Category Archives: Military

The Warrior Poets

I’m pleased to turn over the reins today to a fellow author and soldier. Enjoy this guest post from R. A. Mathis.

– Hank

 

The author and the soldier live in very different worlds, but sometimes those worlds collide. On rare occasions, pen and sword are both wielded deftly by the same hand.

Many veterans record their wartime recollections in straight forward narratives and memoirs, but few filter their experiences through the lens of fiction. Of these, only a miniscule fraction is ever published. This is especially true of our most recent conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. A quick search on Amazon or the local bookstore will produce an avalanche of veteran-authored non-fiction about any conflict you care to name with a pitifully small sampling of novels penned by vets. But this small band includes some literary giants such as Hemingway, Vonnegut, and Tolkien to name a few. Torch in one hand, quill in the other, these brave souls explore the cavernous depths of human nature, illuminating its flaws, virtues, and fears. They peer into the places we try to keep hidden and pull out the ugly truths that plague us as individuals and society as a whole.

I imagine many of them turn to fiction for the same reason I did. The sights, sounds, smells, stress, and emotions of combat are a lot for the mind to take in…too much, actually. Eventually, you have to switch off your humanity for the sake of your sanity. Emotion is removed from your thought process because it has to be. The shredded body of a kid killed by an insurgent’s IED isn’t somebody’s child. It’s just a thing. You think, that’s a shame. But in the back of your mind, you know it was a six-year-old boy – what was left of him. You still hear the child’s mother wailing when you’re lying in your bunk or manning an observation post in the quite of the night. You still don’t sleep. Your stomach still stays in knots. Your loved ones still hear it in your voice when you call home. You try to stuff it all in the deepest corner of your head you can find. You tell yourself, “Just get through it. You can think about it later.”

Eventually, if you’re lucky enough to make it home, you do think about it…a lot. There were questions, doubts, and guilt. Did I make the right decisions? Did I take the right actions? What should I have done differently? Could I have saved a fellow soldier? Why did I make it home? Why didn’t he?

I turned to writing as a form of self-therapy to help work through what was going on in my head. Memoirs are invaluable historical documents and may even aid their writers in venting some of the emotional steam imparted by the pressure cooker of war, but they rarely delve into the deeper, darker places of the soul. Fiction does. I was soon writing for hours a night. It was as if a dam had burst and everything I’d stuffed away in those remote emotional nooks came spilling out all at once through my fingers and onto the keyboard. Eventually, a novel began to take form. The first draft was pretty rough. The final still isn’t Shakespeare, but it’s honest.

War, like all evil, changes everything it touches. All soldiers know that going in. At least they should. All they can do is try to make it a change for the better. My own writing is a product of this ongoing challenge.

Endeavoring to join the ranks of those warrior poets who successfully picked up the pen after laying down the sword, I present my own feeble effort. It’s an attempt to convey the grit, heartbreak, uncertainty, humor, brutality, camaraderie, despair, exhilaration, deprivation, and terror that is war. My predecessors have set the bar high and it’s frustrating as hell trying to reach it. But like them, I’m a soldier. And like a good soldier, I’ll press on.

From his Amazon Page:

A jack-of-all-trades and master of some, R.A. Mathis has worn many hats as a husband, father, student, teacher, soldier, and then some. However, he has always been a writer. After graduating from the University of Tennessee with a BS in mathematics, he served nine years in the army as an armored cavalry officer, rising to the rank of captain and holding a secret-level clearance. During that time, he served a yearlong combat tour in Iraq. He has since earned an MBA and transitioned to the field of finance. Rob currently lives in Tennessee with his wife and family.

13 Hours–Provoking Questions That Should Be Asked

Only the gullible put their faith in Hollywood anymore. When you go into the theater, expect to be lied to if the film is “based on a true story,” or for the leftist agenda and their cultural Marxist tropes to get in the way of telling a decent story if it’s not.

Keep your guard up…and once in a while you’ll be pleasantly surprised.

