I’m not really surprised by the evil that men do, but occasionally I get confronted by it all the same. It’s important that we realize what horrors have plagued our past so that we can try not to duplicate them going forward. Well, I’ve encountered a work that is excellent and sickening at the same time. If you really want to know the depths of depravity that people are capable of, read “Bloodlands,” by Timothy Snyder.

This book, while not new, popped up as a related subject while I was busy purchasing books for a different research project. The Eastern Front in World War Two is an area of interest for me, so when I read over the premise for the book, I decided I had to read it.

Well, I was in for it. I’ve only read one other book that was as bad as this one, “Gevangenen en Gedeporteerden” (Translation: The Imprisoned and Deported). It is Chapter 8 of Dr. L. De Jong’s excellent Dutch language series about the history of the Netherlands in the Second World War.

And I don’t mean bad as in poorly written or researched. No, both books are a wealth of knowledge, painstakingly documented.

No, these books are both gut-wrenching, harrowing and full of first-hand horror. They derive from letters, archive material, and survivor testimony.

“Bloodlands” starts out with some light reading over the artificial famine in the Ukraine, which killed an unknown amount of people in 1932-34. The most reliable estimates say that about three to four million people died as a direct result of Stalin’s policies. It really says something when historians can’t nail down a death figure to the nearest million.

And that’s just the opening of the book.

By the end you should have no doubt that Iosef Stalin and Adolph Hitler were some of history’s greatest monsters.

From the expedited, professional slaughter of Stalin’s purges to Hitler’s industrial liquidation of Europe’s Jews, it seems that nearly every square meter of Eastern Europe was covered in blood during the twelve-year period of 1933-1945. Most shockingly, this book focusses on civilian deaths- not military losses during the same period.

This is an important book. It illustrates that the greatest mass murders in human history were perpetrated by seemingly normal people who wanted to pursue either social or racial utopias; they wanted to achieve societal perfection at the cost of undesirable, “impure” or counter-revolutionary elements.

The executioners were literally willing to stack the bodies sky-high to attain their master’s bidding, and they did it all under the mask of the “greater good.”

By all means, read this book.

And then thank God that you didn’t have to suffer under Hitler or Stalin’s lash.

 

 

 

Alright readers, so I told you all a while back that I’d discuss the writer’s journey as I encounter things. Well, today I’m up against frustration.

I have a little time in between other commitments so I’m sitting here trying to come up with a coherent outline. It’s for my supposed future sci-fi/fantasy thriller novel with the working name of DEMONS. There’s only one problem. When I read over the outline, all I can see is the word CRAP repeated about 1500 times.

The outline seems to not be sci-fi, nor a fantasy, and there is no element of thrill. There are plot holes big enough to drive a truck through, an unsympathetic protagonist, and vague, squishy antagonists.

This is a new phenomena for me. I’ve completed a trilogy and worked on about three other projects, so this isn’t my first rodeo. Mind, I haven’t actually been writing for terribly long (about five years), so this was bound to happen sooner or later. I should be more philosophical about this, but I’m not.

My faithful Mac has become my enemy, my outline a cruel joke. I’d like to print it out and shake it around like Dixie the dog shakes her murdered soccer ball and see if once I was done the words would have magically rearranged themselves on the page to make some sense.

Other than my own satisfaction, I know that such an episode would be futile. Hmm, maybe I should go for the satisfaction and ignore the horrified glances from my family.

No, let’s not do that. I have enough to talk about up at the VA as it is.

So hey, here I sit. One half-done and mocking set of meaningless words on my screen, and the taste of defeat on my tongue.

I knew this day would come sooner or later, but I hadn’t expected the moment to be today.

BTW, thanks to the peeps who chimed in on this subject a month ago or so, if it wasn’t for you I wouldn’t have gotten this far. Beneath the rubble, I’m convinced there’s a decent story in there.

Don’t worry about me guys, I’m confident I’ll eventually prevail. What is needed is a little tactical patience, some space and perspective.

Sooooo… I’m going to walk away from this computer and go do something fun.

Like wait for the plumber.

(UPDATE. Plumber can’t make it, too many frozen water lines ahead of me. Time to rummage through the cupboards for some Jaegermeister or something.)

 

I was inspired to write this bit by a post from John Birmingham on cheeseburgergothic.com. He describes the importance of learning to deal with physical confrontations both in competition, and in real life. Mr. Birmingham is a brown belt in jujitsu, two bars, so he knows of what he speaks. It was a good piece. Here’s my subjective bit about how the body reacts, how one thinks, during intense physical and mental stress.

