I belong to the Military Writers Society of America. We will be holding our annual conference here in Orlando on October 10. As part of that conference, we will be holding a writing contest. Writers in our group submitted entries several months ago and a panel of judges selected the top eight entries for our first annual People’s Choice Award.
We would like to extended participation all around the globe and would be honored if all of op-for’s readers and their friends and families participated in the voting.
It’s easy to vote. Simply go to our website, http://www.militarywriters.com/2009ConferencePeoplesChoice.html download and read the entries and place your vote. All the votes will be tabulated and I will announce the winner on talkingwithheroes at http://www.talkingwithheroes.com/ on Saturday evening on 10 October.
Please join our conference by voting and getting the word out to as many of your friends as possible.
Here is the second entry.
Inspiration Image — ―Father and Son‖ photo by Pat Avery
Mindy Phillips Lawrence
Calling
The re-enactment was the start of it. I, a small boy cradled in my father‘s arms, had run my last lap around the battlefield where I‘d sought out soldiers wearing Civil War uniforms and carrying vintage rifles. I was a small lad unaware of the greater significance of war and battle. It was a game to me then. Yet, when I was snuggled against my father‘s chest, cheek resting on his gray woolen jacket, I knew I was protected from a dangerous, unknown world.
I had fun that day. While my father spoke with other soldiers, I held my mother‘s hand and looked at the sites until she released her hold on me to look at the items in a craft tent. Then I wandered away. Fascinated by the tents set up by the soldiers, I entered one and sat. There, a soldier dressed in a color other than the color my father wore, showed me all the things he had there – his uniform, his cot, his gun. He talked to me about many things I was too young to remember and some I recall to this day. He told me that the soldiers in the Civil War didn‘t want to be far from home but felt they had a purpose that was greater than sitting at their own hearth. They had gathered to decide the fate of a nation.
Soon a mounted soldier rode his horse to the tent where I was staying and found me. He told me my mother and father were worried and that I should come with him. He placed me on the horse, hugged me against him and rode to where my mother was waiting. ―Where was he?‖ she asked. All the mounted soldier told her was, ―Talking to another soldier, ma‘am.‖
I watched my father in battle. The cannon shook the ground with their sounding and kicked out great plumes of smoke from their barrels. The guns popped. One soldier fell to the ground then several more. A mounted soldier broke through the line and, followed by a foot soldier who took aim at him, dropped from his horse. At the end, they all got up from the ground and went home with their families, just as I went home with mine.
Even though I was very young, I remember that day as the planting of seeds inside me — seeds like the fact that soldiers protect, that they fight for a cause and care enough for their families to leave them long enough to keep them safe.
I wear a uniform now because of the lessons I learned on the day I visited Gettysburg.
To vote for Mindy Phillips Lawrence:
Send email to MWSAPCA1@gmail.com
OR
go to the MWSA website to read or listen to all the entries and vote.
