Jungle Fighting in the Central Highlands

As a replacement, a friend of mine joined one of the units chronicled in this work shortly after the incidents described. Here's a brief glimpse of his life as an infantryman. A medic is mentioned who, I believe, survived the destruction of a platoon mentioned in the book.

Nine Days In May: The Battles Of The 4th Infantry Division On The Cambodian Border, 1967 by Warren K. Wilkins
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

An engrossing description of infantry combat as American units reacted to North Vietnamese Army ambushes and assaults, with young U.S. draftees battling a hardened enemy, often in hand-to-hand fighting.

Struggling in the dense forests of Vietnam's Central Highlands at a time when most Americans still supported the war, the U.S. companies and platoons generally possessed excellent small unit leadership. They would need all the help they could get as they clashed with the NVA under triple-canopy forests that often blocked out the sunlight as well as supporting artillery fire.

Wilkins touches on the U.S. strategy of attrition, and the political constraints that hobbled American forces, leaving them unable to pursue the NVA into their bases across the Cambodian border. Reduced to counting bodies, the 4th Infantry Division could never put away their foe. The fraud of body counts and the untouchable nature of enemy sanctuaries negated the courage and endurance of the men, eventually forcing 4th Infantry Division units to battle over the same ground again and again until the attrited Americans finally withdrew.

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Happy Thanksgiving!: Nostalgia Edition

Saturday Evening Post

Over the last 12 years,  I usually post something on, or around, Thanksgiving. So I shall continue doing so proudly, defiantly, without apology.

Thanks this year to being cancer-free on two fronts, having an employed wife, and teetering on the ledge of publishing an ebook detailing my struggles with prostate cancer. Also thankful that my mother-in-law survived open heart surgery. She proves that one is much better off with a working valve than without.

Gratitude is an under appreciated trait, and I strive to incorporate more of it each day. Best wishes to all.

T-Day Round-Up

1. 2016: Two days after Thanksgiving, I discuss the Cheshire moon and a new method of outlining for a fantasy novel I discarded in April. 

2. 2015: The Monday before I explain in some detail why you should review my books. Comes complete with explanatory video that hasn't expired yet. 

3. 2014: Hit the day square as I link to i09's Black Friday gift recommendations. (Looks like a rush cut and paste job.)

dishmaps

4. 2013: Day before featuring a short article I wrote for another publication that folded, explaining how we got football on Thanksgiving. 

5. 2012: Spot on as I invite readers to visit my review of Hitchcock over at Forces of Geek. (I didn't even check, but the review is probably long gone.)

6. 2011: Dead center as I link back to 2005. There are more comments than post. 

7. 2010: Same day posting as I wish everyone well and include a Simpson's image. (Posted 338 times that year.)

quotes

8. 2009: A salute to my friend Bernadette for running a 5k. Also a hat tip to a young man I know who dropped 100 pounds in a year. (This was my high-water year for posting—365 times. That's what unemployment will do.)

9. 2008: Another spot on post, little more than a 'happy' with WB characters as pilgrims. First T-Day in our condo.

10. 2007: Day before, with a mention of running as this was my peak marathon era. A message from dear friend K who passed away in 2012. Bittersweet.

11. 2006: A few days after, as we dined up in the Bay area with in-laws. I was training for the Phoenix Marathon that January and ran at every opportunity.

12: 2005: On the nose as I mention a Turkey Trot completed that day with chums from Team in Training. We were training for the Honolulu Marathon in early December. Two of those chums, Nick and P.J., subsequently married and now have a pair of fine children.

SEPTA

Happy 242, USMC!

Birthday greetings to all Devil Dogs past and present as I repost an offering from earlier this year.

USMC League

MCRD San Diego Back in the Day

Everything must begin somewhere. And in the United States Marine Corps, my enlisted tour commenced with yellow footprints. Drawn on the asphalt of the recruit depot with heels close together and toes angled out to 45 degrees, they are where I, along with seven other guys from our suburban Chicago neighborhood, stood to begin military service. Then we marched somewhere, boxed up our clothes and mailed them home, coming to the realization that our new life would be different from drinking beer behind a bowling alley.

