Celestial Cycle
Photo credit: Howie Lisnoff
The quarter moon rode the mountainous cumulus clouds a few days from summer. It rose between the Berkshires and Taconics and would set in early hours over the 3,000-foot peaks of the Catskills to the west. Decades of its relentless waxing and waning cannot assuage the impact of the experiences during its march above the laundry and armory across from the white-clapboard two-story World War II barracks of another war. I paid close attention to its movement during those months of basic training desperate to get back to a more normal footing. Late in the training cycle, with only a few days remaining, one soldier shot off his foot. A sergeant, who had been to Vietnam, drove his muscle car into an entry-gate pillar on the base and died just before the holidays. The kid from Brooklyn, a reservist or Guardsman, suffered relentless harassment as a warning to others. The calls of gooks and Charlie were pervasive. I had become a resister to war watching that pale crescent move across the Georgia sky.