To the best of my knowledge, there are no photos of me in combat. The image above is the best I can do, it was taken upon my return to base after three weeks of close combat in a forbidding mountain valley nestled deep in the Hindu Kush.

Combat is an ugly word. I still get shivers when I think of it. Combat entails people trying to kill you in the dark, feeling naked and vulnerable beneath the stars above. It is the feeling of recoil against your shoulder, radio calls, falling leaves from trees and bushes. Combat is screaming. Combat means blood, lots of it, sticky pools of spreading black/red.

But before combat is something worse. It’s anticipation. Sudden combat is best, there is no time to think, only time to react. Someone opens up on you, you respond without thinking. While lethal and shocking, it’s better than knowing for long hours that you are going to assault a known enemy position, starting at time X.

Because this is a subjective piece, I can only speak for my reactions. I would smoke cigarette after cigarette, frequently lighting one with the cherry of the previous. I would obsessively go over the plan. Check my gear and the gear of my soldiers, over and over. Jump a little when a vehicle would start, or the word would come down to move out on foot. Felt the frequent need to piss, sometimes I would do it on the move. My hands would be numb. Whether this was physiological or a function of the weight of my equipment (usually about ninety pounds), I don’t know.

As the objective got closer, some village or terrain feature with a dark aura, my guts would gurgle, my mouth went dry, the lips compressed into a tight line. I can’t remember sweating, but my pulse would pound like a jackhammer in my ears. My head would scroll with a constant recitation of the Lord’s Prayer, or Psalm 23. Funny, because I’m not religious. But as the objective drew closer, I felt closer to God and eternity.

I experienced the first shots as a relief. Finally, it was time to act. The radio calls would start, it was my job to answer them. Chaos reigned, guys would be moving, shooting. It was my job to bring some measure of order to the show, to direct soldiers at the “main effort.” Such antiseptic words for murder, really. At times I would fire as well.

Something the reader needs to understand is that people don’t want to die or be maimed. Your “targets” are living, thinking people who are doing their best to be bad targets. You shoot at movement, shadows, figures. Frequently bullets or RPG rounds come at you and you have no idea where the shooter is. These are moments of intense irritation, frustration. The early dawn dances with flares and strobes with explosions. Tracers arc through the night, green and red. Yelling, screaming.

Combat is not silent. It shrieks. It can last for moments, or stretch out over the course of days.

Finally, something gives. The fire slackens, then stops. You have overrun the objective, fended off an attack, escaped an ambush. Note: if these things haven’t happened, you are dead and you don’t get the chance to write pieces on websites years later.

The aftermath hits you. Your body, which stayed upright and moving while the lead was flying, seems to deflate much as a punctured inner tube. Every thought is a burden, every movement a chore. With leaden gaze, you light a cigarette, the ashes fall on your body armor. Fighters roar by overhead. Helicopters come for the wounded, the dead get dragged off somewhere. More screaming.

Years later, you hear it still.

 

We do live in interesting times. You all know I’ve spoken at length about Elon Musk’s SpaceX ventures, but I have had little to say about Jeff Bezos’s effort with Blue Origin and the New Shepard suborbital rocket.

Well, this won’t be the longest of articles that I’ve written, but I’m talking about Bezos’s feat today. It seems that the New Shepard took off yesterday, reached space, deployed a crew capsule, and landed itself back on the pad. It had some NASA experiments on board, the mission was a resounding success.

This is most excellent. I have had some concerns about Elon Musk and overreach, so as far as I am concerned, the more serious players in the space game, the better.

Mr. Bezos’s stated goal is to get paying passengers to space in the near future aboard his reusable rocket, and it looks as if he may succeed.

By all means read this cool article about his progress. It’s a good read, but the video is awesome. Check it out.

Excellent work to the people at Blue Origin! Keep it coming.

 

There’s a great article on the Wall Street Journal about industrial unpowered and powered exoskeletons that got me thinking about this. But it’s behind a paywall, so my brief take on it below.

Well, I’ve been talking about this for a while. I’ve based my original trilogy on the concept, too. What is it? The birth of the human augmenting powered exoskeleton; an innovation that will revolutionize both industry and warfare.

