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Bio
Dan Wetmore is a North Carolina transplant, having landed in New Mexico after twenty years’ peripatations with the U.S. military, during which he performed tours of duty in a nuclear missile silo as an ICBM launch officer, as an Instructor of Ethics and Logic at the US Air Force Academy, launching satellites aboard decommissioned ICBMs, and overseeing a communications post in southern Turkey.
Now enjoying the luxury of time, he’s seeking to turn a life-long avocation into second vocation, drawing on the quixotic influences his first half-century have afforded him. Those include dual degrees in Philosophy from Saint Andrews Presbyterian College and Bowling Green State University, years as a backpacker and marathon runner, affinities for furniture making and automotive restoration, along with a penchant for genealogy.
His enduring and endearing wife, two mischievous sons, one semi-comatose cat and a taciturn, slightly menacing turtle keep him grounded, challenged and grateful.
My Mother’s Gentle Unbecoming: The Absenting of Alzheimer’s—Lines from the Sidelines is his first published book of poetry.
Books
Title: Phoboudenopanophobia: Words Now for a Possible Then
Published: July 15, 2022
Genre: Poetry Collection
An exploration of dementia’s emotional toll on the leaving and the left behind. The author, having twice been made the latter, fears becoming the former, but hopes to avoid his parents’ full fate of going without proper good-byes. These are his efforts to give thanks, make apologies, seek forgivenesses. Mindful that sorrow is the shadow cast by former joys, he seeks to go gentle—though not quiet—into that not so good night, lighting a candle to dim its darkening curse.
Available for Sale:
Title: My Mother’s Gentle Unbecoming: The Absentings of Alzheimer’s
Publisher: Saint Andrews University Press/2016
Genre: Poetry Collection
This collection of poetry chronicles my mother’s descent into the privations of Alzheimer’s Disease. It’s attempt to be an oblique voice for one who’s become unavoidably voiceless, and not have such a taking pass without being taken to task.
The blank page was best scapegoat to be found for the frustrations of these days, in hopes that casting words might somehow substitute for our own wanderings in the wilderness. Intended take-away is an appreciation that the lion’s share of a life lies in the ripples we imbue in others, that in sadness we see the shadow cast by former joys. It’s hoped the whole will be seen a portrait of a love, simply reflected in the mirror of grief.
Available for Sale:
Anthology
Title: Holes in Our Hearts: An Anthology of New Mexican Military Related Stories and Poetry
Publisher: Independently published (May 29, 2023)
“Images of ICBMs”
“Acquittal in Accusation”
“The Unbearable of Lightness Being”
“LGM-30G (silo-launched, ground-targeted missile, 30th type, 7th series) a.k.a Minuteman III”
This collection of prose and poetry was gathered and created by SouthWest Writers and funded through a grant from the State of New Mexico Arts Agency. These stories were written and contributed by New Mexican Veterans, their family members and caregivers including: Rosa Armijo-Pemble, Joseph Badal, Rebecca Black, Steve Borbas, E. Joe Brown, Laurel Burnett, Sherri Burr, Ivan Calhoun, John J. Candelaria, Judy Castleberry, Brenda Cole, Brinn Colenda, Joshua Colenda, Mark Fleisher, Paul David Gonzales, Linda G. Harris, M. Elder Hays, A. Michael Hibner, Carl Hitchens, KE Hopkins, James Houston and Molly Houston, Carol Kreis, Caroline A. LeBlanc, Jacqueline Murray Loring, Butch Maki, Elaine Carson Montague, Sam Moorman, Evelyn Neil, Thomas Neiman, C.L. Nemeth, Paula Nixon, Harper O’Connor, Jeffrey Otis, Donna Pedace, W. Howard Plunkett, Léonie Rosenstiel, Earl W. Rugen, Lynne Sebastian, Barb Simmons, Ted Spitzmiller, Dale Swetnam, Jasmine Tritten, Jim Tritten, Lawrence Trujillo, Vicki Turpen, KL Wagoner, Regina Washington, Dan Wetmore, Ben White, Josephine White, J. Allen Whitt, Circe Olson Woessner, Norbert Wood, Kay Yoest.
Available for Sale
Articles/Essays
“Nations Red in Toothless Law: Can Mortal Conflict Be Moral Conflict?” ♦ International Society for Military Ethics / Jan 2000
“You Say ‘Pre-Emptive’, I say ‘Precipitive’; Let’s Call the Whole Thing…?” ♦ International Society for Military Ethics / Jan 2005
“The Interview Question Not to Ask (or Answer)” ♦ Linkedin profile / Jul 2014
“Why You Should Hire the Incapable” ♦ Linkedin profile / Dec 2014
