Six-Word War

Thomas Gibbons-Neff: Baby shoes for sale. Never worn.

The six-word story–legendarily but probably falsely attributed to Hemingway — has since inspired imitators, creating a new genre of writing. Like a tweet or a haiku, the six-word story is defined by limitation, urgent in its economy of language.

Six words.

In July of 2010, walking off the bus after returning from Afghanistan, I never imagined being able to describe my war in six neatly packaged words.

It's three years later and I find myself obsessively racking my mind for every horrible moment that I spent overseas, proceeding to cut away the fat until I have six shining words that say all that I want.

The most recent iteration of the six-word story trend is Six Word War, a Kickstarter project started by two West Point graduates, Mike Nemeth and Shaun Wheelwright. "Describe a 15-month combat deployment, all the firefights and anguish and boredom, in just six words," is how the challenge was framed by Stars and Stripes, a newspaper covering the project.

"Dustoff is inbound, keep him awake."

(thanks, Raja)