Author. Editor & writing instructor for the Veterans Writing Project. Navy vet. Wife, mom. She/her. Same handle over on the sky app.
Nov 12 • 25 tweets • 5 min read
For #VeteransDay2024, here's a 🧵in memory of WWI veteran Cpl. Randall Neal (1896-1919) of the 372nd Infantry, part of which was the First Separate Battalion, a predecessor unit to today's @DCGuard1802. 1/
Randall Neal was born to Henry Neal and his wife Mary on Sep 15, 1896. His father Henry Neal was appointed as messenger to the Speaker of the House in 1875—a position which he held at least through 1919.
Randall wasn't the 1st of the Neals' sons to serve his country. 2/
Apr 27 • 30 tweets • 6 min read
Tracing members of a group of 200 enslaved people through deed records of a wealthy white family in Southside VA. It's one thing to read about chattel slavery in secondary sources, however excellent, & another entirely to track specific people in a set of primary sources. 1/
While the early records of the white family's migration from England to Tidewater VA & then to Southside (on the NC line) are murky, by 1802 Charles Senior (1763-1823 or 1824) is doing well enough to buy more than 1,000 acres of land on the north side of the Roanoke River, 2/
Mar 10 • 25 tweets • 5 min read
I seldom say anything publicly about the Israel-Palestine situation because of the demands from good people on both sides of the issue for unquestioning adherence to some kind of ideological purity that 1/
makes no sense to me as a lifelong student of international relations and conflict, as a former military diplomat, and as a writer.
The first research paper we were assigned in Comparative Politics at Vassar College many years ago was to take an issue we felt strongly about, 2/
Feb 4 • 17 tweets • 3 min read
So today I went to a memorial service for a friend from church who passed away last fall—a woman who’d served as an Army nurse in Vietnam. @KaraDixonVuic wrote a little about her in Officer, Nurse, Woman. Patricia—Pat—went to Vietnam in her early 20s. She 1/
wasn’t green—she had US civilian hospital time before she enlisted—so she was put in charge of the ER/triage, pulling wounded off helicopters and sorting them for immediate surgery, hold, expectant ward. At the end of her first tour, she 2/
Jul 19, 2023 • 9 tweets • 2 min read
Couple of quick thoughts on the young private who ran across the border into North Korea.
First: Administrative separation from military service is not punitive or a disciplinary measure. It’s often used when a service member displays a pattern of behavior 1/
not compatible w/military service but not rising to the level at which a dishonorable discharge would be appropriate. Examples I’ve seen include drug & alcohol problems for which treatment has been ineffective, & behavior that probably reflected undiagnosed/untreated 2/
Jul 16, 2023 • 10 tweets • 2 min read
An #amwriting thought…I’ve been at 2 county Board of Ed meetings this summer where white women affiliated with (or maybe just riffing off) Moms for Liberty read sexually explicit excerpts from YA novels aloud to the board & new superintendent, completely out of context, 1/
in an attempt to create shock & disgust. Last week’s reader read, breathless & at top speed, a passage from Ellen Hopkins’s novel Identical that depicted father-daughter incest. She called it “pornographic.” I was grateful then to have attended, in my 1st MFA residency, 2/
I had to respectfully explain that most of our foreign counterparts came from more conservative societies where gender roles & women’s behavior were understood differently, & if I behaved like him I would be perceived as flirting & sexually available. He was SHOCKED, b/c 2/
Mar 17, 2023 • 21 tweets • 5 min read
I've been doing a deep dive this evening on the program for the commencement ceremonies for the "Negro public school" in Jackson, MS, held on June 2, 1905, in the Smith Robertson school. A little history 🧵. 1/
At least some of the students were completing a high school course—the mean age of the 12 students was 17.3 years. Two participants were 15yo & 2 were 16yo; 1 was 19yo & another was 20yo. It's possible that not all the students who participated were graduating that year. 2/
Dec 22, 2022 • 28 tweets • 5 min read
From today's reading, a long 🧵excerpted from an editorial, "Colored Citizen Makes Earnest Appeal," published in the Jackson (MS) Daily News on March 24, 1916. Ostensibly an appeal to the MS legislature to fund construction of agricultural high schools for Black students, 1/
it documents Black resistance to unfair state education allotments in MS that kept Black children poorly educated. Part of it is couched in terms that whites of the time would've found acceptable—I'm editing those parts out here b/c 🤮. 2/
Nov 7, 2022 • 45 tweets • 8 min read
I voted early this year, & cast my ballot in honor of the courage of Thornton Reynolds—the only Black man to attempt to vote in the municipal election in Jackson, Mississippi, in 1888. On the eve of our midterm election, here is his story. A 🧵. 1/
Although Reconstruction essentially ended in MS at the end of 1875, several hundred of the state's Black men—mostly in cities like Jackson & Vicksburg—were still on the voter rolls & able to vote in the fall of 1887. While white supremacist Democrats 2/
Oct 11, 2022 • 30 tweets • 5 min read
Today's 🧵 is on just a few of the many women who demonstrated exceptional moral courage in pushing back against outdated cultural attitudes about women's military service, often publicly & sometimes at great personal cost. @SecArmy needs to learn from the examples they set. 1/