What Hollywood would like to do is have everyone forget about Benghazi. Failing that, they would prefer to feed it through the leftward-cranking revisionist machine in which incompetent traitors like Hillary and Hussein are the heroes, and “right-wing extremists” are somehow the villains.

For whatever reasons, Michael Bay didn’t make that movie. Of course he doesn’t put a spotlight on the culpability of the US State Department, or tackle the unasked questions of why Ambassador Stevens was there in the first place, what he was doing, and by whose orders…but c’mon. That’s kinda like not being stung by the scorpion, then, on top of that, expecting him to pay you for taking him across the river. Count your blessings.

Here’s my list of pros and cons about the movie:

PRO: Very solid acting, from pretty much everybody. The CIA station chief stood out, in particular.

CON: It’s rough keeping track of all the characters, especially at first. They are introduced rapidly and you really don’t know much about their respective personalities until deep in the film.

PRO: The action is intense, and believable.

CON: As with the characters, there are several different entities involved in the Benghazi debacle, and there is no exposition to introduce you. If the viewer hasn’t studied Benghazi beforehand, he might feel a bit overwhelmed and out of the loop. There’s GRS; the QRF in Tripoli; plus security details for the consulate and the CIA Annex; and Feb 17. The interrelations are never politely explained.

PRO: If the movie is accurate, then what I initially heard about Glen Doherty’s role was not. Makes me want to dig a little to see what else I had faulty info on.

CON: There are the usual little nits to pick about scenes and shots in the firefight(s). These are usually due to either the director’s ignorance about tactics, or his sacrifice of accuracy for cinematic purposes.

UNDECIDED: Speaking of accuracy vs. dramatic license, the plot doesn’t perfectly progress after the pattern the audience is used to, and the simple explanation for that is because real life doesn’t, either. I know first-hand that it’s very difficult telling a true story that is dramatic/exciting; and probably impossible to tell a story that is both 100% accurate and 100% captivating. Considering that, the writers and director did an admirable job finding a balance.

PRO: While there is enough ambiguity to avoid revealing the smoking gun in Hillary’s hand (and the Obamanible Hussein’s, for that matter), this movie does cause thinking men to ask important questions.

Questions that should have been relentlessly asked since 2012, by the bulk of the American population.

INDEPENDENCE DAY (Up Yours, New World Order.)

It’s pretty sad what has happened to our holidays. Thanksgiving has become Turkey Day; Christmas is now Santa Clause Day, and the Fourth of July has become Fireworks Day. This loss of our American (Judeo-Christian)  heritage was well underway by the time I was born, but I at least had the opportunity to educate myself.

For the record, the American Revolution did not begin with the signing of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776. Nor did it start at the Boston Tea Party. The war began at Concord Bridge on April 19, 1775, when “right-wing extremists” opposed the forces of offshore interests who came to enforce “gun control” and disarm the militia.

This project was conceived as a book trailer for Henry Brown’s apocalyptic novel False Flag. The plan was to use the KISS principle (keep it simple, stupid). Just a quick 30 seconds and out.

Trouble was, after 30 seconds, Wagner’s Death of Siegfried just refused to be faded down. The music causes shivers and goose bumps, and demands to be played through to the end. Whatever Wagner’s personal ideology was, the man was one helluva composer.

Then the pendulum swung in the opposite direction on the project–enormous sequences based on the Bill of Rights, and montages contrasting Norman Rockwell’s America with what we have now…it was a lot of work, and after spending most of a weekend editing, it was only becoming more ambitious.

The Voice of Reason spoke up, and most of those set-piece montages were scrapped. A couple rough spots remained but further revisions were forbidden and we got it uploaded.

Below is another ambitious sequence driven by a Wagner soundtrack…but with a slightly (cough!) bigger budget to work with:

As you’re watching the fireworks tonight, remember that the pretty rockets and aesthetic explosions were meant to remind us that our nation was forged in war. Our freedom was not handed to our forefathers on a platter, as it was to us. It was not cheap. The liberty we have taken for granted was purchased with human blood.

