Book Project Inspires War Veteran to Write
Maj. Robert Schaefer attends a book-signing for Operation Homecoming. Scroll down to read Schaefer's poem "Clusters."
Maj. Robert Schaefer attends a book-signing for Operation Homecoming with his fiancee, Olya Gugel.
Maj. Robert Schaefer sits at the desk where he wrote poems.
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About the Project
Army Maj. Robert Schaefer's poem "Clusters" is featured in the book Operation Homecoming: Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Home Front in the Words of U.S. Troops and Their Families.
The book is the culmination of a multi-year NEA effort to encourage members of U.S. armed forces to put their experiences — about Afghans, Iraqis, battles, boredom and being back home — into words.
Authors such as Tom Clancy and Mark Bowden conducted workshops on bases. Thousands of service men and women submitted their written work, and the best was compiled into the book.
Since writing the poem, Schaefer finished his tour in Iraq and completed a Master's Degree at Harvard Graduate School for Arts and Sciences.
He now works as a Foreign Area Officer specializing in Russian and Eastern European affairs at the Defense Threat Reduction Agency near Washington, D.C.
Schaefer is currently working on a book, and he's also the Senior Editor for the Telicom, a semi-monthly publication for the International Society for Philosophical Enquiry.
This series is produced by Barrett Golding of HearingVoices.com.
Clusters
Yellow
or were they
blue? White, red
ribbon everywhere --
Stay out.
But they were so small, plastic, barely three
inches across. They didn't look deadly. Two
soldiers wandered in, curious. One
said: "I wonder what would happen if
."
and gingerly tapped one
with the toe of his boot
which then evaporated in a pink frothy cloud,
a bubble gum pop, then cotton candy chunks
arcing lazily through the air
landing with little wet thumps
muffled by the sand.
Then, he died.
just like that
just that quickly.
One moment he was alive and curious
and the next, he was just a scattering.
But the second was still alive
And so, to help him, without thinking
others ran into that minefield
pop
pop
We too now running, and I, fastest, first, frozen
by the sight of so much crimson soaked clothing.
I didn't know where to start.
Covered with the essence of others,
later, I was
mistaken as a casualty myself.
But I would not let them take my uniform
they would still live as long as evidence
of them remained on my sleeves,
torn as they grasped for a few extra moments.
Excerpted from Operation Homecoming, by Andrew Carroll, editor. Copyright (c) 2006 by Southern Arts Federation. Reprinted by arrangement with The Random House Publishing Group.
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