Chapter Four, Arch Patton: The Bering Sea
The bar on the Lido deck is where I settled in for the afternoon run out toward the Diomede Islands, just off the Seward Peninsula. Passengers were drinking like proverbial fish….
Chapter Three, Arch Patton: The Bering Sea
I learned from Don, my bunkie and fellow de-frocked PhD, that the ship was never referred to as the “M/S World Discoverer.,” which was the name painted in black across her white prow
THE SEVENTEENTH DAY SECOND PART, 30 Days Has September
The river was a good four hundred meters away, and it was impossible to miss. The jungle between the swept river bank and the side of the cliff we’d made our way over from was dense but impossible to get lost in because of the ever present penetrating sound of that...
Chapter Two, Arch Patton: The Bering Sea
I stepped aboard the expedition ship, leaving the city well behind me and wondering whether I had made a wise decision in taking this assignment.
THE SEVENTEENTH DAY, 30 Days Has September
The Skyraiders came in again and again, each run spaced ten minutes after the last, according to my Gus Grissom wristwatch. They came in low, right down the river, opening up on whatever they saw there, then pulling up and making their way back around. All of that...
Chapter One, The Bering Sea, Arch Patton
The airport at Nome isn’t an airport at all. It’s a hangar at the end of a long concrete pad. In summer the sun shines all the time. Twenty-four hours a day. There is no luggage claim.
Arch Patton, The Bering Sea, Prologue
Joshua Boatwright sat patiently, sipping from his small espresso cup, unsure of how he had come to be where he was; tucked into the back corner of the lobby of the Sheraton hotel in Crystal City.
Will Humility be the path……
Dateline Lake Geneva August 23, 2107 TO INHERIT THE EARTH The world defines humility as a lowering of oneself in relation to others, a state or the act of being humble, a freedom of pride and arrogance, and having a modest opinion or estimate of one’s own worth. It...
Kristallnacht emerging…….Editorial, August 16, 2107
KRISTALLNACHT August 16, 2017 German factions of the Nazi Party worked for years in order to create a way to classify Jews in Germany, and in nearby countries, as something different and less than human. This program to separate, and then denigrate, an entire social...
What did I fight for……….Eve of Destruction
I didn’t fight for this. I fought against an enemy in Vietnam that I thought was challenging the right of all men and women to be free and express themselves without being forced to do what a small minority wanted them to do. I didn’t fight for this. I...
THE SIXTEENTH NIGHT SECOND PART, 30 days Has September
The smell of blood would not leave me. A coppery tasting mess of cloying sweet aroma that was invisible, yet overwhelmed every other sense. The sound of Stevens’ body being wrapped inside a slippery wet poncho to be left, like that of the others, along both...
Cats, Gardens and Bombs……..
It’s easier to write about cats, the garden and even what’s going on at the local coffee shop than what is going on across America. To watch the mass media portray America’s reaction to its president threatening nuclear war is quite abashedly...
THE SIXTEENTH NIGHT, 30 Days Has September
The night was coming on fast, what with the west wall of the valley rising up only a few yards to our backs. The question was not whether we would make a rapid advance down the valley to attack an expected and hopefully unprotected enemy rear, but how and when we...
You are My Sunshine……Editorial
Dateline Aug 2, 2017 Lake Geneva Opinion/Editorial YOU ARE MY SUNSHINE Is there any chance that some kind of good fortune will be showered down upon the United States? Ever since the press, the media, or whatever the monolith of this “news” thing is, took over the...
THE SIXTEENTH DAY THIRD PART, 30 Days Has September
The Righteous Brothers began their song called Unchained Melody and, as the first words of the lyrics squeaked out of Fusner’s tiny radio speaker, life came to a stop for me. I just sat there and listened.
The Journey of Artificial Intelligence
Artificial intelligence is all the rage these days. The efforts to bring it into being and the dangers of it, as well as the potential benefits. My question is “will artificial intelligence wander?” We wander, as humans. Much of our work and life force is...
Befuddlement….
Befuddlement…… That single word best describes the New York hot shot deal-making professionals who came out of the Manhattan sticks to go to war with the Washington D.C. elites and Virginia beltway bandits. They designed a grand adventure. The money was...
THE SIXTEENTH DAY SECOND PART, 30 Days Has September
I looked at Nguyen. His features remained as impassive as ever in the face of our dire situation. We could not get to the end of the bridge without being carried down past the tank into the rapids below that led deep into enemy held territory unless Kilo Company had...
Is This Land Your Land…….
Dateline: Lake Geneva June 28, 2017 THIS LAND IS YOUR LAND This is not an article about choosing the right to die, or anything to do with that issue. No, this article is all about some people hastening other people’s death, without their permission, by deliberately...
What about Me?
What about me? This simple question may actually be the most fundamental behavior ruling question of our time. The entire world is headed toward one single clamoring bid to gain some sort, any sort, of attention. The explosion of communication industry tools and...
