“On the last day of Rezwan Kohistani’s life, he ate lunch alone.”
war
Posted inEditor's Pick
Signs of Life
This gorgeous essay by Raksha Vasudevan reflects on her time in Antakya, southern Turkey, as an aid worker leading a Syrian team of risk educators. The piece explores the experience of war from a distance, and the surreality of tragedy and trauma. In those moments, looking at a life and landscape so alien from the […]
Posted inEditor's Pick
Inside Kyiv on the Night of Ukraine’s Stunning World Cup Qualifier Victory
“I came to Kyiv to watch a city watch a game.” Wright Thompson goes to the capital of Ukraine to watch the country’s football team play Scotland in a World Cup qualifier. It’s an emotional, poignant read about life during war, the power of football, and the incredible strength and spirit of the Ukrainian people. […]
Posted inEditor's Pick
The Unseen Scars of Those Who Kill Via Remote Control
A devastating, well-reported story on the drone program of the U.S. Air Force and the lack of mental-health support for drone operators. Because they were not deployed, they seldom got the same recovery periods or mental-health screenings as other fighters. Instead they were treated as office workers, expected to show up for endless shifts in […]
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Notes from Lviv
In a series of diary-like dispatches, Matt Gallagher shares a riveting on-the-ground account of training civilians for combat in the Ukrainian city of Lviv. All-day lane rotations between trainers on urban movement, dismounted recon ops, and advanced room defense. They’re getting better. Petro’s a leader. So is Symon, the law student. So is Ivan, a […]
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Sewing Lessons
In this personal essay at Salvation South, a new magazine edited by the founding editor-in-chief of The Bitter Southerner, Shelley Johansson retells her family’s story against the background of World War II. I know my great-grandmother felt that she was helping the war effort when she sewed bandages – her pride radiates off the page […]
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The Airport
Journalist Shannon Gormley weaves an astonishing narrative and beautifully written (and at times, very personal) meditation on one family’s escape out of Afghanistan as Kabul fell to the Taliban. I’d never written Asghar’s story as I’d said I would, and I’d buried the thought of contacting him, too, until foreign sections of newspapers began to […]
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The Day My Wartime Cat Went Missing
“Time to leave it all behind — the people, the country, the war — and return to America, cats in tow.”
Posted inEditor's Pick
Hathi
“Millions suffered through terror and upheaval in the turbulent years following the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. One of them was a baby elephant from India.”
Posted inEditor's Pick
‘Look After My Babies’: In Ethiopia, a Tigray Family’s Quest
War broke out in Ethiopia’s Tigray region at the worst possible time for Abraha Kinfe Gebremariam and his family: his wife was giving birth to twins amid a massacre.