Episode 23: Youngblood with Matt Gallagher

Before he would ever know it, Matt Gallagher was at the forefront of new veteran voices fighting the Global War on Terror. Literally. He unknowingly launched his literary career through live-blogging while deployed in an Army stryker combat unit in Iraq, until it was shut down by his superiors. The blog was titled “Kaboom,” dripping in the honest takes and dark humor that could only come from a line officer who was self-aware of his moment in history even as he was apart of it.

Matt Gallagher survived not only to publish a memoir: Kaboom: Embracing the Suck in a Savage Little War, but also to co-edit one of the definitive collections of Iraq and Afghanistan veteran anthologies, Fire and Forget. We meet up with Matt right after the publication of his novel, Young Blood, to talk about his experiences and what the future holds for future service members.

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Episode 22: New Traditions with Delia Knight

In this episode of Incoming, we’re speaking with playwright Delia Knight, whose relationship with her best friend and Marine brother suffered – and endured – throughout his deployment and subsequent transition back home. Delia’s full-length play, Disappearing Act, illustrated the agony she witnessed in her brother as he came back home in body only, and their struggles as a family and his as a veteran to reconcile what was forever lost and what future they might have together. Delia speaks about the role she played in her brother’s return from role, most insightfully in what she chose to allow and where boundaries needed to be drawn.

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Episode 21: Plenty of Time When We Get Home with Kayla Williams

Army linguist and intelligence specialist Kayla Williams has authored two books that unveil not only her own service, but offer a fearlessly unapologetic window into her life as the partner to a fellow veteran and survivor of traumatic brain injury. In the brief flurry of veteran-authored books and memoirs that came from the Forever Wars, Kayla was often cited as a notable female exception among a slew of male-only authors. When we met up with her, Kayla proved that not only is she a powerful and honest storyteller in her own right, but continues to be an advocate for women servicemembers who deserve to be heard.

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Episode 20: Duffleblog! with Paul Szoldra

The Duffel Blog satire news website is known as The Onion of the armed services, fearlessly pilloring military culture, saying truths to power with biting comedy that every service member and veteran wished they could have said to their command while in uniform. But the grunts aren’t the only ones who love it; General Mattis himself is a self-proclaimed fan. This episode’s guest is the man who brought that gift to us: Paul Szoldra, who continues his mission through real-time analysis of military foreign policy, not only through satire, but as a voice of someone who thoughtfully served.

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Episode 19: Comedy and Trauma with Allison Gill

Allison Gill is a musician, stand-up comedian, and host of the Webby Award-winning podcast, Mueller She Wrote. Her art has led to her to tackle topics such as sexual assault and social injustice through a confrontational and hilarious dark humor that manages to make scathing points about humanity and society, while still being objectively hilarious… Especially some people left her shows uncomfortable . A former Navy nuke, Allison cites a sexual assault early in her military life as the catalyst that drove her to uncomfortable subjects later in her work, partially as a means to take control over her trauma. Later, she recognized that in order to let her pain go, she had to let her jokes about her trauma go too. She speaks to us about that, the changing nature of comedy’s role in an increasingly self-scrutinizing society, and how much fun it is to make people feel bad for laughing.

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THE BOOK. IS. HERE!

Incoming Vol. 2: Sex, Drugs, and Copenhagen is out and available for your hungry little fingers! Featuring a whole new host of veteran voices about the darkly hilarious, poignant, and insane stories that the interminable hurry up and waiting of military service can bring about, this is a view no one has ever reported from before. Get your copy here now: https://www.amazon.com/Incoming-Sex-Drugs-Copenhagen-Veteran-Escapism/dp/0997949937

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Incoming: Sex, Drugs, and Copenhagen represent on KPBS Evening Edition

Exec. Director Justin Hudnall had the pleasure of talking with the wonderful Ebony Monet this week on KPBS Evening Edition about So Say We All’s latest published anthology of veteran writers, Incoming: Sex, Drugs, and Copenhagen. Check it out and support our Veteran Writers Division by buying your copy here now.

 

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Episode 18: Invictus – Nathan Fletcher

Our guest on Episode 18 is Marine Corps veteran, professor of political science, and former California State Assembly Speaker Nathan Fletcher. Nathan very publicly switched from Republican to Democrat after giving a speech in favor of repealing Don’t Ask Don’t Tell and allowing all persons to serve openly, speaking as a veteran who served on the front lines, and he paid for it politically. But he has no regrets, as you’ll hear in his interview.

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Episode 17: Protectors – Matt Komatsu and Veterans Respond

This episode is split between two conversations–both about many things–but sharing the theme of protecting others and how that relates to one’s identity. In the second half of today’s show we’re going to be talking with two members of Veterans Respond, which mobilizes veteran volunteers to areas of natural or man-made disasters; but first up, we’re with writer and active duty Air Force officer Matthew Komatsu.

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Episode 16: We Gotta Get Outta This Place – Doug Bradley

On this episode of Incoming we talk with Doug Bradley, Army veteran and author of We Gotta Get Outta This Place: The Soundtrack of the Vietnam War. I’m not being hyperbolic when I say that some of the insights Doug dropped on me about music and war and inter-generational conflicts changed my entire perspective on the matter. The man knows that of which he speaks.

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