I. A Swiss Army Knife During the spring semester of my sophomore year at West Point, I kept a pocketknife in my desk drawer. It was a red Swiss Army knife that someone had gifted me for Christmas, and a […]Read More ›

Jaji District, Afghanistan. August 27, 2007. The night sticks out to me for three reasons. For starters, I had a nightmare. I’m not one to remember dreams, but this one was grotesque. My leg was covered in a rash that […]Read More ›

Once, in the years when I was trying to be stoic, I entered a maintenance bay in eastern Afghanistan. It was cavernous and reeked of petroleum, and in a dank corner my friend Richard had assembled an office out of […]Read More ›

It was not until I was fifteen that I learned the circumstances by which my grandfather came to America. He was sixteen and shoeless and illiterate, too. It was 1949. It went something like this: dirt and darkness, a boy […]Read More ›

It was June. A man and I had eaten fish and white wine at a lakeside eatery and were strolling through Minneapolis’ East Isles neighborhood, when the topic turned to my mentally ill mother. “She’s struggling with an eating disorder, […]Read More ›

I’m not sure where Khalid’s taking me, but right away I know I’m not supposed to be there.  The lights are dim and the air is ripe with cigarette smoke. The holler of men’s laughter fills the room. I walk […]Read More ›

On my second morning in Sarajevo, Bosnia, I amble along the Miljacka River. The river is the color of tea, just a few inches deep in some places, and flecked with trash. It trickles north to south, meandering along the […]Read More ›

When I arrive in Varanasi at twilight, on a crowded bus, the first thing I notice is the Ganges River.  It’s wide, shrouded in fog. There are steps, called ghats, along its west bank.  Everything looks clean and ordered and […]Read More ›

It’s February and I’m alone, navigating a street in west Udaipur. I cross a small plaza. The crowd is thick, shoulder-to-shoulder, the smells, speech, and skin assailing my senses. I push, prod, and pummel through. Vendors cry out, “Miss, miss!”  […]Read More ›

I met Claire for the first time after my deployment to Afghanistan. I was walking my shiba inu near our apartment, and she intercepted me and said, “What a beautiful dog. He looks like a fox. Gorgeous.” And she bent […]Read More ›