“The desert is an unpredictable place. One day you're sweating, the next you're freezing. One moment the air is damp and cloudy like when the tide is coming in, the next the entire world is orange and dusty. The desert must be a woman.” Iraq WarDetentionMilitary HistoryVeteransIntelligence CommunityMilitary QuoteDetaineesDesertsPrison CampsDeploymentsArmy HumorDianna Skowera Book:Of Those So Close Beside Me Source: Of Those So Close Beside Me
“Lost In black as solid as a mire In a land no one would die for In a time I was lost To anyone who ever loved me The world set itself on fire And the sky collapsed above me In a place no one could call home In a place I breathed and slept In a battle no one understood That continued all the same I sat defenseless and alone With the insignificance of my name In the midst of the Lord’s birth On a night meant to be peaceful In a country of the Prophet Where women don’t live free I spoke to God from the shaking Earth And prayed my mother would forgive me In a city without power In a desert torn by religion In a bank between two rivers We added up the decade’s cost And glorified the final hour Of a war that everyone had lost In the dust of helplessness In a concrete bunker In a fate I chose myself I waited without remorse To fight again as recompense For wasted lives and discourse -an original poem about an attack on our base in Iraq during the Arab Spring” Iraq WarBaghdadMilitary HistoryArab SpringMilitary QuoteWar PoetryDianna SkoweraMortars Author:Dianna Skowera