Role 3: Life in a Combat Hospital

Role 3 is a book length collection of poetry written by artist and writer Curt Last. Having completed a Master of Fine Arts in Poetry in 2006, Last was at a crossroads over a year later when he made the choice to join the United States Navy as a Corpsman--a Navy medic. Focused on living a richer life to enable greater substance in his writing, the military experience was something noted in the lives of writers and poets he respected. Men the likes of Ernest Hemingway, George Orwell and Yosef Komunyakaa.

Gaining What Was Sought

Role 3 is the culmination of 6 1/2 months at the Role 3 Multinational Medical Unit in Kandahar, Afghanistan. Two years into his Navy career, after volunteering for mobilization, Last is assigned orders to Afghanistan. Like most of his fellow sailors and medical officers, he is thrown into combat medicine in a war zone. The situations encountered in this poetry collection are dark, grounded and often lead to the expression of disbelief and humor in order to survive. Keeping a journal of events allowed Last a memory guide and a survival mechanism that would help in getting through the death and carnage in front of him. Working in the Urgent Care Ward, Intensive Care Ward, Inpatient Ward and as a first responder to helicopters arriving with injured and deceased, he was absorbing images that resonate within the poems of this collection.

The Aftermath of Experience

After years of letting the memories sit in his journal, working on regaining balance in a world changed by his experiences at the Role 3, Last committed to writing his story in the form of poetry. Attending writer's retreats, poetry events and submitting individual poems for publication, the process was slow and acceptance of the work spotty, as memoir and the novel seem to be the preferred forms of war autobiographies. Holding to his personal beliefs and artistic goals, this collection is the culmination of years of the art bubbling and erupting to through a damaged surface and onto the page.