THE SIXTEENTH DAY, 30 Days Has September
It was full dark by the time the Gunny departed for the old air field with two full platoons and parts of the other two. I’d made a deal with the devil to get back a dead body which went against all logic but for no good reason I could think of made a strange sense to...
Meaning of Life, Editorial
Dateline: Lake Geneva June 21, 2017 Opinion/Editorial THE MEANING OF LIFE A long time ago a television show came on the air discussing life on earth, its meaning, and the billions of beings comprising what has come to be known as this thing called intelligent life. In...
THE FIFTEENTH NIGHT SECOND PART, 30 Days has September
Fusner found me with some difficulty, as I’d gone pretty deep under the camouflage provided by the packed down plant debris that served as the jungle floor. Although the stuff allowed me to hide from the gunships above, it did nothing in providing any kind of cover. A...
A Pen in Hand, a Gift of Value,
June 10, 2017 Funny how the simple gift of a pen can inspire. The motivation to go on. Do you sometimes go in actual search of that… Or merely sit or lay and wait for that? Let go and let it be a God kind of thing? While I was doing a bit of that, the mail...
THE FIFTEENTH NIGHT, 30 Days Has September
Jurgens stood where he was, arms slightly outstretched, but he made no other move, his expression unreadable except for a faint tick arching his left eyebrow up slightly every few seconds. “We are the same,” Jurgens said, splaying his fingers out, like his statement...
THE FIFTEENTH DAY THIRD PART, 30 Days Has September
There was no recoil as the Browning fired. The recoil was absorbed by the fixed tripod attached to the top of the Ontos. I’d never fired such a weapon. In training I’d fired a short burst of an M-60 but it had been a stuttering jerky experience fired standing in the...
THE FIFTEENTH DAY SECOND PART, 30 Days Has September
I came awake instantly. Crashing roars, with distant but shaking explosions, moved me out from the cleft down along the side of a mud wall I’d been sitting up against. I blinked my eyes in fear and nervousness. I was in a cave. I was in the cave. The cave made by the...
THE FIFTEENTH DAY, 30 Days Has September
The Skyraiders came out of the low level pre-dawn light, the sun still out and down earth somewhere on the other side of the valley’s eastern lip. There were four of them, and the drone of their big powerful propellers and engines built from a faint buzzing to a...
Travels to Winfield, Kansas for the Rendezvous
This past weekend I traveled to Winfield Kansas. Purpose was to scout the area and assure myself and our fans this is the place for the Vietnam Combat Veteran Rendezvous in July. Winfield is a comfortable small town, 50 miles south and east of Wichita on vis KS-15....
THE FOURTEENTH NIGHT THIRD PART, 30 Days Has September
Nguyen moved ahead of me, as we departed the perfect overhanging concrete bunker-style encampment the others would be preparing behind us. The mild wind, rushing water of the nearby river, and the mud sand under our feet would all be pushed into the background once we...
THE FOURTEENTH NIGHT SECOND PART, 30 Days Has September
The Sandys came sweeping down the river, obliterating all other sound, the roar of their engines and propellers lifting my spirits in spite of my being trapped at the tank with a dead good kid and a living bad noncom. I hugged the edge of the tank’s right tread, the...
THE FOURTEENTH NIGHT, 30 Days Has September
I’d made it across the river, even after struggling to drag Barnes to the bank. I was dressed back out and had my gear and my .45, none of which was in bad shape. My self-inventory had been done before the big fifty-caliber had opened up again. My team, positioned...
THE FOURTEENTH DAY THIRD PART, 30 Days Has September
There was no question that I needed a plan. The company had no equipment for crossing any stretch of water that I knew of, and since the NVA had gotten a full blown battle tank down the river, or some road paralleling it, the likelihood of a U.S. Navy Seabee unit...
THE FOURTEENTH DAY SECOND PART, 30 Days Has September
I knew that our real registered position was known to the two Army batteries we’d used for fire, and Cowboy and Hobo had to have our position fairly well marked, but the jets coming in would not be quite so accurately informed.
Perceptions….. STURGIS, 1993
STURGIS It was 1993, and I was headed from Albuquerque to Madison, Wisconsin. I was driving a 1989 Range Rover with my family. After half the second day on the road we came upon flocks of Harley bike riders going the same way. Tens, hundreds and then thousands of...
Coming Together….
The totality of coming together as a culture only happens very sporadically and with outside forces driving differential elements together like the fuzing of atoms. From the fuzing of atoms come a great release of energy or another form of matter entirely. What is...
THE FOURTEENTH DAY, 30 Days Has September
A fifty caliber machine gun opened up in short bursts again, but this one wasn’t pouring in tracer rounds from the hill further down south on the other side of the river. We were too close for the tracers to begin to light up from this one, and not far enough away to...
THE THIRTEENTH NIGHT THIRD PART, Thirty Days Has September
Casey should have been restrained by force, if necessary and held until resupply arrived, no matter how long that took, but that wasn’t going to happen. Casey wanted to go on the mission down to the river and confront the tank. In the dark. With a small band of men...
