The Scribe Of Salem 5-star review

Reviewed by Anne-Marie Reynolds for Readers' Favorite

Go here for The Scribe Of Salem

The Scribe of Salem by Kathie Costos is book one in the Ministers of the Mystery supernatural series. Chris considered himself an expert on the Witchcraft Trials in Salem, but something is about to prove his knowledge wrong. As a newspaper reporter, Chris has traveled the world and seen his fair share of horror, but nothing could compare to what happened next. On a visit to the Bishop Hotel Bar, Salem, a series of events changes everything he thought he knew and turns his life upside down. Chris has been offered a chance to get his life back on track, and he only has to do one thing - meet a Master Minister. When Chris begins to get his life back, he should be happy, right? But he isn’t; he’s terrified. Change has never done him any good before, so why should it make a difference now? God can’t save him – can he?

The Scribe of Salem by Kathie Costos is a great start to a new series. It’s an intriguing story, blending fantasy and supernatural horror as it delves deep into the Salem Witch Trials. Plenty of novels are based on the Witch Trials, but none are quite like this. It goes into great, descriptive detail about the horrors faced in those times and touches on other themes, such as domestic violence and PTSD. It’s also about having faith, not just in God, but in yourself and the power of friendship. It is a story of horror but also a story of pain, compassion, and healing, a gripping tale that will draw you into its tight clutches. It’s clear that Kathie Costos has done her research, and her characters are realistic people, easy to identify with, and infinitely likable. This wonderful story would make a great movie, and I highly recommend this author. I am looking forward to reading book two.

It is wonderful when an author receives such glowing reviews. What is even more thrilling is when I hear what readers of Wounded Times think. If you read it, please leave a comment here or review where you received your copy from. It will help other readers know it this work will be something they may want to read too!

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"More than a footnote" inspirational story of Martha Gellhorn

More than a footnote

PTSD Patrol
Kathie Costos
April 20, 2020

My buddy Gunny likes to try to top me on discovering things I did not know. Well, he succeeded this morning. He told me about Martha Gellhorn. Funny thing is, he stumbled on her looking for something else.

As I listened to him tell me a little bit about her, I thought it would be a very inspirational story to share, especially while most of the country is under shelter at home restrictions. We all need something to inspire us, and yes, that includes me too.

It is very hard to even attempt to find something inspirational to share, when you do not even want to get out of PJs. Lately either I have been on Facebook sharing videos on cats, dogs or other animals from my sweet friends...or really sick jokes I am usually embarrassed by how hard I am laughing.

Anyway, before I get too carried away with that, back to Martha. She was married to Ernest Hemingway. Noteworthy as it is, they met while she was a war correspondent during the Spanish Civil War. She was on the beach on D-Day after being a stowaway and got her hands on a nurses uniform. The list of accomplishments in her life goes on and on, but the thing that got me was, for all she accomplished, she still felt like a footnote in Hemingway's life.

That is exactly how my buddy Gunny found her story...as a footnote.

The writer Martha Gellhorn, who reported on the Spanish Civil War for The New Yorker, and from the beaches of D Day in a nurse’s uniform. Photograph from AP / Shutterstock

Martha Gellhorn, Daring Writer, Dies at 89
Obituary

New York Times
By Rick Lyman
Feb. 17, 1998
Martha Ellis Gellhorn, who as one of the first female war correspondents covered a dozen major conflicts in a writing career spanning more than six decades, died on Sunday at her home in London. She was 89.

Ms. Gellhorn was a cocky, raspy-voiced maverick who saw herself as a champion of ordinary people trapped in conflicts created by the rich and powerful. That she was known to many largely because of her marriage to Ernest Hemingway, from 1940 to 1945, caused her unending irritation, especially when critics tried to find parallels between her lean writing style and that of her more celebrated husband.

''Why should I be a footnote to somebody else's life?'' she bitterly asked in an interview, pointing out that she had written two novels before meeting Hemingway and continued writing for almost a half-century after leaving him.