Because we have taken it for granted, it is being stripped from us as I write this. At this late hour, it will not be inexpensive to contest the matter.

Purging the Armed Forces

4

Y MINUS TWO

CAMP PENDLETON

OCEANSIDE, CALIFORNIA

Brigadier General Clayton P. Vine, USMC, looked up from the training schedule when the intercom buzzed. One of his staffers told him the civilian V.I.P. had arrived. Vine had played power games when he was younger, forcing people to wait unnecessarily on him when they were on time for appointments; but he had grown out of that. The military–and the government in general–wasted entirely too much time with stupid little games designed to prove who had more power.

“Let him in.”

The door opened and one of Vine’s marines announced the visitor before shutting the door behind the State Department errand boy.

The errand boy was a mid-30s nerd with one of those fancy new Blue Tooths and a haircut that appeared downright unsanitary. He glanced around the office–which was tastefully built of stained wood—not that cheap paneling that simulated the real thing. The walls, of course, were bedecked with a few framed photos and several framed awards. There was also a US flag and the Colors of Vine’s present command.

The errand boy strode forward and shook the general’s hand. Vine encouraged him to have a seat, and he did.

Vine asked him all the polite garbage like how his flight had been, if he had any trouble finding Vine’s headquarters,and so forth. He had entertained errand boys before, and knew these pleasantries were expected. One never wanted to piss off anyone from the State Department.

The errand boy made a few polite comments about formations of marines he’d seen marching as he passed on his way here.

Finally the errand boy got around to business…in a bureaucratic way. “Well, as I’m sure you’ve noticed, the domestic situation is a bit worrisome.”

Vine said nothing, unsure what the errand boy was referring to. He wondered what exactly Washington was worried about. There were issues with police and demonstrators in various cities, but that was hardly a concern of the Marines. He could be referring to the influx of radical Muslims, hiding among the hordes of Latin refugees invading the country. But that was unlikely, since the administration he worked for obviously wanted to make the situation on the border worse, not better. None of it made sense to Vine, but then politics rarely did. Most of what the Marine Corps did made sense; which was one reason Vine loved being a marine.

“The President and Secretary thought it important that we touch base with our senior commanders in all the Armed Forces,” the errand boy said. “And I thought it best to meet with you face-to-face.”

“That’s good,” Vine said, resisting the urge to demand he get to the point. “I appreciate it.”

“Even with all this technology nowadays, I still think it’s the best way to communicate.” The errand boy checked something on his beeping smartphone, then slid it back in his pocket. “First of all, I want to personally thank you for your service to the President over the years.”

Vine nodded. His career had spanned the terms of a few presidents, and he considered his service as to the Corps anyway, but he went along with the assumption, hoping the errand boy would spit out what was on his mind.

“I understand you’re up for promotion.”

Vine nodded and smiled, which was not what he wanted to do. This civilian dweeb mentioning specifics of his career made his stomach queasy.

“Obviously my superiors and I understand how important it is to retain quality leadership,” Errand Boy said. “My uncle served in the Marine Corps, so I know the deal.”

You don’t know your sphincter from a gopher hole, kid. You should have sent your uncle to talk to me.

“So with the situation like it is, it’s imperative that the President knows he can count on you.”

“You lost me, son,” Vine said. “I’ve been in the Corps so long I can’t remember life before it. I’ve served with honor and been faithful to my duty. Is there some reason the President—or anyone else—suddenly questions my ethics?”

“Of course not,” the errand boy replied. “I took a look at your records, and your ethics are peerless…except, of course, for that brief dalliance with the young woman in Japan about 30 years ago.”

The queasy feeling got worse, and Vine’s blood ran cold. How did the State Department know about the affair? His wife never found out, and neither had his commanding officer. He would certainly have heard about it if they had. He’d felt guilty about the moral lapse for years afterwards, but finally chalked it up to youthful recklessness—no harm/no foul—and forgot about it.

“So it’s not really about ethics,” the errand boy said. “It’s about loyalty.”

