First published in the Washington Post Magazine, June 21, 2009.

Lt. Arthur Karell and his Marine battalion were sent to Now Zad, Afghanistan, to train Afghan police. Instead, they had to fight the insurgents who had taken over the town.

*   *   *

"Fix bayonets."
Not long after giving that order, 1st Lt. Arthur Karell was hunched in a dirt trench crowded with Marines. The hushed darkness bristled with eight-inch blades fitted beneath the barrels of dozens of M-16 assault rifles. You fix bayonets when you expect to need the aggressive combat mind-set that's produced by the primal sight of massed blades... The problem was, Karell didn't know what to expect. He was from Arlington. He'd traveled the world. This place, though, was like nowhere he'd ever been...

Read the entire article and view the slide show in the Washington Post Magazine. You can also read a transcript of Kristin's live online chat with readers of the article, hosted by washingtonpost.com. To return to this website after reading, click the back arrow on your browser.

First published on Military.com, May 2009.

My husband tells people he can't wait to go back to Iraq or Afghanistan. They look horrified, then ask me, "How do YOU feel about that...?

Read the entire essay on Military.com. To return to this website after reading, click the back arrow on your browser.

[ A Woman's Touch:

Ready to Kill ]

First published in the Washington Post Magazine, Feb 24, 2008.

If the hand that pulls the trigger in wartime belongs to a female soldier, does it make a difference? 

*   *   *

THE SCOWLING MAN DECLARED IT LIKE an order: "You don't fly this." He was in his 40s, a civilian. With his knitted brow and jutting jaw, Marine Capt. Katie Horner recalls, the man seemed half perplexed, half ticked off. About what, exactly, Horner wasn't sure at first. 

"Yes," she said, "I fly it."

"No, you don't."

"Uh, yes. I do," she said.

The man yelled, "But you can't fly this!"

He yelled some more. "It has guns!"

Finally, he found the words to yell what it was that was making him so confused and angry: "You're a woman flying an attack helicopter!"
The scowling man is not alone in objecting to the very idea of a woman operating a machine designed to kill in combat...

Read the entire article and view the slide show in the Washington Post Magazine. You can also read a transcript of Kristin's live online chat with readers of the article, hosted by washingtonpost.com.  To return to this website after reading, click the back arrow on your browser.

[ Us and Them: Their War ]

First published in the Washington Post Magazine, July 22, 2007.

Less than 1 percent of the U.S. population serves in our military. In a time of war, what should that mean to the rest of us?

*   *   *

MILES OF CHAIN-LINK FENCE RUN through the coastal Carolina pine forest. Armed Marines guard the gates. Pass through those gates, and, at first, you might not realize you've left the civilian world behind. Inside this cluster of military installations are tidy neighborhoods, shopping centers and a golf course. But deep in the fenced-off woods, at the edge of a firing range, a sergeant stands over a Marine. The cords in his neck strain as he roars: "You don't have time to watch your rounds go downrange! You got Iraqis shooting at you! Reload!"...

Read the entire article in the Washington Post Magazine. You can also read a transcript of Kristin's live online chat with readers of the article, hosted by washingtonpost.com, or listen to the radio discussion on Australian radio. To return to this website after reading, click the back arrow on your browser.

 [ Anticipatory Grief ]

First published on Military.com, July 2007.

While my husband, a Navy chaplain, was in Iraq with the Marines, I imagined a knock at my door. I imagined uniformed Marines telling me that my husband was dead. I imagined the funeral. I cried in the shower, sometimes felt like I couldn't get enough air, and one day in church had an almost uncontrollable urge to get up and run out. Not only did I not know all this craziness had a name -- anticipatory grief -- I didn't know there were techniques to cope with it...

Read the entire essay on Military.com. To return to this website after reading, click the back arrow on your browser.

[ Deployment Survival Guide ]

First published in Military Spouse Magazine, May/June 2006.

Read the entire article.

Read Kristin's columns on Military.com.

Read Kristin's written testimony to the U.S. Senate Committee on Veterans' Affairs.

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