It was around 7:30, the sky dark but not black, the air crisp but not cold. I parked my 1996 Buick Regal, which Adam had driven before he left, but gave to me while he was in Iraq. When I saw my uncle and his family from Pickerington through the living room window, I paused. Why would they be here? Then my mom opened the door and walked toward me, her facial expression a mix of agony and attempted composure.
“Our worst fears have come true,” she said as I walked up the driveway.
I knew what she meant.
I had to ask, though, just to hear the words. To let them hit home.
“Adam?” I said. “He’s dead?”
‘Our Worst Fears Have Come True.’ — Tom Knox, Columbus Monthly
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It was around 7:30, the sky dark but not black, the air crisp but not cold. I parked my 1996 Buick Regal, which Adam had driven before he left, but gave to me while he was in Iraq. When I saw my uncle and his family from Pickerington through the living room window, I paused. Why would they be here? Then my mom opened the door and walked toward me, her facial expression a mix of agony and attempted composure.
“Our worst fears have come true,” she said as I walked up the driveway.
I knew what she meant.
I had to ask, though, just to hear the words. To let them hit home.
“Adam?” I said. “He’s dead?”
‘Our Worst Fears Have Come True.’ — Tom Knox, Columbus Monthly
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At the end of his remarks, Obama turned to Warren and kissed her on the cheek. She smiled gamely, though if there are kisses a woman can do without, this was one of them. A Judas kiss, some would say. But if so, the betrayal was not just of Elizabeth Warren. In his remarks, Obama would hint at what had happened to Warren, commenting that she had faced “very tough opposition” and had taken “a fair amount of heat.” He also alluded to the powerful forces arrayed against her, and against the C.F.P.B.—“the army of lobbyists and lawyers right now working to water down the protections and reforms that we’ve passed,” the corporations that pumped “tens of millions of dollars” into the fight, and “[their] allies in Congress.”
“The Woman Who Knew Too Much.” — Suzanna Andrews, Vanity Fair
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At the end of his remarks, Obama turned to Warren and kissed her on the cheek. She smiled gamely, though if there are kisses a woman can do without, this was one of them. A Judas kiss, some would say. But if so, the betrayal was not just of Elizabeth Warren. In his remarks, Obama would hint at what had happened to Warren, commenting that she had faced “very tough opposition” and had taken “a fair amount of heat.” He also alluded to the powerful forces arrayed against her, and against the C.F.P.B.—“the army of lobbyists and lawyers right now working to water down the protections and reforms that we’ve passed,” the corporations that pumped “tens of millions of dollars” into the fight, and “[their] allies in Congress.”
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Published: Oct 11, 2011
Length: 23 minutes (5,860 words)
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Rebecca’s college roommate worried that Rebecca was mistaking empathy for romantic love and would find herself in a relationship that she could not end. “Who could break the heart of an Army officer who lost both his legs?” Sabrina recalled thinking.
“Love for wounded soldier upon return from Afghanistan.” — Greg Jaffe, Washington Post
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(Photo Credit: Nikki Kahn / The Washington Post)
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Rebecca’s college roommate worried that Rebecca was mistaking empathy for romantic love and would find herself in a relationship that she could not end. “Who could break the heart of an Army officer who lost both his legs?” Sabrina recalled thinking.
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Published: Oct 8, 2011
Length: 16 minutes (4,148 words)
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(Fiction)
I didn’t hear that Duncan Pratt had been killed until I’d been out of the Army for two weeks and had gone four days without a single thought about that final year in Vietnam. If the phone had been disconnected on time, I would never have heard at all. A mutual buddy from military intelligence school called on his way to a year of bumming in Europe. He talked a long time before saying, I guess you heard that Duncan Pratt was killed. No, I said. How? He was killed by a mortar round in Pleiku, our friend said; and he hung up to catch a plane to Luxembourg.
“Moving Day.” — Robert Olen Butler, Fictionaut.
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Longreads Pick
(Fiction) I didn’t hear that Duncan Pratt had been killed until I’d been out of the Army for two weeks and had gone four days without a single thought about that final year in Vietnam. If the phone had been disconnected on time, I would never have heard at all. A mutual buddy from military intelligence school called on his way to a year of bumming in Europe. He talked a long time before saying, I guess you heard that Duncan Pratt was killed. No, I said. How? He was killed by a mortar round in Pleiku, our friend said; and he hung up to catch a plane to Luxembourg.
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Published: May 10, 2010
Length: 12 minutes (3,022 words)
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For all its recent success, Huawei’s accession to the global scene has been awkward. Its corporate culture tends to come off somewhere between xenophobic and absurd to local critics. Sample headline published last year in the Times of India: “Huawei Technologies Bans Indians in India.” (Huawei says there’s no discrimination at its Indian facilities.) More pressing, though, is the reputational baggage tied to the company’s founder. Pundits wonder whether China’s premier technology company, a privately held organization run by an ex-deputy director of the army’s engineering corps and former delegate to the Communist Party’s national congress, can overcome suspicions among politicians, security officials, and would-be customers outside China. “Huawei is a large company with state-owned interests involved, and also Chinese military linkages,” says Srikanth Kondapalli, a professor at the Center for East Asian Studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi. “So one of the concerns is what these guys are up to.”
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Published: Sep 17, 2011
Length: 13 minutes (3,324 words)
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I am positive that every other wounded warrior’s caregiver has had to make personal sacrifices to take care of those who need them most. The situation of an Army Specialist (E-4), who lost a leg in Afghanistan, serves as a good example. His recovery at Walter Reed was expected to take 18 months, so his young wife moved from Idaho with their baby. That meant forfeiting her job, her health care, and any in-person contact with family. The wife and baby lived in a small room with the bare necessities for six months until the Specialist was no longer an in-patient. The three of them moved to a (somewhat) bigger facility for 18 months while he was an out-patient. After feeling out of control and disrespected by the staff many times over, she could not take her family home soon enough. As another caregiver put it to me, she was her husband’s chauffeur, cook, case manager, therapist, personal shopper, nurse, legal aide, job coach — and on really good days, his wife.
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Published: Sep 6, 2011
Length: 10 minutes (2,529 words)
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