The cold, sinking sensation intensified. Vine couldn’t very well swear to his own loyalty when they knew he’d once cheated on his wife.

The errand boy chuckled and held his hands up, palms-forward. “Hey, don’t worry. I’m not here because anybody’s upset that you got a little side action when you were young.”

“Why are you here, then?” Vine asked, losing his ability to maintain the polite tone.

“As I said, the domestic situation is getting ugly, General. Not everybody out there welcomes change. And change isn’t always easy–sometimes it makes things uncomfortable, even though it ultimately works for the greater good. And sometimes bringing change requires some people to adjust their methods, and perspective.”

Now it was dawning on Vine what this was about. He’d heard scuttlebutt about a purge taking place across all the branches of the armed forces. He knew about a few of the senior commanders who were sacked a while back—vocal critics of how Benghazi was handled. He assumed that was the extent of the purge. Obviously not.

“What specific change are we talking about?” Vine asked.

“Well,” Errand Boy said, “there are some old traditions and rigid ideas about what the military can and should be used for. We need to take our concept of the armed forces to a whole new level. Times like these call for flexibility. For thinking outside the box.”

“All right,” Vine said, in a tone meant to coax out more information.

Errand Boy crossed his legs the way a lady does, removed his glasses, and polished the lenses with a handkerchief “The ways of war are changing, as I’m sure you know, General. There’s no more one nation against another, sending bomber formations at each other’s factories; soldiers stabbing each other with bayonets; that sort of thing. At least not in the developed world. We’ve got modern technology; a different definition of victory; and different threats. Our men and women in uniform won’t necessarily be tasked with fighting enemy soldiers…or shipping off to some faraway land to do it.”

“Let me spell out what I think you’re driving at,” Vine said, his face heating up. “And you tell me if I’m right: the President wants to know if I’m willing to command my marines to fire on American civilians, based on his say-so.”

The errand boy’s head rocked back on his neck as if he’d just received an invisible slow-motion blow to the face. “Well, I wouldn’t…”

“And you all believe that what I did in Japan is an insurance policy just in case I don’t want to dance to the President’s tune,” Vine interrupted. “Is that it?”

“I assure you, nobody in Washington thinks any less of you because of some harmless booty call in the previous century,” the errand boy said, nonchalantly.

“And furthermore,” Vine continued, “my promotion, and therefore my career, depends on me agreeing to this. Does that sum it up?”

The errand boy shrugged. “Perhaps that’s not the most delicate way to phrase it. But yes.”

Vine wanted to tell him where to stick delicate phrases. Vine had never concerned himself with politics. There were only a few times he even bothered to vote, and he’d never even watched a presidential debate. The only campaign promises that motivated him had to do with the military budget.

Vine’s father, however, had been different. A marine, for sure, but he also considered history and politics to be important. In one of their last conversations before he passed away, Vine’s father reminded him that Clayton had taken an oath to uphold and defend the Constitution. Vine had never read the Constitution, and only knew what other people claimed that it said. His father said that it was the law of the land–the fundamental core of American government. His father said America was unique because, here, individual rights were sacred whether laws were written acknowledging them or not. In America, government’s purpose was to protect those rights.

His father would go on at length about this, and Vine couldn’t remember all the details, but that was the gist of it.

Vine hadn’t studied what his father had; and didn’t agree with him about everything…but something just struck him as wrong about using the Marines as a weapon against Americans.

“I’m curious,” Vine said. “Why are you so sure we’re going to need to fight a war against our own civilians? The country’s what—240 years old or so? There’s never been a need for this before.”

The errand boy frowned and checked his watch. His whole demeanor changed as the pleasant, respectful facade was dropped. He paused before speaking. “It’s obvious from your hesitation that you’re not the man for the job. I thought you were smarter than this. But not everybody can handle the adjustments necessary to make change work.”

“Why won’t you answer the question?” Vine asked. “Why are you so sure you’ll need my marines to kill civilians? I mean, even in the Civil War, armies fought other armies. What do you anticipate?”

