by James Strauss |
The West Pointer Captain Mertz’s plan to stay waiting for resupply, and take credit for the kills and any wounded NVA left behind, made logical sense. I knew that neither I, nor any of the Marines in the company, gave a tinker’s damn about who got credited for anything.
by James Strauss |
Are we looking forward to a Glacial period? America has focused all the attention of this part of the universe on itself and one man in particular. Not a man of the New Testament or Old. Not a man of philosophy or advanced education in any science. Not a man...
by James Strauss |
Aviation Week and Space Technology is a weekly magazine that every thinking and feeling American should subscribe to.
Why? Oh, because it is a magazine about air travel and space?
by James Strauss |
And so Debbie Reynolds dies too. Her daughter dies and then the mom. For someone old like me, that mom sang Home in the Meadow. for the movie How the West Was Won. That transformation of the old English Greensleeves entranced me as a youngster and it’s lyrics...
by James Strauss |
The rest of the night passed in mud, a penetrating mist returning to add some sort of cutting liquid thinner to the blood being sucked in by the feeding mosquitos. There was no more firing or explosions that I was aware of, as I lay in my semi-comatose state replacing real sleep.
by James Strauss |
Why am I bothered by the loss of Carrie Fisher, Princess Leia? She was the daughter of a giant actress and great crooner plus given just about everything except bliss and happiness. Her book on her life made it to the top of the best seller list. She had it all and...
by James Strauss |
Why the mass media broadcasts tons of ‘fake news’ and is not held accountable simply because there is no one to hold them accountable. Donald Trump has come closest to being a force to hold them accountable because of the fact that he has tweeted outside...
by James Strauss |
Here’s a direct quote from the two leaders of the current republican party in a communique meant to go out to the entire nation: “Over two millennia ago, a new hope was born into the world, a Savior who would offer the promise of salvation to all mankind. Just...
by James Strauss |
Appreciation and reflection. That’s Christmas for those who have a body of life experience and some measure of intellect. Thinking about it all. Life itself, the meaning of existence and, in particular, our place in the social order we’ve fashioned for...
by James Strauss |
The biggest question of all for the people who voted for Donald Trump, and the very biggest chunk of evaluative data that you can use to figure out who you should have as friends and who you should not. The biggest question is “how could anyone, man or woman,...
by James Strauss |
Relief flooded through me. It was over. I’d survived another of what my team called ‘fire fights’. There was no way to adjust to the change from combat to whatever this was. It was still dark. My ears still rang. But with my night vision returning, I could vaguely see...
by James Strauss |
Two days to go. 88.67% done with the Christmas shopping and about 67% done with the preparations. I wonder what the percentages are for most other families. This season is both wonderful and trying because it is hard to beatifically celebrate with some sort of dignity...
by James Strauss |
The news came in waves that day and did not stop as night fell. Their parents were gone. The police had come and the drugs been found and the cuffs put on. Christine knew her parents would not be coming back for some time. They hadn’t been bad parents except when they...
by James Strauss |
The move was a long hard one. In training I’d literally run twenty miles with a forty-pound pack on my back carrying an M-14 and wearing a full helmet and liner. I had none of those things going down the ridge, in hopes of coming in behind whatever units were set up to ambush
by James Strauss |
Are we in the center of a Fish Ball? Ho-hum. We wait. Maybe it is just that America got bored. So everyone is waiting until the inauguration so that interest and entertainment can begin. Remember, we are not the far from the public rushing to big parks and meeting...
by James Strauss |
To arms. Now is the time. Not to fight but to get ready to fight. And you can’t fight with a protest sign, banner or a loud voice. America is a wonderful wonderland of legal weaponry. The right wing has assured that small arms would be available to almost...
by James Strauss |
How in hell he came to be lying in cloying dismal mud at the base of an extinct Hawaiian volcano eluded Arch Patton. He just lay there, trying to catch his breath…..
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by James Strauss |
Arch Patton DOWN IN THE VALLEY Chapter 2 By J. Strauss
by James Strauss |
Arch completely understood Virginia’s need to toss him from the room and get on her cell phone. The active career he’d only recently retired from demanded he understand and leave immediately after the short dinner and even shorter get together in her room……
by James Strauss |
Sounds of Silence Dateline: United States December 19, 2016 This night the electoral college of the United States of America redefines sanity, freedom and success in a country gone lame, as it begins to stagger into the new millennium, hurt but still there…....
by James Strauss |
The other side. My neighbor, a really great guy who is in the investment business, was walking his dog near my house yesterday afternoon between snow falls.
by James Strauss |
The other side. I was at the coffee shop yesterday when a retired doctor came in. He’s a really nice older man and we almost never talk. However, I am known for the Geneva Shore Report newspaper, so he thought it time to tell me about Donald Trump. He feels that...
by James Strauss |
I stared up at the unlikely and ungainly monster of a loud propeller-driven airship. The Skyraider didn’t look like it could stay in the air, but there it was, orbiting dependably..
by James Strauss |
Arch Patton Down in the Valley Chapter 4 by James Strauss Arch fought the chair, sounds of pain emanating from deep down in his chest. His left arm finally came loose but a three-foot section of wood remained attached to his hand by the hard driven nails....
