Also participating were host Charity Nebbe, Iraq War veteran and poet Hugh Martin, and Vietnam and Gulf War veteran Lem Genovese.
Martin is the recent winner of The Iowa Review's Jeff Sharlet Memorial Award for Veterans. He's also author of the recent poetry collection "The Stick Soldiers."
During the interview, I found out Martin is also a former Ohio Army National Guard soldier, although I didn't have a chance to find out whether he ever wore the "Buckeye" patch of the 37th Infantry Division. I've gotten a chance to write about that unit once or twice.
I first met Genovese at an April writing workshop for veterans in Iowa City. The former Iowa Army National Guard medic continues to provide care, comfort, and inspiration to military families through his words and music.
For my part, I chose to read from an excerpt of a 2012 Memorial Day essay, which I'd written for the Iowa Press (Iowa) Press-Citizen. It paired nicely with one of Martin's poems, and, more importantly to me, was another opportunity to share the names of the four citizen-soldiers who were killed during the 2010-2011 deployment of 2nd Brigade Combat Team (B.C.T.), 34th Infantry "Red Bull" Division.
You can listen to the 50-minute archived program here. Left-click the "listen" button to stream the audio. Right-click the button to save the program on your computer as an MP3 file.
This is so cool! You have a great voice for radio (notice I did not say a great face for radio).
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