KGB Bar

Veterans Speak Out on: Pharmacology, Self-hood, and Negligent Discharge is the latest installment of “Veterans Speak Out,” an ongoing reading series where a rotating group of veterans from the wars over there come home on special assignment to marshal the forces of fiction and poetry against-absent minded nihilism, despair, thin wires, false advertising, tall tale truth, revenge-beauty, and that deep (shallow) malaise of yours.

Gavin Kovite was an Infantry platoon leader with the 1st Cavalry Division in Baghdad from 2004-2005. He currently studies law at NYU and has recently completed his first novel, Slaughter at Suez, with co-author Christopher Robinson.

Perry O’Brien served as a medic with the 82nd Airborne Division and was deployed to Afghanistan in 2003. He is currently a labor organizer and the NYC chapter president of Iraq Veterans Against the War.

Jacob Siegel is an Army veteran who served in Iraq. He is a Brooklyn Native and still resides in the borough.  Mr. Siegel’s work has been published in New York Press, New Partisan and The Arch.  Currently, Mr. Siegel is writing a book, which he describes as a pulp detective novel set inside an epic detective novel. He would rather not say anything more about it but if agents or wealthy patrons are interested the working title is “Lucifer’s Nightgown.”

Maurice Decaul is a Marine Veteran who served in Iraq. He emigrated from the Caribbean Island of St. Vincent as a child and grew up in Brooklyn where he now lives with his Wife and children. Mr. Decaul is a student at Columbia University and a poet. His work has been published in The New York Times and Nine Lines, an anthology of veteran’s writing.

Roy Scranton is an Army veteran who served in Iraq. He is originally from Oregon but now resides in Brooklyn. He is a graduate student at The New School for Social Research earning his MA in Liberal Studies. Mr. Scranton’s work has been published in Denver Quarterly, LIT, canon, Glyphs and Nine Lines, an anthology of veteran’s writing.

Phil Klay is a Marine veteran who served in Iraq. He grew up in White Plains, New York and now lives in Manhattan. Mr. Klay is a graduate of Dartmouth College and is currently completing an MFA at Hunter College.