I'm going to jump around a little chronologically, & start w/an entire group of women: the first WAACs, who enlisted or commissioned in 1942. By the spring of 1943, Army officials requested that they be given the status of "regular" soldiers instead of "auxiliaries." BUT— 2/
Oct 10, 2022 • 11 tweets • 3 min read
Today's (shorter) 🧵....Since last week's news about @PatDonahoeArmy & the IG report—knowing that both @SecArmy & DAIG are women of my age/generation—I've been thinking about the effects of our silence & complicity in the culture of sexism & misogyny in the armed forces. 1/
When I commissioned in 1988, < 8% of naval personnel were women. We were VERY isolated & had to develop survival strategies that were often maladaptive & harmful. I wrote about that here a few years ago: 2/ wrath-bearingtree.com/2019/06/sexual…
Oct 6, 2022 • 13 tweets • 3 min read
Okay, friends. This take's dead wrong. Time for another 🧵 on Inspectors General, what they do & don't do, & why so many service members come away from interactions w/IG disappointed. Again, drawing on my 3 1/2-year twilight tour at IG. 1/
In DoD, IGs report directly to the service Secretaries. They're in the administrative chain of command, but also have an advisory function to the service Chiefs (CSA, CNO, et. al.) They're all organized a bit differently, but have most of the same basic functions. 2/
Oct 6, 2022 • 23 tweets • 5 min read
In light of what is happening to @PatDonahoeArmy right now: a little 🧵 on what Inspectors General do in “seniors cases,” for folks who have never had contact w/service-level Inspectors General. My twilight tour was 3 1/2 years at the Office of the Naval Inspector General. 1/
The service branches may not be exactly identical, but we had 2 staff members assigned to Seniors investigations. They were both retired O6s at some very senior SES grade: NAVINSGEN was only billeted for 1 flag officer, the VADM (O9) who was NAVINSGEN. 2/
Oct 5, 2022 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
Yep, the editor who wrote that title needs smacked upside the head. Good on @MaxBoot for getting his hands on that IG report & publishing its conclusions.
The idea that an officer has called undue attention to himself by interacting on social media is a judgment call 1/
that is subjective (but informed by regs/tradition). But LTG Martin, a 3-star who may or may not have endorsed the version of the report Max got his hands on, is qualified & tasked to make that call. BUT—as sometimes happens w/cases sent to IG—General Donahoe's case 2/
Oct 5, 2022 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
So Ivy went streaking through the house w/a big wad of something in her mouth. Usually she’ll “leave it” for a treat if it’s not a high-value food item (aka “people food”). Not this thing….1/
She ran from us every time we got close. And she kept chewing it, & chewing it, & couldn’t seem to swallow it. We cornered her & if we put a hand near her muzzle she would snarl & snap, still manage to hold onto the in-chewed mystery thing. It appeared to be brown & white, 2/
Apr 14, 2022 • 14 tweets • 3 min read
Some thoughts on the damage to or sinking of RF Ship Moskva. A 🧵.
The crew of Moskva were naval combatants engaged in a war of aggression against a peaceful nation. Congratulations are due to the Ukrainian coastal defense forces on successful elimination of a major target. 1/
When I joined the USN, I trained to enable US & NATO naval forces to sink Soviet ships & subs, & to shoot down their aircraft.
Greetings to any new followers (including Boris & Natasha, if I've missed blocking any nasty little FSB-bots). The war in Ukraine has hit me pretty hard; this🧵on how & why is offered in lieu of a hot take. I'm pretty sure I'm too old & dull to write those anyway. 1/
I started reading about the Soviet Union in 1976, when I finished filling in a map of Europe w/only 4 colors of crayon & then swiped the copy of Robert Massie's Nicholas & Alexandra my 7th-grade social studies teacher left unattended on her desk while she went to the bathroom. 2/
Feb 26, 2022 • 14 tweets • 3 min read
A leadership 🧵. The gist of this article is that Russian conscripts are now only supposed to serve in their local area (unless sent on exercises w/in Russia), but some were allegedly forced to sign illegal service contracts & sent to fight in Ukraine. 1/ meduza.io/en/feature/202…
(Quick aside, for smart consumers of information: the Soldiers' Mothers Committee is truly badass. The info they share is often anecdotal, & it's important to vet it against other sources. This article could be misrepresenting an issue they were already working.) 2/
Feb 26, 2022 • 9 tweets • 2 min read
All the chatter about no-fly zones today brought back some things I hadn’t thought about for years. When USS Mount Whitney would take carrier battle groups out for Joint Task Force exercises in the 1990s, we were re-fighting Desert Storm & looking at the daily reports on 1/
the war and peacekeeping missions ongoing in the Balkans. This was before computer graphics; we had huge paper charts of two imaginary countries, Kartuna and Korona. Every exercise included a notional no-fly zone over poor, helpless little Kartuna. (I can be snarky & 2/
Jan 14, 2022 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
A final thought on the recent young "joy riders" in our county. The 1st notice I had about why the drone was up over our neighborhood was a NextDoor post saying "Keep your doors locked the police are looking for someone with a gun thats why the helicopters are flying over." 1/
In NO law enforcement notifications that evening did it suggest that the 13yo suspect they were searching for was armed. I reached out to our deputy sheriff, who confirmed that their office never said the kid was armed or dangerous. 2/
