by Anna Froula, Guest Feature Editor
Lately, as I prepare to welcome my tenth squad of Veteran to Scholar Boot Camp participants at East Carolina University in August, I’ve been rewatching China Beach (ABC 1988-1991), the only series to tell stories of the Vietnam War through the women who supported men as nurses, Red Cross workers, and in other roles. Co-creator William J. Broyles, Jr., a US Marine Corps veteran, notes the series’ televisual complexity: “war gives you a wider spectrum of human experience to explore than almost any other possible setting, from the horrors and the evil to the absolute love and beauty at the other end that you just don’t experience in normal settings” (13). As the recent issues of NCLR that focus on military writing attest, war as a spectrum of human experience isn’t limited to warfighters in theaters of combat. The horrors, evil, love, and even beauty spread home, dramatically affecting family members, friends, and civilians as well.
Vietnam was my father’s war, a mystery elided in my history textbooks and compartmentalized at home, a murky unknown in contrast with the national celebration of his father’s service in the US Army in World War II. It wasn’t until graduate school that I took a seminar on Vietnam War narratives that gave me a profound sense of that “conflict” and its lasting effects on US culture and war reporting. That seminar also guided me to studying warfare and veterans’ experiences, writing a dissertation on pop-culture representations of women servicemembers, creating and facilitating a transition program for student veterans at ECU, and, finally, grasping the context from which I, a civilian, could finally ask my father about his experience.
It was daunting to take on the mantle of features editor last summer for NCLR. Editor Margaret Bauer’s legendary tenure at the helm of North Carolina Literary Review yields a gorgeously textured, multimedia journal unlike any other. I came on board without a network of military writers and artists to solicit work from, and my previous editorial experience for The Journal of Film and Media Studies was quite a different sort of mission. So, a most appreciative thanks to Margaret and her staff whom I would’ve been FUBARed without. Over these last several months, NCLR has captured the surprising beauty of war, the absolute love found within it, as well as the undeniable horror and evil that it allows humans to do to one other.
I am beyond grateful for those who responded to the call for submission for these issues. They made this volume possible, full stop. I couldn’t have coordinated a better range of perspectives from the multitude of United States’ conflicts, military perspectives, and family member experiences. Because of them, re-engaging with the concept of warfare with its myriad pain, trauma, and existential grief left me with a tearful happiness.
So too, meeting the veterans at the All Stories Connect panel discussion “Writing the Forever War” for the North Carolina Writers’ Network conference in Wilmington in November 2025! Having the opportunity to talk writing and warfare with Russell Worth Parker, Mariah Smith, and LeJuane “El’Ja” Bowens will forever remain my favorite 8 a.m. conference activity. You can read an excerpt of our fabulous conversation in the print edition.
I am also especially grateful to have met Michael Ramos after reviewing his book for the winter issue and interviewing him for the print edition. He will also be visiting my incoming veteran participants to discuss his book The After: A Veteran’s Notes on Coming Home (2024) in Boot Camp next month. Welcome to 10th Squad, Michael!
You can check out the Winter and Spring 2026 issues on NCLR website and subscribe for the print issue. If you have any interest in war, you will not want to miss all the wonderful writing that lies buried within this stunning global-map cover spread.
1 This title is a riff on lyrics from The Supremes’ 1966 hit “Reflections,” which is the theme song of China Beach.
2 Qtd. In Brad Dukes, China Beach: A Book About a TV Show About a War (Nashville: Short Tall Press, 2018), 13.