As a journalist, Ms. Gellhorn had no use for the notion of objectivity. The chief point of going to cover anything, she felt, was so you could tell what you saw, contradict the lies and let the bad guys have it.

"Nothing is better for self-esteem than survival."Martha Gellhorn

Right now, it is hard to get through all of this but that quote is something we should hang onto. "Nothing is better for self-esteem than survival." No matter how bad it is right now, when you think about all the things this woman went through, she survived all of it and lived to a good old age.

If it sucks for you right now...like it does for most of us, try to think back about other times when it sucked. When you didn't know how you would get passed it and then suddenly you did. We will get passed this too and there will be joy again. We will see our family and friends again. We'll be able to hug our kids and grandkids. We will get through this because right now there are angels moving all around us to make this world a better place in whatever way they can.

Enjoy the following about Martha and trust me, you jaw will go back into place when you are done with this.
read it here

Joe Galloway Makes Sure Vietnam Veterans Stories Are Told

Retired reporter still compiling tales of Vietnam vets
Chattanooga Times Free Press
By BARRY COURTER
Published: March 26, 2017

Those films will be sent to the Library of Congress. The work is part of an official initiative created and funded by Congress to honor and welcome home Vietnam veterans.

Joe Galloway did not volunteer to be a spokesman for all of the Vietnam veterans who have felt shunned, disrespected and neglected over the last 50 years, but he is proud and honored to have done it.

Galloway was a war correspondent for most of his career, but in the '60s and '70s, he was a reporter for United Press International. He covered battles during four tours in Vietnam and had a front-row seat for some of the action. In 1992, he and Lt. Gen. Harold G. Moore co-wrote the book "We Were Soldiers Once and Young," which was made into a movie starring Mel Gibson in 2002.

The book focuses on the 1st and 2nd Battalions of the 7th Cavalry Regiment in the Battle of the la Drang Valley in November of 1965. It was the first large-scale battle of the war involving U.S. troops. The book and movie helped give voice to the brave soldiers who fought and died there, and it made Galloway a spokesman for them over the years.

"I never volunteered to the extent that I do function as a spokesman, but it's a great honor and mostly a pleasure to sort of be that," he says.
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Hard Earned: The Military Photographs of Stacy Pearsall

Stacy Pearsall: An Iraq War veteran whose weapon was a camera (Review)
Syracuse.com
By Katherine Rushworth
Contributing writer
October 28, 2015

In the image titled, "New Dawn, June 22, 2003," one of the most powerful and sensitively composed images in the exhibition, Pearsall positions herself beneath the wing of a transport plane; a silent observer cloaked in the veil of night as she captures the solemn movements of US Air Force personnel transferring a soldier from an ambulance to the plane. The dark figures in the middle ground are deeply silhouetted against an orange and yellow sky in the background; her composition a study of lights and darks, angles and lines, figures and forms.

This photo by soldier/photographer Stacy Pearsall, is titled, "Breaking Dawn, June 22, 2003." It portrays the transfer of a wounded soldier from an ambulance to an Air Force transport plane. Pearsall took the photo during one of her three tours of duty in Iraq. An exhibition of Pearsall's photos remains on view at the SUArt Galleries through January 24, 2016.
(Stacy L. Pearsall)

Stacy Pearsall served three tours in Iraq, but the shots she took were with a camera.

"I carry a gun," Pearsall has stated, "but my real weapon is my camera."

Through January 24 visitors to the Syracuse University Art Galleries in the Shaffer Art Building can take in an impressive array of about two dozen photographs taken by Pearsall during her tours in Iraq and a series of portraits comprising her more recent "Veterans Portrait Project," which she began following her retirement from service.

