Trekking Downrange

James Allen Breitweser's poetry collection Trekking Downrange takes you behind the scenes of war and combat. His poems arise from his own personal experience and are filled with powerful imagery, true-to-life recollections and cutting satire. He writes about days that were "a treadmill of tedious monotony," questions why "soldiers merit less value and concern than the gear we carry," how sometimes "free will slips away," about the difficulty of writing letters home, "survival only by blocking/loved ones from thoughts" and many other topics. The poems retained my attention from the first one to the last. I know I will be returning to read them again and again.Tina Hacker, Poetry Editor of Veterans' Voices magazineTrekking Downrange is a marvelous and heart-wrenching collection of verses spanning the poet's service as a medical officer through the Persian Gulf War and the Global War on Terror. The idiosyncrasies of those conflicts are captured lyrically and with immense compassion, touching on the physical and psychic cost of the wars for civilians, enemies, and servicemembers alike.David Ervin, Editor-in-Chief, Military Experience & the Arts, Inc.