Paired with a controlling AI, this is the counter to “Terminator.” It will also make conventional infantry more or less obsolete, and will trigger a new arms race. Imagine, most of the small arms in the world (and unarmored humans) will become obsolete against these new armored armies.

It doesn’t take a lot of imagination to picture one of the suits pictured above (the Sarcos Guardian XO) fully enclosed in armor with an array of weapons, both lethal and non-lethal.

This is also a counter to the age-old arguments against women serving in infantry units. It is true that the average woman doesn’t have the upper-body strength of the average man. Upper body strength is completely necessary to lift and carry 50 odd kilos of weight along with weapons and have a reserve left over for the fight at the other end. Powered fighting suits render the old biological differences moot.

All that is required is hand-eye coordination, basic intelligence, discipline, training and courage. Women have as much potential as men in those categories, so wars in the future will be fought by both sexes across the board.

Think as well about the law enforcement applications. What criminal is going to want to shoot it out with one of these? I guess the Darwin Factor would get rid of the really dumb ones, but the smart ones would put their weapon down and their hands up.

The only thing holding this back is a power source. Once that’s cracked, Katie bar the door.

From the female draft to 2nd Amendment questions, this is going to shake things up both in society and the military.

Take it to the bank.

 

 

I grew up in a coal-mining region, and I live there still. The landscape is dotted with countless abandoned coal mines and “brownfields,” or old industrial and frequently contaminated sites. What to do with all of this blighted and seemingly useless terrain? I think on this a lot.

Well, an article caught my eye. It seems that there are researchers who are busy figuring out how to place farms into abandoned mine shafts- a splendid idea. Worldwide there are probably millions of these dangerous and currently useless holes, and many of them are located very near or in metropolitan areas. Why not exploit them for agriculture? Also, a useful link on a related subject was provided to me by Dirk De Jager. There’s a lot of potential here.

The technology is there, and with near-constant temperatures and “weather,” these mines-turned-farms could produce about six crops per year as opposed to the standard two or three.

Some questions I have are what the plan is to remediate Acid Mine Drainage, and ensuring safety in what are frequently unsafe and unmaintained shafts. Besides that, the promise of this possible future form of agriculture is good.

The fact is that we are running out of arable land for a growing population. And an unchanging fact is that if you don’t grow it, then you have to mine it. Why not turn played out mines into “land?”

Makes sense to me.

 

A friend of mine is on vacation in Vietnam, and he’s having a very good time with his family. Apparently the people are cool, the place is bustling with energy, and the beer is cheap. Also, it’s a beautiful place rich in history and scenery, a country worth visiting. Sounds very much like a place to go, to unwind and relax.

But for some, Vietnam is the last place they would visit.

I asked my uncle, a US Army veteran of the A Shau valley, 1969-70, if he would ever want to go back. His face clouded over and he shook his head. He’ll never return.

To this day I don’t hear Vietnam mentioned in tones other than sorrow and fear from relatives and older friends. Not to mention how I see that land and the war that was fought there stamped on acquaintances, patients, up at the VA hospital.

If you talk to many Vietnam veterans, it is as if time stopped in 1966 or ’69. They are still frightened young men who have been sent out to kill their fellow men in those dark, forbidding forests, rugged hills or swampy rice paddies. If you get to know those fellows, they will tell their stories.

Some of the stories are very dark, searing tales of loss and horror. Friends who died or were maimed, civilians caught in the cross fire, enemies lying broken and dying. All of it told on the canvas of an emerald green land, foreign and unknowable.

These old men sit, with their worn faces and tired bodies, and in their minds they are eighteen years old again. They pull a trigger or a lanyard, they load bombs or ride in a Huey.

Vietnam is a real place to them, a dark corner in their heads.

But what they see isn’t real anymore. The Vietnam that they knew no longer exists. The youngest baby in the war is middle-aged now. That infant, now an adult with grown children, remembers not one single thing about those days.

This is a blessing. All wars, no matter how cruel, eventually end. With time, the most bitter foes can become friends. For some, that is, but certainly not all.

For many that fought, who can’t bear to ever return, the war is not over. It lives on like a curse, it colors each day. For tens of thousands, the word “Vietnam” will always be draped in black, chiseled in white marble at Arlington.

I understand.

Someone said that no war is really over until the last soldier that fought is dead. By that measure, the final echoes of the Vietnam war will fade around 2075 or so. My war? Who knows. It’s still being fought.