The show, titled "Hard Earned: The Military Photographs of Stacy Pearsall," was curated by Theresa Moir, a dual degree candidate in Museum Studies and Art History at Syracuse University.
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Yochi Dreazen War Correspondents Battle With PTSD

The path not taken: A war correspondent’s struggle with PTSD
Boston Globe
By Yochi Dreazen
OCTOBER 02, 2015

I had full-blown PTSD, but I couldn’t bring myself to admit it. I was a war correspondent; I was a tough guy. Tough guys, I believed, didn’t need help.

SCOTT NELSON/GETTY IMAGES

Journalists scrambled behind US Marines practicing squad rushes in northern Kuwait in 2003.

Yochi Dreazen is the managing editor of Foreign Policy. His book “The Invisible Front: Love and Loss in an Era of Endless War,” from which this essay is adapted, will be reissued in paperback on Oct. 6.

I WANTED TO be a war correspondent from the day I entered journalism. In 2003, with American troops massing in the Middle East, I got my chance. I left for Iraq that spring, drawn, like so many of my colleagues, by the excitement and danger of covering a war. I wrote about the invasion, flew back to the United States for a couple of months, and then went back to Baghdad in August to help open The Wall Street Journal’s bureau there. I lived in Iraq in 2003 and 2004 and, after that, went back every few months to do combat embeds with the troops fighting what had by that point become a full-on civil war.

I saw dead and dying Americans; I saw dead and dying Iraqis. I was interviewing a tribal sheikh in southern Iraq once when my translator stepped away to take a phone call, sat back down, and told me that there had just been a major suicide bombing in the nearby city of Karbalah that had killed dozens of Iranian pilgrims, including a large number of children. In Karbalah, I watched a chador-clad woman slowly make her way up and down each row of corpses, pulling back every sheet, until she found the shattered body of her son. At the sight, she let out a scream and then collapsed to the ground. I will never forget the sound of that mother’s grief.

I returned from that trip, and from all of my others to the war zones, far different than when I had left. The war was changing me, hardening me. I felt flashes of pure rage when someone ran into me on the basketball court or cut me off on the road. I chose tables at restaurants that were as far from the front doors and windows as possible, in case a bomb went off outside. I would wake up whenever there was a sound in my bedroom and then be unable to fall back asleep. In some of my dreams, loved ones died. In some, I did. I had full-blown PTSD, but I couldn’t bring myself to admit it. I was a war correspondent; I was a tough guy. Tough guys, I believed, didn’t need help.

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Military wants your poems

Poetry has drawn in observers since the beginning of time, pulling them into worlds and lives they never would have otherwise known. War poetry, perhaps the most heart wrenching of all, explains what the soul lives with. Between losing friends and watching enemy die, to not being home for milestones in their children's lives to missing the one they love back home, and yes, the occasional Dear John letter coming to inform the soldier they will not be there when they return home, poems know no generational boundaries. Reading poems held in achieves from the Revolutionary War all the way thru to the wars of today, while the vocabulary may vary, the message is the same and just as powerful as if it were written today on Facebook or a crunched down to an eloquent tweet on Twitter. These poem not only deliver a message from the soul, they also help to heal the soul of the writer as well as the reader.

This is a wonderful thing to participate in.

Share Your Poetry With Us
Posted by Brigadier General Loree K. Sutton, DCoE Director on June 14, 2010

DCoE Director Brig. Gen. Loree K. Sutton.


The DCoE Blog Team wants your poetry! Please scroll down to the end of the post to see the criteria for poem submissions. All poems should be e-mailed to Victoria.Shapiro.ctr@tma.osd.mil, in the body of the e-mail, not as an attachment.

The tradition of Warrior poetry is thousands of years old. For as long as wars have been fought, Soldiers have expressed their feelings and experiences with poems and creative writing – a powerful outlet to help heal the invisible wounds of war and foster an unprecedented level of understanding.

Today marks the United States Army’s 235th Birthday, and it is also Flag Day. As the Nation commemorates both, and we’re thinking of our Warriors, Veterans and their loved ones, I encourage you to share your writings with us.
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Share Your Poetry With Us