The Druzhba (Friendship) Hotel in Pokrovsk was hit by Russian missiles, creating a wide debris field from what had been rooms, lobbies, and cafes. What is rarely noted when we see urban rubble is the glass. It’s hard to describe how the ground becomes a shattered mirror speckled with sky, people walking past broken into hundreds of reflections. I’m fascinated by how something we take for granted as invisible is suddenly transformed into such a complex material, as if the windows are forming crystals rather than holding the last shards. I wanted an image that captured these sculptural forms left as aftermath, foreground and background both represented, but I'm not. © 2023 Benjam in Busch The Mykolaiv Government Center sustained a direct missile hit at 8:45 AM on 29 March 2022, resulting in 36 public servants killed, 34 wounded. The Russians attempted to assassinate the Governor, but he was late to work that day. The middle of the building imploded, sucking windows into offices, slicing everyone inside. This image is just one of many hallways, doors blown off their hinges, broken coffee cups still on desks. The rug was red as blood, covered with millions of blades of glass, their edges glinting, every footstep crackling. As I took this picture, the city's air raid sirens began to wail, Russian missiles coming for more buildings. © 2022 Benjam in Busch

Table of Contents Volume 33, 2021 COVER ART RING IN THE NEW YEAR WITH NEW WLA EDITOR After 33 years, Donald Anderson is retiring as Editor of WLA. Longtime Poetry Editor Thomas McGuire is assuming the reins effective 1 January 2022: Thomas.McGuire@afacademy.af.edu FROM THE EDITOR’S DESK Donald Anderson / Fat Man in the Middle EDITOR’S CHOICE Thomas G. Bowie, Jr. / To Search for Understanding: A Conversation with Quan Manh Ha and Joseph Babcock about Other Moons: Vietnamese Short Stories of the American War and Its Aftermath SPECIAL FEATURES H. C. Palmer / Falling (poetry) / I Don’t Want to Set the World on Fire (fiction) AUTHOR SPOTLIGHT Allison Trueblood / Donald Anderson’s QUAGMIRE: Personal Stories from Iraq and Afghanistan José Antonio Arellano / A Hopeful Eulogy: Pablo Miguel Martinez’s Poem about the Longoria Affair CRITICAL ESSAYS Shane A. Emplaincourt / La Vie et rien d’autre: Remembering the Aftermath of the First World War and the Unknown Soldier Nicholas James Kaizer / Voice from the Ranks: Virtues of the Army and Society in The Recollections of Rifleman Harris Stephen Carter / “What Made a Story, to Begin With?” Visibility and Vantage Point in the War Correspondence of Martha Gellhorn, Michael Herr, and Dexter Filkins Gary Mills / How We Witness and Share War’s Horror FICTION Brian O’Hare / The Mail Thief PERSONAL ESSAY J. Malcolm Garcia / Aftermath POETRY Robert Lowes / Such Rippling Flags Shree La Puma / The Dark in Me; Tiny Windows Sara Katz / War Makes You an Animal Ed Meek / So Many Men Robert Ronnow / The Recent and Long Dead Holly Day / Two Poems Stan Hodson / Two Poems Yahya Frederickson / Schumacher’s Lens J.S. Alexander / Two Poems Carol Lynn Grellas / Save Our Souls Karl Michel / Thank You For Your Service D. F. Brown / What Love Makes of Us W. D. Ehrhart / The Night You Returned MEMOIR Jeff Loeb / Moral Archeology Marilyn Moriarty / A Beautiful Mess: Paris, 1945 FILM REVIEWS by Jonathan Lighter Midway (1976) / Midway (2019) The Last Full Measure (2019) Letters From Iwo Jima (2006) Amen. (2002) Glory (1989) The Victors (1963) BOOK REVIEW by Lori A. Davis Perry Besieged: Early Modern British Siege Literature, 1642-1722 by Sharon Alker and Holly Faith Nelson A RCHIVES RETURN TO