The errand boy stood from his seat and gave a curt nod. “Of course I don’t need to tell you that the subject and details of this conversation are classified; not to be disclosed to anyone without the expressed permission of the President.”

Vine rose to his own feet. “We didn’t discuss anything of strategic significance, young fellah—there’s no national security concerns here. I’m not legally obligated to keep any of this secret. But then I suppose that’s where the implied blackmail threat comes in.”

The errand boy already had his back to Vine by then, but flashed him a wry grin over the shoulder on his way out the door.

The errand boy walked back to his rental car using one thumb to compose a text message. Once behind the wheel, he finished it.

“Nix Vine. Won’t play ball.”

He sent the message, started the engine, and scrolled through his notes to find the next senior officer on the list.

And just like that, Clayton P. Vine’s career in the United States Marine Corps was over.

Within the next few days Vine would be notified that his second star had been pinned on somebody else’s uniform.

Someone who passed the litmus test.

Vine would be thanked for his service and forcibly retired. If he leaked the reason behind his sacking, his affair with the young lady in Japan would be leaked, adding disgrace to injury.

For the rest of his life, Vine would wonder if he’d done the right thing. Was his instinctive moral resistance important enough to throw away what he loved most of all?

For the first time in 40 years, he felt the urge to cry. The Marine Corps was his entire identity. Wasn’t it worth keeping, at any price?

Despite the anguish of his shockingly crushed spirit, he suspected it wasn’t.

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

D-Day in Pictures

I’ve posted something on D-Day pretty much every anniversary since I began blogging. This time I won’t be writing so much about it–just showing imagery.

normandybeaches
These are the beach heads that had to be established. Only the one designated “Omaha” had heavy German resistance.

 

Ike meets with paratroopers of the 101st before their midnight jump into Hitler's "Fortress Europe."
Ike meets with paratroopers of the 101st before their midnight jump into Hitler’s “Fortress Europe.”

 

"One minute!" U.S. Paratroopers about to be scattered to hell & gone through a land crawling with Germans.
“One minute!” U.S. Paratroopers about to be scattered to hell & gone through a land crawling with Germans.

 

At H-Hour the ramps drop and ground-pounders have to slog through the surf through German fire.
At H-Hour the ramps drop and ground-pounders have to slog through the surf into German fire.

 

Here's what the folks back home knew.
Here’s what the folks back home knew.


This guy did a fairly decent job on the video, though he’s not informed well on the UN and China. But hey, most people in our dumbed-down culture don’t even know what WW2 was.

Why’s a Sharp Brotha Like You Workin’ For the White Man?

Chapter 2 from False Flag.

(Read Prologue and Chapter 1 here.)

2

Y MINUS TWO

BAGHDAD, IRAQ

Jake McCallum hadn’t had many visitors since he’d been in the hospital. A few guys from Security Solutions, International, including the president of the private military company, dropped by. Ingrid–a field surgeon and his on-again, off-again girlfriend, checked in regularly. But his closest friend in SSI, Leon Campbell, was stateside. And after the first few days there was little break from the bedridden monotony in the cool, white room.

At six-foot-eight and with a massive, carefully-sculpted musculature, it was agonizing for Mac to lay here and feel himself atrophy. His arm was broken and his knee recovering from surgery. In a civilian context he would have been released to recover at home; but here he was treated like a wounded soldier because it wouldn’t be safe for him in-country in his vulnerable condition.

A black man, who was not Leon, appeared in the doorway and rapped his knuckles on the jamb. He was a little shorter than Leon, and huskier. “What’s up, my brotha?” the man greeted.

Mac noted his business formal attire, despite the environment. His shoes were in the latest style. The creases in his pants were razor-sharp, and his jacket was tailored to his V-shaped torso. With perfectly trimmed mustache and goatee, he looked like a model for the cover of Jet or something. Mac had rubbed elbows with plenty of Agency guys over here. Agency guys usually dressed business/casual Nobody except politicians dressed sharper than that.

From his bed, Mac chinned an acknowledgment of the visitor, who then entered with a very subtle three-legged swagger.

