear profile above the horizon, / then dropped toward a blob in the river.

Sometimes they say / “I knew something was wrong / when she was standing at the foot of my bed / and said to me, / ‘I’ll be fine. I love you’” / And then I woke up / and knew it was a dream.

When one sits down to put pen to paper in an attempt to make sense of the despair and destruction left in the wake of fires such as have stuck the Los Angeles area, it is difficult not to envision a Phoenix. The Phoenix looms large, reshaping the world by its very presence: glowing, lifting, still burning with the fire’s passion that brought it into being.

What’s in a play, write? A lot more than I thought before participating in the Returning Soldiers Speak Letters Project. I had endured numerous stage productions in the past, mostly reluctantly (and don’t get me started on musicals!), but never before had I written one word with the goal of writing a play. I’m a U.S. Navy veteran, and this project was like my period of service-I had no idea what I was getting into until I was in, and then it was too late to get out until the project ran its course.

First, I’d like to thank Leilani for inviting me to this fantastic event. My understanding of the project was that a small group of veteran writers would gather under Leilani’s direction to write a ten-minute, one-act stageplay based on letters written by American service members since the Civil War. As a lover of military history and theater, I was highly intrigued. The indicator of serendipity was when I learned that the letters I would be working with were from a World War I ambulance driver who saw carnage in the Argonne Forest, one of the most brutal conflicts Americans faced…

Written in December 2010 There’s no barrier now. This isn’t something aired on the television or written in a magazine. This is happening right in front of me. There’s no screen to protect me from this soldier’s experience in war. There’s no distance between it and me. I see the child’s face–pieces scattered on the marketplace floor. I hear the sound of his boots stepping over thinking these children are his daughter—wondering if he’ll ever put the pieces back—fragments like shard stuck in his psyche. Stuck in mine now. I try to pull them out but I’ve stepped across the…

Today we are told that our country is split in half and someone or something has to bring us together again. A leading politician recently stated that an entire generation of Americans has come of age and has never seen American prosperity! How can that be when we all live in the most privileged of times and in the most prosperous nation of all. Only 43 % of the nations in the world are free. The US poverty line begins 31 times above the global average. Last month, over 100,000 people crossed our borders at great risk to experience our…

Thank you EST Theatre for inviting us to read at True Story on Sunday evening, January 7th! We enjoyed listening to everyone’s story. The writing was solid, authentic, humorous, thought provoking. The deliveries were as good as the writing. How cool is that? A big shout out to Adam, Wes, Glenn, Mary, Bob and Odd who joined the audience and listened to our storytelling. We appreciate your sincere support. Returning Soldiers Speak alumna and Deadly Writers Platoon member Terre Fallon read a well-crafted edited version of “In the Army” (you can read the complete version in The Storytellers: Veterans and…

We are proud to announce: Returning Soldiers Speak is a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt non-profit public charity organization! We have been on a long and arduous journey since 2010 and have finally arrived at this crossroads. So, what does this new status and title mean for Returning Soldiers Speak? It means that we continue to do what we have always done: support and empower our active duty, veterans and their families to use the power of language and story to tell their stories to us so that we may begin to understand what it means to serve in the military. It means…

This was a 20-minute unedited timed writing on a prompt given by another member of a writing group. The writing prompt was “We’ve got your balls in a money clip.” Or something like that. A man gave the prompt, and I wasn’t sure if I could write on that, but this is what came out. – Anonymous

As we take time to remember the military heroes who sacrificed for this country, let us also remember those who served and returned. Some of them came back changed, never to be the same, or never to be what they could have been had they not been sent to war. And let us not forget those who served in eras of greater peace, who although never called to serve in combat, nonetheless served their country. I am one of those who served in an era when things were much quieter. I served in the U.S. Navy from January 1985 to…