Category Experiencing War

“Shared in Shards”:  Fragments from the War in Ukraine.

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Review of Oksana Maksymchuk’s Still City, Diary of an Invasion

By Sarah Montin

“Are they there yet?” is the question haunting Oksana Maksymchuk’s debut collection in English which chronicles the period just before and after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Exiled in the US since the 1990’s, author of two poetry collections in Ukrainian and the celebrated co-translator of Apricots of Donbas by Lyuba Yakimchuk and The Voices of Babyn Yar by Marianna Kiyanovska, Oksana Maksymchuk returned to her hometown of Lviv just before Russia launched its “special operation” on 24th February 2022. Poised for war, Maksymchuk’s poetic Diary of an Invasion is frozen in the expectation of violence, hushed in the anxiogenic stillness of “things to come/waiting to be unwrapped” (When a Missile Finds a Home).

“Snow is a strange white word” wrote British war poet Isaac Rosenberg as he learned of Great Britain’s entrance in the war in August 1914 and witnessed the winter of the world closing in: “Ice and frost and snow / From earth to sky / This summer land does know / No man knows why” (On Receiving the First News of the War).

More than a hundred years later, the cover of Still City, featuring snow-laden roofs against a white sky and a drone-like bird frozen mid-air suggests in the same manner the looming Homeric “white ruin” of war under the false serenity of snow. It also materializes the force lines that shape the collection (and perhaps war poetry in general) – namely the symbolic and formal dialectic between stillness and movement, expansion and concentration, abstraction and figuration…

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“Overnight with Mya”, a story -as raw as war- by US Vietnam veteran “No Socks”

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Take me out of here! This pin gun flare behind your ear will blow your nose from this end. Drive asshole! Now, that we are clear of your black pajama cowboy boyfriends, let’s get real. You were setting me up.

Take me to the address on the paper I gave you. You wanted those cowboys to kill me and take my money. Well, asshole you picked the wrong guy. Now take me to that address or I will blow your head off and steal your taxi. I’m staying in Saigon tonight.

I remember getting out of the cab with pounding in my chest. Fearful and pumped. I was trying to meet up with my special bar girl. Her name is Mya, or at least that is what I call her at the bar. She takes good care of me. The bar girls are our main source of bought affection. Mya is my favorite. She is older, maybe twenty-eight. She supplies affection and tending for money. All the bar girls smell good and flirt with us. When you are thousands of miles from round eyed girls your age, Vietnamese bar girls are very desirable. They are in the war also. They sell their bodies for money to survive. Women have few legit jobs in the city. They make their money off G.I.s. that get time off and can get into Saigon. American CIA and government officials do not indulge in bar girls. They are big time. Most have a Vietnamese girl friend that they maintain in high style. I bet they do not write home about those arrangements…

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Book Review: “Fascism, the War, and Structures of Feeling in Italy, 1943-1945” by Simonetta Falasca-Zamponi, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2023

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By Gianluca Cinelli

In the wake of recent studies about Italian participation in the Second World War, this volume fills a gap in historical knowledge by focusing on sources that have been neglected or at least not investigated thoroughly and systematically. These sources are diaries that Italian citizens with different social, professional and geographical backgrounds wrote between 25 July 1943 and the end of the war in the spring of 1945. The author analysed 90 diaries (out of 150 consulted) collected at the Archivio della scrittura popolare in Trento, the Archivio diaristico nazionale in Pieve Santo Stefano, and the Archivio Ligure della scrittura popolare in Genoa. The author chose to focus her investigation on diaries because “in a situation characterized by institutional uncertainties and historical unknowns, such as the one Italy faced between 1943 and 1945, feelings of incongruousness and confusion unsettled people’s usual understandings and disrupted their conventional patterns of interpretation and action” (p. 6). Therefore, the day-to-day practice of diary-writing permits her to observe the “ordinary” as it varies across generation, class, and gender and see through these “marginalised narratives” how “people’s interpretation of historical events from the standpoint of their everyday experience affected their responses to those same events and created new political sensibilities” (p. 28). To do that, the author refers to Raymond William’s analytical tool known as “structures of feeling”, a formula cast to convey the idea of the “felt sense of the quality of life” at a particular historical time (p. 4)…

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Military Mental Health in the Ukraine-Russia War. Interview with Capt. Oleh Hukovskyy (MD) of the Ukrainian Armed Forces

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By Edward Tick and Gianluca Cinelli

Ukrainian troops. Public domain

Since 24th February 2022, Ukraine has been fighting for its independence and survival as a free nation. However, the conflict with Russia had already begun years before with the Russian annexation of the Crimean Peninsula in 2013. The war has so far caused immense devastation and loss in Ukraine. Dr Edward Tick and Dr Gianluca Cinelli conducted an interview with the Chief of Combat Stress Control Group Capt. Oleh Hukovskyy on 9th May 2024. The interview touches upon topics such as the treatment of psychological stress and trauma among the Ukrainian troops and the importance of this support for combat personnel on the frontline and immediately behind the lines. By publishing this interview, the Editorial Team of the Close Encounters in War Journal express their solidarity with the people of Ukraine and hope to see the war’s end very soon.

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The Wounds of War. Thayer Greene: Concentration Camp Liberator, Chaplain and Psychoanalyst

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By Nick Grabbe

Thayer Greene in the late 2010s

Private Thayer Greene had just turned 19 when he entered the city of Nordhausen  as his regiment’s lead scout. It was 11th April 1945. He had already experienced the terror of enemy soldiers shooting at him, and on this day he would witness the horror of mass murder.

