As I mentioned below, I’ve finally started to take this author thing seriously. One of the things I’ve been working on is creating a public Facebook page. My intent is to use it to augment the info I put out on this site.

I’ve fought doing this for years. One of the reasons for my borderline crazy luddist streak were observations I made while playing in the sand. On my very first deployment to the Middle East I lived in a sea of tents on a broad desert plain. There were two phones for thousands of guys with a long line and a five-minute time limit. Besides that, you could always write. Turns out that the primitive state of communications back then were for the better.

There is such a thing as too much communication. On my second tour, shortly after the invasion of Iraq, the internet was up and running and there were labs where you could sit and email. Depending on circumstances, you had the potential for at least weekly contact with your loved ones, and the phone service was better than in the nineties. I had the opportunity one time to witness a heated exchange with a man whose wife had run off and he was unsure where his children were. Me and forty other people watched him melt down. It was awful.

Then there was my lonely, boring tour in 2008-09. I sat in the desert with a rifle platoon and we did nothing for an entire year. The Book of Face was frequently consulted by my Joes, I learned more about their personal and sex lives than I ever wanted to know. Some dudes posted operational photos and got in big trouble with Battalion- of course, they were monitoring what my guys posted. I swore I would never have a FB account after my year spent twiddling my thumbs and monitoring my guy’s antics.

Finally, there was my 2011 experience. On the small firebase/base or whatever you want to call it, we had a small internet lab. Guys sat and watched on FB as their lives passed them by, they drove themselves crazy with the parties they missed, their children’s first steps, and who exactly their girlfriends or wives had just friended. On one memorable occasion one of my guys caused a huge social media stir when he commented on a rocket attack against our little home. It wasn’t a big deal, just some jerks who dumped a 107 rocket in our compound. But boy did it cause a ruckus at home.

So I swore off FB. I thought it would be forever. Then I wrote a book, followed by another. I learned that I needed tools to interact with my readers, and a big, whopping, important tool is Facebook. So I buried my luddite axe, and I joined the 21st century.

If y’all want, check it out. I’ll post different stuff on there than here, and will keep it reasonable fresh.

Thanks again!