The Other Reasons #6: Erik Villaseñor

This is the sixth 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 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 […]

Wednesday Links: Read this stuff

While we’re really proud of the work the Talk-On has posted so far, we also know that there are many other places doing important work that can support our mission. Every Wednesday, we’ll post the best links we can find that help challenge your perspectives and bridge the cultural gap between Mil/Vets and Civilians, and […]

Buried Alive

Editor’s Note: The following essay was co-authored by Mike Gnoffo and Zack Neyman, and told from Zack’s perspective as a Marine Lance Corporal and Radio Operator on a shared deployment to Afghanistan in 2013-2014. —- Helmand province is covered in moon dust. I first encountered it when our transport helicopter dropped us into a remote […]

“Q & A”

The first question they ask, if they ask any, is almost always “what is it like?” They don’t mean what is it like to leave home, or take long flights over the mispronounced nations of the world, or clean weapons and recount gear for the hundredth time. They’re not concerned with the structure of a […]

Hair Club For Men

When I think back on my time in Afghanistan, I don’t remember being stressed. I remember fear, occasionally, when shit felt like it was out of control or something loud and sudden caught you by surprise, but not stress, not the way I’ve felt it at desk jobs when orders start to fall behind. Not […]

American Pastime

It was midway through the deployment, probably sometime in November. The weather was changing quickly, and it was that perfect fall evening where back home, you’d be wearing sweatshirts again and people would be talking about pumpkin flavored shit at Starbucks. We didn’t have anything pumpkin flavored to remind us of home at COP Eredvi, […]

Going Back

Brian told me this would happen. We sat beneath the concrete recon bunker outside our hooch at Leatherneck passing the time before our flight back to Kyrgyzstan smoking cigs by the pack and bullshitting, and he told me I’d want to come back. I couldn’t imagine it at the time, so exhausted by Georgians and […]

The Talk-On

Despite all the awesome and terrible powers of the US military and our highest achievements in advanced targeting, sometimes the best method for you to help a pilot drop a bomb on someone’s head is simply to tell him where to drop it. There’s a name for that critical conversation in the military: the “talk-on“. […]

Line of Departure

I’ve been tossing around the idea of starting some kind of serial (can’t bring myself to call it a blog) for some time now. I took over 50 pages of handwritten notes on a deployment to Afghanistan’s Helmand Province that was unique in so many ways, along with experiences from nearly 12 years in units […]