He expected to get machine-gunned at any moment. As he carefully entered the city, he saw a man coming toward him in a uniform he didn’t recognize. He raised his rifle, but lowered it after seeing no weapon. The man, a walking skeleton, approached, fell to his knees and kissed Greene’s feet. “Freiheit! Freiheit! Freiheit!” he cried. That’s German for “Freedom!”

Greene had stumbled on the site of a concentration camp that had been abandoned by German soldiers as the Allies advanced. At the time, American soldiers knew nothing about the camps that the Nazis had created all over Europe. When he died in 2022 at the age of 95, Thayer Greene was one of the last living liberators of concentration camps. When his fellow soldiers entered the camp at Nordhausen in central Germany, they encountered an estimated 1,300 bodies of prisoners who had been shot or starved to death…

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Book Review: “A Veteran’s Toughest Fight. Finding Peace After Vietnam”, by David T. Klein, Jefferson, McFarland, 2024

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By Gianluca Cinelli

A Yiddish proverb, as Auschwitz survivor Primo Levi recalls, says that it’s good to talk about bygone troubles. However, Yiddish culture can be profoundly ironic, and Primo Levi mastered the subtle art of understating. Troubles that one can tell belong in the past, yet they still linger on in the present as memories. Talking about bygone troubles is good because it means we saw them through. However, it does not mean that it is pleasant or easy. It takes courage and strength to face nightmarish and painful memories. Many of us remember the Ancient Mariner, who feels the compelling urge to stop people down the street and keep them listening to his guilt-ridden story full of horrors and fear. He acts like a madman, roaming the streets like an outcast, for he lives stuck in his haunting past and never finds his way back into society. The Ancient Mariner feels he must atone for his guilt of having killed the innocent albatross and survived in the place of his comrades, who died because of his hubris. Split as he is between past and present, the Ancient Mariner is no longer whole.

Talking about haunting memories is hard but necessary to lift their evil spell, as Edward Tick writes in the Foreword to this book by David T. Klein: “Warriors have their horrific ordeals and need their stories. Story is critical to warrior healing and restoration. To restore the warrior’s spirit, we must support her or him in ‘re-storying’. To disallow storytelling, as well-intentioned brief therapies do, is to betray the warrior by blocking necessary steps in their healing and homecoming” (p. 2).

Published by McFarland (McFarlandBooks.com)

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“The Most Urgent of Dispatches”: One Language by Anastasia Taylor-Lind, Sheffield, Smith|Doorstop Books, 2022

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By Sarah Montin

In his poem “Resistance”, written in March 2022, Simon Armitage draws on the collective memory of previous wars to comment on the recent Russian invasion in Ukraine. Quoting Philip Larkin’s celebrated “MXCXIV”, the Poet Laureate inscribes his response to the conflict in Ukraine in that eternal palimpsest that is war poetry:

It’s war again: a family
carries its family out of a pranged house
under a burning thatch.
The next scene smacks
of archive newsreel: platforms and trains
(never again, never again)

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War Diary: The Diary of Mike Rogers

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By Alan Beardsley

“War Diary: The Diary of Mike Rogers” is a compelling personal narrative that offers an intimate glimpse into the life and experiences of Michael John Warrington Rogers during World War II. Spanning from the outbreak of WW2 in 1939, to the end of 1945 and the dropping of the atomic bombs, War Diary: The Diary of Mike Rogers entries chronicle the daily realities of war, from the grand strategic movements of the Allied forces to the personal struggles and moments of respite that defined his existence.

Through Mike Rogers’ eyes, readers are transported to the front lines of pivotal events such as the Dunkirk Evacuations, The Blitz and later in the War, the Battle of Normandy, the liberation of Paris, and the harrowing Battle of the Bulge. His reflections on the relentless V2 bombings and the bold, albeit ultimately unsuccessful, German Operations provide a vivid account of the war’s impact on civilians.

The accompanying website, www.wardiaryonline.com, serves as a digital archive and interactive platform where readers can explore additional content, including photographs, historical documents, and detailed maps. The website also invites contributions from those with connections to the events described, enriching the narrative with personal stories and memorabilia.

“War Diary: The Diary of Mike Rogers” is more than just a historical document; it is a testament to the resilience and determination of individuals facing extraordinary circumstances. Through Mike Rogers’ detailed and poignant entries, “War Diary: The Diary of Mike Rogers” offers a powerful and personal perspective on World War II, making it an essential addition to the study of personal narratives in wartime history.

“War Diary: The Diary of Mike Rogers” stands out for its raw, unfiltered portrayal of wartime life. The War Diary: The Diary of Mike Rogers project not only preserves the legacy of those who lived through these tumultuous times but also provides invaluable insights into the human condition under the pressures of war.

A Short Guide to Successful Gardening in the Time of War

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By Olga Kornyushyna, in loving memory of Andriy Romanov, killed in action April 26, 2024

Courtesy by Olga Kornyushyna©

Between the day we received Olga’s story and today, the gardening company in Odessa mentioned in the text was destroyed during the Russian air strike on May 1, 2024. Thousands of plants and trees were burned, warehouses and offices destroyed. Luckily there were no casualties among the employees. The owners of the company released a video of the aftermath of the attack. 

Read A Short Guide to Successful Gardening in the Time of War