THE THIRTEENTH NIGHT SECOND PART, 30 Days Has September
I had to put my binoculars down, as the Skyraiders came in much faster than I thought they would from the higher altitude. Seconds before I’d looked in the direction the Sandys were dropping down from, and seen the end of the day’s sunlight glint off something near...
Is the Enemy Everywhere…?
Dateline March 31, 2017 Lake Geneva, Wisconsin For some reason I cannot write well this night. I am working on another segment of the Vietnam odyssey, Thirty Days Has September, but came to the river in the bottom of that valley and then lost my way. Not then, but...
THE THIRTEENTH NIGHT, 30 Days Has September
The day would not end. The hike to where the objective was supposed to be, that Sugar Daddy’s forward reconnaissance team said wasn’t there, was one of overwhelming fatigue and staggering inattentiveness. The first sign that something was wrong with the company came...
THE THIRTEENTH DAY THIRD PART, 30 Days Has September
Our return to the company was without incident, although Casey would not shut up. His incessant chatter was more than bothersome, because it couldn’t be listened to for long without the listener realizing that something was seriously wrong with the man. Some of what...
THE THIRTEENTH DAY SECOND PART, 30 Days Has September
Dawn was breaking somewhere over the high parapet beyond the hill to my back, although the jungle down in the valley only glowed slightly with the coming of the light. The rain was gone. There would be sun. The radio handset hung down from my right hand, the dangling...
THE THIRTEENTH DAY, 30 Days Has September
I was wrong and I knew it by the time the company had proceeded less than an hour into its rain-flushed mud-slogging move into an impossibly dark night of trying to break through abusive jungle bracken while attempting to be careful not to set off any booby-traps.
THE TWELFTH NIGHT THIRD PART, 30 Days Has September
The Gunny left me with my watery coffee, squatting in the soft-glistening dark. Our company commander was going to the rear to get a silver star, which was no small decoration, or at least it had been discussed that way while I was in training. He was going to get it...
THE TWELFTH NIGHT SECOND PART, 30 Days Has September
The hill was more of a water and mud-driven mess than when we’d all taken the Vietnam “E’ ticket Disney ride down it, only moments earlier. I wondered, struggling to gain footholds against unstable rocks under the mud if the whole side of the mountain wouldn’t...
THE TWELFTH NIGHT, 30 Days Has September
There was nothing to be done about the grenade at the moment, because there were other things that had to be done. I had to make sure that the artillery registrations I’d made earlier with Fire Base Cunningham for bringing rounds in along the lower edge of our...
IN GOD’S WAY
Walking along on a street called Ke Nui in Hawaii, I found myself lost on this back road in a developed area on a small island where it’s almost impossible to get lost. But there I was. My cell would not work, and I was getting tired of walking around in shower shoes, things not meant for hiking long distances.
THE TWELFTH DAY THIRD PART, 30 Days Has September
I climbed the hill, switching back and forth, heading for chunks of outcropping rock and then toward the density of a protruding stand of low-lying bamboo. It was the Hill Trail climb my platoon at the Basic School had dreaded once a week in Virginia training…
WAKE UP AND SMILE, Rid Yourself of Fear
Fear abides, and lays there waiting in all human beings. If you wake up in the morning with faint feelings of unrest and nervousness over nothing at all that you can put your mental finger on, then be aware that you are joined that feeling this morning by most of the rest of humanity..
THE TWELFTH DAY SECOND PART, 30 Days Has September
My attention was drawn by AK-47s firing. I could hear the fire reverberating back from far up the valley even as I took cover and prepared to move out. My full attention, however, was immediately focused back to right where I was, when the Russian-built fifty caliber...
Let Him Lead
Let him lead? Really? I mean really? Just where did that question, answered in the positive, ever have a place on the American scene? Did Bill Clinton get to lead, or did he have to fight and compromise on just about every issue?
THE TWELFTH DAY, 30 Days has September
The first spotting round of the fire mission came screaming in. I didn’t care if I could see or hear it in the rain, or the fact that clustered down under the overhanging cliff behind the berm, I knew I wasn’t going to be able to properly observe anything anyway. I...
THE ELEVENTH NIGHT THIRD PART, 30 Days Has September
I crawled toward where I thought the cliff wall was in the darkness. The rain was unpitying and the drums were driving me insane, as the sound was magnified, bouncing back off of the cliff face. All of a sudden, I was out of the rain and the jungle floor turned into a...
THE ELEVENTH NIGHT SECOND PART, 30 Days Has September
I finished the letter home. It wasn’t my best work because I kept nodding off. Nodding off but not sleeping. I nodded through the letter, forgetting about what I was going to tell my wife, instead going into detail about how much Casey reminded me of Kramer, the major at the Basic School who’d hated me.
On the Road Again, Hawaii, February 11, 2017
Dateline: Hawaii February 11, 2017 The coffee bar finally opened and I have a paper cup of Kona Coffee for $4.75. The cup is one of those new ones that is integrated. A to-go cup that doesn’t need one of those little sleeves to protect my hand form the heat. I...Subscribe to FROM THE WILDERNESS
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