H. Patricia Hynes

Poet survivors of the merciless, savage US atomic bombing of Japan guide us to the deepest, most intimate loss and suffering of survivors, the hibakusha. Give back my father, give back my mother; Give grandpa back, grandma back; Give me my sons and daughters back. Give me back myself. Give back the human race. As … Continue reading “Poet Survivors, Military Realists, and Millennials: August 6 and 9”

Watching Londoners reveling in the streets on Armistice Day*, November 11, 1918, the war critic and pacifist Bertrand Russell commented that people had cheered for war, then cheered for peace – " the crowd was frivolous still, and had learned nothing during the period of horror." ~ Adam Hochschild. 2011. To End All Wars: A … Continue reading “November 11: Remembering the Tragedy and Legacy of World War I”

My nephew, an Army veteran who spent most of his 20 plus years military service as an officer in South Korea, is now a civilian military contractor living on a base in Afghanistan. Our only conversation about US military pollution in South Korea was something of a nonstarter. These two Asian countries, so disparate in … Continue reading “US Military Bases: The Polluter Is Not Paying”

The Burn Pits: The Poisoning of America’s Soldiers A book by Joseph Hickman They are called “this generation’s Agent Orange” – the open fire pits operated on over 230 U.S. military bases across Iraq and Afghanistan during our wars there. Every kind of waste – plastics; batteries; old ordnance; asbestos; pesticide containers; tires; biomedical, chemical … Continue reading “The Burn Pits: The Poisoning of America’s Soldiers”

As secretary of State, Hillary Clinton was visibly shaken by sexual crimes against women and girls when she visited the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in 2009. Sexual crimes in this central African country, known as the “rape capital of the world,” include the sexual exploitation of tens of thousands of girls abducted and trapped … Continue reading “Girl Soldiers: Forgotten Casualties of War”