Breaking Contact

By Mark Harden

Breaking Contact is a collection of poems and observations reflective of the wins and losses that come with life during and after military service. Read the wistful hopes and haunting concerns of a young soldier on the front lines of the Korean War. Visit with a WWII veteran in hospice. Break bread with a Chaplain’s assistant on a forward operating base in Afghanistan. Listen to the wisdom of an infantryman coping with TBI. Mourn the tragic departure of a Marine. Sit with a community college Veterans Affairs Manager as he speaks about the encounters he has with veterans and their family members.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Aug 17, 2021
• ISBN: 9781665534581

Mark Harden

Mark E. Harden is a retired U.S. Army Chief Warrant Officer 3 whose active-duty military service to his country spanned four decades. Manager of Veterans Affairs and adjunct faculty at Austin Community College in Austin, Texas, Mr. Harden has had the honor and privilege of working with veterans from WWII to Afghanistan the past two decades. His poems have been published in numerous print and online anthologies. Author of Losing Mogadishu, he currently lives in Georgetown, Texas.

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© 2021 Mark Harden. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 08/17/2021

ISBN: 978-1-6655-3459-8 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-6655-3458-1 (e)

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Contents

Dedication Page

Letter from Gene to Shirley,

late summer, 1950

Resting Place

Snow Moon

End of Ceremony

Around Midnight

Kiamia

Letter from Gene to

Shirley, winter, 1950

One Evening in the Saratoga

The Secret Life of Plants

Livin’ With It

Dead Deer Road

Behind the Wire

Letter from Gene to

Shirley, spring, 1951

Proof of Purgatory

Desert

San Yu Ri

Memorial Day

K 4 Circle

Reaching for Redemption

No Wonder

Today’s Coincidence

Language of Trees

Tomorrows Closing

Arlington Wreath

No Photoshop

In the Ring

Stop and Go

Forward Observer

Letter from Gene to Shirley,

early summer, 1951

Dedication Page

To all the veterans and their loved ones who joined with Austin Community College to begin a new journey. To the professional, nurturing, empowering ACC family of faculty and staff that guide, mentor, advise, teach, laugh, cry, celebrate with and sometimes mourn for our veteran students.

You have my eternal thanks.

And lastly, to the men and women who stood the watch in Somalia-

You will never be forgotten.

It’s been a very quiet morning so far. I was up and out of the house early enjoying an easy commute to work with light summer traffic heading into Austin on IH35. I’m at my desk in the Austin Community College Veterans Resource Center looking at the date on my VFW calendar.

June 25- Korean War Began (1950)

I doubt my old man was looking at a calendar at this very moment back then. Not yet twenty-three and a newly-minted Army veteran with GI Bill money in his pocket, he might have been downtown Terre Haute having breakfast while browsing the Tribune sports page. A varsity member of ISU’s tennis team, he could have been swinging a racquet on the university courts next to the old library. Even odds say that whatever he was doing, his mind was on his fiancée, a beautiful bride-to-be preparing for the big event merely weeks away.

Like the song lyric goes, he had the world on a string.

He returned from that war a little over a year later with a Bronze Star for Valor that he hid in a cedar chest and seared memories of unspeakable suffering and death that he tried in vain to drink away.

I’ve never known how it is I’ve discovered poetry in places where it should not reside. My sister and I debated this a time or two when it came to our tragically damaged father. Her prism only refracted black and white but the color had been there once. I found it hidden between the lines in the fragile hopes and dreams he wrote to a young girl on Red Cross stationary, whispered hues that seemed to darken and fade with each letter mailed from battlefields he never truly left.

Letter from Gene to Shirley,