“DeAngelo Jeffries,” the man said, extending his hand. Mac wrapped his own huge paw (the one he could still use) around the offered hand and pumped it once.

“I’m in town for a while, checking things out,” Jeffries said. “Guy I’m with was assigned to debrief your girlfriend—tall Swedish blonde—so I thought I’d come by and holla at ya.”

“Debriefing” meant Jeffries was working for the Agency in some capacity. McCallum had wondered if his trip to Indonesia would get their attention.

“Nurse said they had to do some work on your knee,” Jeffries said, sliding the chair over to seat himself at bedside.

“Yeah,” Mac said. “I can get around on crutches for now. Hopefully I’ll be able to put weight on it before much longer.”

“Knee injuries are no joke, man,” Jeffries said. “I had to have mine scoped a few years back. It’s like the most critical joint in your body. Has to withstand the most abuse.”

“Hurt it playin’ ball?” Mac asked, slipping into a ‘hood accent without conscious thought.

“Yeah, you know it,” Jeffries said. “But nothin’ like yours. Speakin’ of ball, I know you had to play somewhere, with your height.”

Mac shrugged massive shoulders. “High school. A little college, before I went in the Army. So if somebody’s debriefing Ingrid, that means you’re here to debrief me.”

Jeffries shrugged this time. “Naw, man–nothin’ official. Wouldn’t do that here, anyway. But rumors go ’round, and I’m supposed to ask you some questions. That’s all.”

“What you wanna know?”

“You know: routine stuff. Like were you injured here or somewhere else?”

“On vacation,” Mac said, technically telling the truth.

“Where’d you go?” Jeffries asked, in a friendly, conversational, none-too-concerned tone of voice.

“Indonesia,” Mac replied, wondering how much Ingrid was telling this guy’s partner. She didn’t know everything, but she knew enough to raise some eyebrows in certain circles where a smart person never wanted to cause eyebrows to be raised. “My first time over there.”

“SOCOM never sent you over there, huh?” Jeffries asked, surprised.

So Jeffries had read Mac’s dossier.

“Not me,” Mac said. “They always had me focused on the Middle East. Taught me Arabic; oriented me on Islam; all that.”

Jeffries nodded. “I guess it makes sense you got a Private Military Company over here. Ain’t too many brothas got that kinda’ juice at War, Incorporated.”

“I’m only vice president,” Mac said.

Jeffries chuckled. “Looks to me like you do all the work at SSI, while the president just handles the administrative end.”

Mac shrugged again. “Nigga behind the trigga. You know.”

Jeffries shook his head, sadly. “We come all this way. Even got a brotha into the White House. But the white man still has the white collar.”

“Even in a war zone,” Mac agreed, chuckling himself, relieved that Jeffries didn’t seem to be hungry for details about his “vacation.”

“I don’t know what you’ve heard,” Jeffries said, suddenly serious. “But there’s a new development here. Al Qaeda is reorganizing; working on changing their name.”

Mac knew “former” Al Qaeda cells were instrumental in a lot of regional mischief. And white people were making entirely too big a deal that American tax dollars were buying weapons which found their way into the hands of the late Osama Bin Laden’s jihadists. The issue was much more complex than who was behind the 9/11 attacks and whether the new regime in Syria would be more hostile to the US than the old one was. Now, evidently, the jihadists were getting ready to topple the precarious post-Saddam regime here in Iraq, too.

“The withdrawal is a done deal,” Jeffries said. “The day is coming when you won’t have the Army or Marines here to back you up.”

“I go to the briefings,” Mac said.

“You ever consider working domestically?”

“In the States?” Mac nodded. “I tried to get on a SWAT team after I left the Army. Wound up a contractor instead.”

Jeffries shook his head, frowning. “I ain’t sayin’ you wouldn’t be good at it, but SWAT—that’s local stuff. The Man wants to keep us local and small scale, but we need to get in where the power is, on the federal level.”

“You mean like what you’re doing?” Mac asked.

