The Other Reasons #5: Leo Jenkins

The Other Reasons is a series about why we fight, what we gained and learned, and how we define war in our lives beyond it. While most contributors so far have shared their stories in the form of an essay, Leo Jenkins chose to go a new route (free thinking is a particular talent of […]

Boots on the Ground (Intro)

I love all the writing and art and creativity this site has exposed me to in the past few months. When I built a place to share a few samples of my own work, I never expected it to evolve into what its become (and to be so quickly eclipsed by the immense talent in […]

Call and Response #1: Buried Alive

A Talk On x Combat Art Collective collaboration with the support of talented artists across the country. (FYI, scroll down for a handy TL;DR version of what’s below for the mouth-breathers out there) Here’s the story: Combat Art Collective (CAC) and the Talk On reached out to artists for contributions to a conversation about the American […]

The Other Reasons #4: Charlie Moose

This is the fourth post in an indefinite series. Everyone knows that 9/11 was the horrible mechanism that initiated our descent into a war fought by a small subset of Americans. But how well do you know the men and women who have joined the fight? Do you imagine they are wildly different from you? […]

Call For Fire

Forgive the cheap FO reference…I can’t help myself. The site is littered with them, it’s a bad joke I refuse to stop making. If you play along for a second though, the metaphor actually does fit. Like a Forward Observer, the Talk On is sitting on an OP and looking down at some targets (civilian […]

The Other Reasons #3: Kasey Pipitt

This is the third post in an indefinite series. Everyone knows that 9/11 was the horrible mechanism that initiated our descent into a war fought by a small subset of Americans. But how well do you know the men and women who have joined the fight? Do you imagine they are wildly different from you? […]

Artist Profile: Sarah Rossetti

The Talk On was created as a hub for veterans to reach out directly to civilians with creative content in order to bridge the cultural gap between us. But, there are already some “civilians” that have a direct view of our experience and exist permanently inside that gap…military families. While they don’t join us in […]

The Other Reasons #2: Arne Smith

This is the second post in an indefinite series. Everyone knows that 9/11 was the horrible mechanism that initiated our descent into a war fought by a small subset of Americans. But how well do you know the men and women who have joined the fight? Do you imagine they are wildly different from you? […]

Artist Profile: Capt. CJ Baumann (USMC)

If asked to describe the Marine Corps in a few words, it’s unlikely many civilians would use the term “Patron of the Arts”. So, it may come as a surprise that the Corps, through it’s National Museum, helps support a Combat Artist program to allow talented artists (active, reserve, and retired) to document its history […]

The Other Reasons #1: Keith Dow

This is the first post in an indefinite series. Everyone knows that 9/11 was the horrible mechanism that initiated our descent into a war fought by a small subset of Americans. But how well do you know the men and women who have joined the fight? Do you imagine they are wildly different from you? […]