If you believe in God, pray for peace. Then make sure you vote for wise leadership in whatever country you inhabit.

Let’s keep places like Vietnam happy and carefree for everyone going forward.

 

 

Alright, so wishing everyone a fine New Year isn’t exactly the most cutting edge website fodder ever.

However, I wish it to you all with sincerity.

2018 had its ups and downs, and it was the first year since 2015 that I didn’t manage to get anything published. However, I have fair confidence that that will change this coming year. I’ve got at least three collaborations going at this time and you all will find out about those fairly soon.

A lot happened on the space front this past year. Branson, NASA, and Musk produced, all you have to do is glance back through the archives (or google those three items) and you’ll see what I mean.

Of course, there was other stuff as well. Stock market meltdowns, tsunamis, political developments. I’d rather not dwell on that stuff, I try to be a glass-half-full kind of guy.

So to all of you out there, in whatever country, state or province you find yourself, go out and have some fun with the New Year.

You’ve earned it.

Jason

I will always remember the men of 2nd Rifle Company, Afghan Army. You can see them above advancing along a goat path into combat. A bare hour later and we were in contact with the enemy, our mutual foe. Hundreds of Afghans were on the scene, only about eight Americans. I was one of them.

Why am I talking about this today.

Well, I’ll tell you.

A whole lot of the fighting (and dying) overseas has been borne by our allies. The President acted like a knave yesterday and betrayed them along with our national interest.

In the past 24 hours the US Secretary of Defense, James Mattis, resigned in protest over the President’s policies. He is the first cabinet level secretary to do so in over forty years. To say that this is a big deal is a slight understatement. General Mattis, USMC (Ret.) is the real deal. And he couldn’t stand to watch as the post-war order was systematically destroyed on his watch, and his brothers in arms were left out to hang.

So he did the honorable thing and resigned, as an officer and gentleman should when he is asked to support the unsupportable.

Unsupportable? Yes. It is unsupportable and morally bankrupt to march out of Northern Syria and leave our steadfast allies, the Kurds, to die by inches at the hands of the Turks in the north or the Syrians in the south. Mr. President, ISIS has not been defeated, and the Russians and Iranians will be the immediate benefactors of your decision.

It is disgusting to leave our Afghan allies in the lurch, another component of yesterday’s barrage of bad decisions. My men, the remaining soldiers of 2nd Company, will inevitably be hunted down and killed by the Taliban. Some will switch sides, but all will retain enduring memories of Uncle Sam’s perfidy. And pissed off Afghans act on their hatreds.

I know EXACTLY the extremely awkward and dangerous situation that the President has just placed our combat advisors in. Months, years, decades of building trust with allies in the region, gone. Your brothers in arms, betrayed.

Their trust has evaporated. Blown away like the dust covering the shallow graves of the fallen.

Way to go. Like a petulant child, the President has chosen to take his ball and go home.

But this isn’t a game. Lives are on the line, not an endless series of pointless real estate deals, hookers, and snorts of blow.

General Mattis understands this deep in his bones. The President does not.

It’s just a shame the former Secretary of Defense didn’t post his resignation on Twitter.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There may be a convention out there that forbids an author to discuss upcoming book plans or ideas. If so, then I’m going to step on convention.

You see, I have a bit of a situation. There’s a project that I’d like to write, but all I have is the sketch of a first scene. I’m a bit at a loss as to what direction to go with this, but I am itching to write the novel.

The protagonist I’ve got down cold. What has me is the antagonist(s).

So the hell with it, I’m going to post the sketch, and see if any of you readers have a good idea as to where to go with this. I’d love to hear from y’all.

Government conspiracy? Aliens? Demons? A combination of all three?

Snippet follows, by all means post comments or shoot me an email through the “contact” page above.

Here goes.

An idea

So a guy gets approached by some suits who say they are FBI. He is sitting in the cafeteria at the VA. There is something off about the two suits. One is smirking, the other one looks dead. Their eyes are as black as the nameless dark. Something is very wrong. As quick as a snake, he stabs one in the leg and throws his food tray in the face of the other and makes a break for it. Somehow he knows that the jinni have finally come for his immortal soul.

***

Seven years earlier he woke up on a firebase in Afghanistan to the sound of wild shooting. His interpreter runs up to him and shouts about the jinni, they have taken everyone. He grabs his rifle and sees that all of his fellow advisors are dead, without a mark on them.

Everyone but him.

What do ya think?

Jason