Jeffries nodded. “I’m at the federal level. I got my finger on the pulse; feel me? And if bad stuff goes down, I’m in a position to do somethin’. Look at the whole Eric Garner thing…did you follow that?”

Mac shook his head slowly. “Yeah. Man, that jury…”

“That jury was just the start, man. You know I can’t talk about everything, but trust me, my brotha: it’s gonna get real ugly before too long. The man sees us movin’ up, now, and he don’t like it. I mean, we even got one of ours into the White House. White House. White. It’s their house, the way they see it. And they’re frothin’ at the mouth to make make sure us uppity Negroes don’t ever get up there again. There’s gonna be a backlash sooner or later, and you can kinda’ see it happening already.”

Mac considered his white friends. Some of them were just consumed with hate for Obama. They could rattle off facts and statistics to justify it, but what was the real reason? Then there were loose cannons like Josh Rennenkampf, who Mac was sure must be a closet Neo-Nazi.

“You got too much talent to waste on a SWAT team,” Jeffries went on, laughing derisively. “Or to waste bein’ a contractor.” He swept his hand in an arc–not to indicate the room they occupied or even the whole hospital, but the volatile country surrounding it, along with the chaos and military/political quagmire it represented.

“I dunno,” Mac said. “Contracting has been a good fit for me.”

“Well you might wanna think it over, my brotha. I might be able to hook you up, you ever decide to give it a try.”

“I appreciate it, man,” Mac said.

Jeffries stood from his chair. “Tell you what: I’m not gonna pry into your personal business about the vacation right now. You’re in the hospital, on pain meds. I’m just gonna say you fell asleep before you told me much. You get with Ingrid, find out what she said, then you can get your stories straight. Then we can finish debriefing. Sound good to you?”

Mac nodded, dumbly. When they shook hands again, it was in the familiar street method passed down and constantly revised by young men ever since the Vietnam era.

After Jeffries left the room, Ingrid came to visit him. She was a tall, well-proportioned, attractive Scandinavian woman, with a lab coat on over a nice casual blouse and pants. She asked how he was doing, and if he’d been questioned.

“Yeah. And he’s not done, either. What did you tell them?”

Ingrid shrugged. “What I know, which wasn’t much. I was on the boat when all of you went ashore. But I did see the one firefight.”

Mac groaned. Why did she have to mention that?

Well, he guessed the Agency probably knew about it already, anyway. “What did they seem most interested in?”

“Who all was there,” she said. “They knew about Tommy Scarred Wolf and his brother. And about you. They wanted other names, but I couldn’t remember them. I just gave physical descriptions.”

“Alright. If they come back to ask if you remember anything else, say no.”

They chatted for a bit, then she kissed him and left.

Mac pondered the whole strange encounter with Jeffries. The agent had saved Mac a whole lot of hassle, not asking questions there probably weren’t any safe answers for. In fact, if somebody really wanted to be a jerk, they could classify Mac as a suspected accomplice in the murder Tommy and Vince were framed for back in Medan, Indonesia.

Something bothered Mac about how easy Jeffries had made it for him. On the other hand, he was grateful to finally find an ally who saw things how they really were in this white man’s world. The negative possibilities surrounding Jeffries’ behavior paled in comparison.

Memorial Day – the Unmemorable Movie

Memorial Day opens with Kyle Vogel stateside, going to visit his grandfather, a holstered Walther P-38 in hand. From there we flash back to Iraq in 2005, with SSgt Kyle Vogel’s squad encountering an IED. Then we flash back even further to 1993, when a young Kyle discovers his grandfather’s footlocker full of souvenirs from WWII.
Kyle strikes a bargain with the WWII veteran: He will select three items from the footlocker, and his grandfather will tell him the story behind them.
Not a bad way to spend Memorial Day. Not a bad gimmick to juxtapose soldier’s stories from World War Two and Gulf War Two, either. Loaded with potential, in fact.

