Dry Heat
Light & Life on an Arizona Army Post
by
Book Cover & Preview Text
You gotta get up
Assembly
sounds at 0555 down on
Apache
Flats and everybody stands
at
ease to face the flag pole which the
darkness
hides so we listen for the cannon
and
the piped-in bugle plays reveille and
the
soldiers all go to present arms which means that
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Book Details
About the Book
Since 1877 the U. S. Army stationed soldiers on Fort Huachuca, an Army post in southern Arizona. Although the mission has changed over the years, America’s soldiers still come and go in the service of their country. Thomas Decker, who served as the Installation Staff Chaplain from 1996 through 2000, opens a soulful window into this historic post and the surrounding region. Echoing the Army Chaplaincy’s credo to bring God to soldiers and soldiers to God, Decker’s free verse poems—“Alibi Round,” “The Water Nazi,” “Reptilian,” “Disarming Abernathy,” “Finding Religion,” “Border Crossing,” “No Black Eye for America,” and “Semper Fi”—offer poignant and passionate insight into Army life both on and off duty.
About the Author
Thomas R. Decker is a Lutheran clergyman who served as an Army Chaplain with 10 years overseas service in Korea and Germany. His stateside assignments were always on Army posts west of the Mississippi. Decker was commissioned as a Chaplain in 1969 and retired from active duty in 2002, and now serves his community as a retired pastor in Signal Hill, California.