The Vietnam War was winding down, at least for the United States, though the North Vietnamese would launch a huge attack against South Vietnam toward the end of March as we conducted infantry training at Camp Pendlelton. (In September, now a Private First Class, I would find myself in an Army hospital called Camp Kue on Okinawa, sharing  a ward with American advisors who'd been wounded helping the South Vietnamese forces stop the communists.)

In 1991, I visited the footprints on a vacation to San Diego with my girlfriend. (Now My Fine Wife or MFW.)

In 2002, I stood on a hill in Vietnam called Con Thien with a Vietnamese guide who told me about the obliteration of his village by B52s, bombing the NVA advance.

In 2008, I was back at MCRD finishing up a marathon with Team in Training.

But on a Friday night, January 14, 1972, I stood on yellow footprints. Oh, right before we boxed up our clothes, this happened:
(The following scene is rather accurate, except there's no C&W music. Just buzzzzzzz.)

h/t: amp1776

Apocalypse Story a Fast-Paced Revelation

Father Elijah: An Apocalypse by Michael D. O'Brien
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

At peace in a desert monastery, a psychologically-scarred monk is summoned by the Vatican to witness to a powerful international figure feared to be the Antichrist.

Based on Catholic eschatology, the story centers around the trials of Father Elijah, who reluctantly sets out on his mission only to find himself reliving the loss of family, friends, wife and child. As dark forces close around David Elijah, his friends and supporters, the monk struggles to complete his charge, grappling with issues such as the savagery of Man, free will, and the healing love of Christ. At the same time, the society around Father Elijah transforms at a bewildering pace, as lines dissolve between spirit, prophecy, and reality.

Set at the turn of the millennia, the book is paced like a thriller, with sharp dialogue driving the action forward; complex characters hold your interest. Overall, a fascinating exploration into the nature of evil, the power of patience, and the possibility of redemption.

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Bring Me Thrilling Pulp Art

ComicsAlliance

Researching art work and illustrators for my next ebook—due out by Christmas. And while the pulp style might not gel with a non-fiction work on cancer, I've both horror and fantasy detective tales cutting air in the on-deck circle. Both could don pulp covers with gleeful pride. Starting a Pulp Pinterest page, lets me collect interesting compositions, tone, color, subject matter. But there's more to the style than hot babes, gun-toting detectives, and leering Nazis.

We Heart promoted Mexican pulp art a few years back. What's the difference with our home-grown pulpists? Well, We Heart felt "the Mexican market had an appetite for weirdness that outdid the Americans on nearly every level. The violence was ratcheted up, but it was the incongruous elements such as sci-fi, psychedelia, the supernatural, dinosaurs and robots into the mix that set the plots apart."

They weren't kidding. Monster Brains gathered together a wealth of Mexican pulp cover art. Here's a few samples:

Monster Brains

Gunfire against retro robots gone berserk seems futile, but we often reach for the familiar in times of crisis.



 

Monster Brains

Here is death writ large with grave robbers, a corpse who apparently died hard, and great eyes hovering over the landscape for reasons obscure.

Monster Brains

Trouble heading your way, bud, with human-faced birds flying out of the windmill and over the leafless tree. What gruesome fate awaits you, cowering man?











In addition, We Heart added that "the heroes of the Mexican books were not hard-bitten detectives or all-action paragons, but rather common men who found themselves right up against it in a struggle for survival . . . ." I guess the Yanks were a little more aspirational.

No matter. I want pulp covers for my next two books. Mexican, Yankee, any old artist, but I'm having pulp. The search commences for an artist who can deliver. Don't be shy. Offer recommendations. Should your artist be selected, I'll credit you in the Forward of a book guaranteed to be read by dozens.

Auture

Caustic, Funny Supernatural Tales

Dreadful Outcomes: The Wickesborough Chronicles by D. G. Heckman
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Consider this "Our Town" if written by Dante.