memorialdayposter
For a low-budget film, the producers managed to round up some nice costumes and props, as well as a name actor and his son (to play the grandfather “Opaw” as a young soldier). A good flick could have been made with what they had to work with. Maybe even a great one. It’s been done before and could have been done this time. Overcoming the budget constraints would have been possible, but the film makers seem, to me, to be stuck in the “B” movie mindset. Or maybe that’s all they’re capable of.
First off, they desperately needed a competent technical advisor. This was obvious from the first scene in Iraq and only became more painful as the flashbacks mounted. But that’s not the only aspect of the film that grew increasingly tiresome.  Add the acting, writing and direction to that abominable snowball.
The director really wanted to make this a sentimental tearjerker, but fell on his cinematic face. The movie has a lot of positive Amazon reviews, and I have no explanation for that. I found all the hamfisted dramatic contrivances so inept that it took what remaining discipline my crotchety old civilian self still has to watch it all the way through.
This might be a Hallmark Movie Channel late night special some day, but even if it isn’t, I advise against paying money to watch it.

Mission Veritas by John Murphy

In the future, the USA and other countries have surrendered their sovereignty to the Global Alliance—which is the puppet organization for E.T. imperialists (the Carthenogens).

Vaughn Killian’s life and parents are part of the collateral damage in the Carthenogens’ brutal occupation of Thailand. A naive teenage gamer when the story begins, he becomes part of the guerrilla resistance in Bangkok, learning to fight and survive on the streets.

Killian is eventually rescued out of there by a Tier-One American unit known as Black Saber. Once stateside he enlists in the regular military and is quickly disgusted by the PC attitude, couch-potato standards, and social engineering purposes of the whole fiasco (pretty much how the Armed Forces are right now, extrapolated a few years forward). Lucky for him, he is offered a chance to qualify for Black Saber.

Black Saber transports him and some other candidates to a planet called Veritas, where they will be evaluated based on their performance during one training mission.

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Where this novel really shines is in the characterization. I guess we’ve all seen basic training/academy type movies (most recent in my memory, Ender’s Game had such a segment), and read such stories in books (Starship Troopers had this element) so it’s nothing new. There’s a reason it’s done so often—probably the same reason “reality shows” are so popular: all those different personalities crammed together can generate a whole lot of drama. In this book Murphy exploits that quite well.

There were a few technical details that gave me pause, and I really believe readers would have been happier had Kerrington and a couple other candidates received the dressing-down they deserved after all was said and done.

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As a whole, Mission Veritas is far superior to anything the Hugo-nominated authors of the last two decades have foisted on us. It’s nice that the democratization of publishing has allowed entertaining fiction like this to slip past the gatekeepers and into the hands of readers.

Final judgement: A strong start to a military sci-fi series that promises much drama, surprises, and adventure to come

Jet Jocks Over Vietnam

There’s an expression for people who consistently order more food than they wind up eating: “His eyes are bigger than his stomach.” That’s how I was with books in my younger days. It dawned on me yet again the other day while building more bookshelves for my personal library that, even if I never buy another book, I’ll still probably never finish reading everything I own before I die.

One of the paperbacks that’s been gathering dust for many, many years was this novel of the air war in Vietnam.

All those years, and then the first time I opened it and read the opening paragraph, it grabbed me by the throat.

Berent tells a rip-snorting story of men both in the air and on the ground serving with honor in a conflict in which victory was forbidden.

The characters are great—Hollywood prodigal Court Bannister; soul sick rich boy Toby Parker; and devout killer Wolf Lochert. Much like W.E.B. Griffin, Berent seems to like privileged, wealthy characters who don’t have to serve, but do anyway and prove to be natural, superb warriors. Not easy for me to relate to that caste, but the author did a fine job winning my sympathy.

And you will probably learn more relevant information about Vietnam in this one novel than you can from any and every history book that covers US involvement in the conflict. I’ve read plenty of fiction and non-fiction about Vietnam, and this has become my favorite so far–just from one reading. I can’t believe I only just now got to it. But I fully intend to read the next one, STEEL TIGER (Wings of War). If that one is as good as this one, I may read the entire series.