Randy Brown is a former citizen-soldier, poet, and secret blogger. In 2011, he embedded with his former Iowa Army National Guard unit as a civilian journalist in Afghanistan. He is the author of the award-winning poetry collection, “Welcome to FOB Haiku: War Poems from Inside the Wire.” Randy has been published in nine of the ten volumes of "Proud to Be: Writing by American Warriors."

In this episode, we learn how Randy merged his military communication and journalism skills as a technical writer and blogger, incorporates army jargon and humor into his writing, and expresses his military experience in the form of haiku. We also discuss the concept of “poetry of witness,” the connectedness of the war-writing community, and engaging in meaningful conversation beyond the phrase, “Thank you for your service.” Randy even reveals the story behind his pseudonym, “Charlie Sherpa.”

In this segment, Randy reads the following excerpts from Proud to Be:

“what sacrifice has been” from PTB, Volume 1
“a Radio-Telephone Operator writes haiku” from PTB, Volume 4
“Suburbistan” from PTB, Volume 3