With apologies to Thornton Wilder, D.G. Heckman has penned a hilarious sardonic, 21st century version of small town life. In this supernatural anthology centered around fictional Wickesborough, Pennsylvania, we encounter characters most greedy, evil, self-centered, and unwary who run afoul of zombies, psychopaths, and demonic furniture in a region marinating in dangerous legends that still pack a punch.

Driven by strong ironic narration, the offerings include a band of sensitive cannibals who hate being confused with zombies; police attempting to deal with a wendigo outbreak; and weekend wiccans who discover themselves in deep with a cat-worshipping cult.

But not all outcomes are dreadful as a funeral whisperer learns the consequences of his calling, and a young man pursues his crush on a melancholy spirit.

An indie gem, this Wickesborough collection reminds one of Stephen King's Castle Rock, only with a mordant sense of humor. A dark, funny, absurdist read.

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Blogging History Repeats Itself Again

December deadline approaches.          Image: All HD Wallpaper

Great broiling head chaos.

Let me explain: excellent progress on my Viking detective novel since early September, despite an eventful journey to Seattle. As the story accelerates, I've ridden the changes, chasing the narrative, but guiding the process away from the guardrails so as not to crash into a rewrite canyon, research gulch, or dull character canal. However, time is not my amigo.

I want to publish an ebook by Christmas. (The viking ebook will not be ready.) In 2013, I blogged about a similar publishing dilemma. A few weeks later, I blogged again. Finally, I stopped blogging about this particular conundrum . . . temporarily, you understand.

Four years have passed and I'm blogging about it once more. In order to meet my self-imposed deadline, I must postpone one project and return to the very project I abandoned in 2013. (As a side note, 2013 was the last full year of my life with a prostate.) Now the clock is ticking, the sands are diminishing, the digital read-out approaches zero. I've got around two months to polish a crude manuscript, score some cover art, and launch it on Amazon.

Who needs NaNoWriMo?

Crazy world out there. Mind yourselves and those close to you.

Zombie Novel with a Bite

A Place Outside The Wild by Daniel Humphreys
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

There are more zombie novels out there than the shambling dead they contain.

However Humphreys' take on a popular genre held my attention for its focus on survivors, their psychological strain, PTSD and myriad other woes besetting a handful of humans and the simple life they've built in a small compound, eight years after the rise of zombies.

Like circling sharks, the undead wander the compound's perimeter, hungering for human flesh, patient, omnipresent. At the same time, interior conflicts such as murder and drug addiction combine to erode the community's survival odds.

Good action and plenty of it keep this tale moving along.

Definitely worth a read.

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Recalling 9/11

K called from Florida, "Planes crashed into the World Trade Center and one of the towers just fell." Unemployed in Los Angeles and half asleep at 7:30 AM, I shuffled downstairs to the TV, past Joy as she prepared for work. At first, all I saw was a dirty cloud obscuring southern Manhattan. Then a stunned announcer said the second tower had just collapsed. Joy joined me, work forgotten as we learned of the attack.

Other friends phoned throughout the day. Paul Rugg speculated about the pilots of the doomed aircraft, certain they weren't Americans forced to crash. TJ, a Vietnam vet, was incensed at the footage of jubilant Palestinians with their candy and AK-47s. He wished he could gift them with a nice buttering of napalm. In a grim mood, I agreed.

Watching TV and power-chewing Nicorette, I mostly felt numb — except when the subject was jumpers. Then I felt horror. Go to work, sip coffee, joke with your pals, then decide whether you'll suffocate, burn alive, or leap a quarter mile to certain death. Questions of etiquette arise: jump solo or hold hands with a co-worker? Perhaps several of you link arms and form a chain, finding courage in numbers. Or do you clutch a table cloth and step into the air, desperately hoping it slows your fall?



The journey takes ten seconds.


Air velocity rips away your shoes.


You explode on impact.


I will always be haunted by the jumpers of 9/11.


Oceans of paper were blasted from the towers, filling the New York sky like the Devil's ticker tape. Invoices and wedding invitations floated down to gray sidewalks.

My friend Cathy, who worked in D.C., reported chaos as the government sent everyone home at once following the Pentagon attack. One jammed intersection turned scary as a man leaped out of an SUV brandishing a pistol and attempting to direct traffic.

Being murdered is not a heroic act, though it can be. Flight 93 passengers fought back and died, saving many more in their sacrifice. North Tower Port Authority employees rescued over 70 people before perishing.


There were many heroes that day.

My sister Mary Pat and I had dinner at a coffee shop. She was passing through town, leaving a job in Mountain View, CA to return to Phoenix. Depressed by the day's events, our meal was not jolly.

Later, Joy tried to give blood, but the hospital was overwhelmed with donations and refused.

Vulnerability, grief, dismay, anger.

Such a beautiful morning with a sky so blue.

(Photos from: Little Green Footballs.)

Repost: Sept. 11, 2008

Update: Strange to reread this. TJ died in 2009 and K passed away just over a year ago. My wife, Joy, and I are doing well, as is Paul Rugg who now rides the train. 

Repost: Sept. 11, 2013

Update: I had cancer surgery last year, but recovered. My wife is doing well and my sister battles her own health woes. I have not heard from my friend Cathy in a few years.  Paul Rugg continues riding the train in addition to being a voice over machine.

Repost: Sept. 11, 2015

Update: Paul Rugg's daughter was not quite two years old on 9/11/01. Now she is a freshmen in college. I have retired from TV animation writing, though, as stated elsewhere, I find retirement to be indistinguishable from unemployment. (Save for a small annuity.) And very soon, I shall ride the train to see my sister. (Explanatory post t/k.)

Repost: Sept. 11, 2017

Story Shifts from Slashing to Psyche

b-maze

That makes the writing sound rather highbrow. It's not. This project is an uphill run wearing leg weights.

For the latest book, I've been inspired by two old outlines for the same supernatural detective story, only in different genres: one graphic novel and the other an animated TV series. As one might gather, both outlines are action-oriented, very visual.

As I struggled to develop the outlines into an ebook, the process felt awkward and forced, like two kitchen magnets with similar poles. Nothing fit together. I stopped trying to develop characters and event sequences and started to research various aspects of urban life, Islam, Vikings, and police procedure. Fortunately, I caught myself before ditching yet another book.

The action is still there, but diminished or unseen. Now I'm unsure what kind of tale I have. A minor character grows into a major player, while the main character's psychological struggles assume a larger dimension.

On I go, watching my subconscious sort out all the elements. I find myself being presented with the characters I need to write this book.

Eventually, I'll have a first draft.

Then I can research.

Waltzing Museum

Autry Museum

Sung to the Tune of Waltzing Matilda

Once an Aussie Tourist stood alone in Griffith Park,

Under the shade of a California Oak,

And he asked an old jogger, shuffling 'long the bridal path,

Will you snap a shot of the Autry and me?

Autry Museum, Autry Museum,

You'll photograph the museum with me,

And he sang to his camera, waiting for the jogger man,

You'll photograph the museum with me.

Basically, that's what happened yesterday. As I finished my modest run in hot weather, a short Aussie man in a large Outback Hat asked me to take a picture of him with the Autry Museum of the American West in the background.

Glad to help out a cobber, I took the photo, but realized he was in shadow. Informing my subject that his face was not visible, I suggested he move closer to me and I would change position, thus capturing both features and museum. He agreed, then glided back into the shade.

I gestured him forward to a spot where there was sufficient light. He stepped where indicated, then backed away. There was something in his mind. Something about the composition of the shot. 

Something as solid and immovable as Ayers Rock. Perhaps he'd thought about the photograph with furious concentration, flying over the darkened Pacific between Oz and LA. In any case, it seemed the man held the museum in greater esteem than himself.

After a few more pictures, I returned the camera to this humble fellow from a land far off and commenced stretching my ancient tendons and ligaments.

A pleasant trip and a safe journey back to your island continent, sir.

Or, as Gene Autry himself might have crooned, 'Happy trails to you.'

Chris Ford@flickr