by James Strauss |
Arch Patton DOWN IN THE VALLEY Chapter 5 By J. Strauss “What do you want?” the formerly dangerous man on the bed said, his voice imploring, extending his arms out before him with both palms turned upward in...
by James Strauss |
Arch Patton DOWN IN THE VALLEY Chapter 6 By J. Strauss “Where we goin’ boss?” Matisse yelled from the drivers seat, as Arch got into the old battered convertible. Matisse accelerated away so fast the huge single door on the passenger side slammed with the sound of...
by James Strauss |
Duplicity, it overwhelms us through and by the media, as the mass media continues to coddle the coming to America of those surviving great-grand children who escaped from Germany after the World War II to land in Antarctica or Argentina or somewhere. What duplicity?...
by James Strauss |
Tanzania. Three and a half million years ago. Archaeologists have found hominid footprints not much different from those humans today might have left, as they walked across a soft mud stretch of ground. Those footsteps in mud became stone, and then were buried under...
by James Strauss |
The Hertz counter was empty when Arch went in to get a car more fitting than Matisse’s Pontiac convertible. There were plenty of cars and Arch didn’t bother to try to negotiate rates. A hundred dollars a day for a Cadillac……
by James Strauss |
I finished my letter home, the light of dawn sufficient to allow me to see the paper almost as well as the lousy black ink from my cheap government ballpoint.
by James Strauss |
The rash guards weren’t so bad, Arch decided, wishing he had a vanity mirror to check himself out in. Like a wetsuit, but better because the thin elastic long sleeve top and bottoms held everything in without giving him a feeling of being compressed……..
by James Strauss |
There are a lot of people mad at me, and some filled with disdain, because I write on here from the heart about what I believe, and it is not what they believe, and others who are simply afraid that I will complicate my life with needless enemies and those seeking my...
by James Strauss |
Arch Patton DOWN IN THE VALLEY Chapter 9 By James Strauss The Humvee proved to be empty, an enlisted Marine wearing no rank exiting the vehicle as Matisse and Arch got in. The heavy armored door slammed shut and the driver took off. There was nobody else in the...
by James Strauss |
Go watch the movie about Jesse Owens running in the 1936 Olympics. It’s called “Race.” You will sit stunned. It was made long before the Trump thing happened. It’s downright eerie. The strange part is how they got the German Nazi part so down...
by James Strauss |
Dawn would not come. Again. A slight change in the dead blackness of lower jungle life was the only clue that dawn was in the offing. I looked at my combat watch only to realize that I could barely read it anymore.
by James Strauss |
What happened in this last election was a bit of manipulation and a whole lot of anger. And it’s all about the Browning 410 shotgun that my friend in Washington keeps in his back closet. My friend is a great artist who doesn’t know he’s a great...
by James Strauss |
Arch was on the beach across from Hanalei, kicking sand, and listening to a small battery powered radio belt out House of the Rising Sun, when his life came apart at the seams. Fired from the CIA for cause, again. Unable to pay for the room…….
by James Strauss |
Is the News declaring Merry Christmas? According to the same news that brought us all the fake news before this last election, preceded by huge loads of fake news about the wars we’ve been involved with lately, the message now is that Donald Trump will just be...
by James Strauss |
It wasn’t to be him or Arch Patton. It was only going to be him. Arch wasn’t a knuckle dragger and he’d never been one. You don’t fight a force of nature and when such a force materialized outside his room on the lanai the thing appeared…
by James Strauss |
“Stairway to Heaven?” Arch said, looking intently into Matisse’s eyes. “I don’t like the way you said that. What heaven or what hell are you talking about and what does it have to do with the word Haiku, General DeWare mentioned…..
by James Strauss |
I am trying to face into the storm, to sit on my metaphorical surfboard and stare out over the tops of smaller waves waiting for the big wave, hoping that the coming storm is not the storm of the century and the big wave is not a tsunami. I fight my basal desire to...
by James Strauss |
Holy Nights in the City of Denver, Colorado, The police there have been confiscating blankets from the homeless under a new law that allows them to take away everything homeless persons possess and destroy it. The new law is to prevent illegal camping inside the city...
by James Strauss |
To identify what’s wrong with conservatism and Republicanism – and now with so much of America as we are about to enter the Trump era – you don’t need high-blown theories or deep sociological analysis or surveys. The answer is as simple as it...
by James Strauss |
Arch searched the house. The dog paid close attention, but never moved from his sitting position in the small great room, as if his view of the sandy beach and pounding surf beyond was not to be surrendered. There was nobody in the house.
by James Strauss |
Arch and Matisse hiked the quarter mile back past Sunset Beach until they came to Ted’s Bakery. Ted Nakamura ran the place and he knew Matisse from way back, or so Matisse claimed………..
by James Strauss |
Peeling the duct tape from Virginia’s face was like peeling skin from the surface of a Kiwi fruit. Virginia said nothing. Her eyes spoke for her and there was as much warmth in them as there is warmth emanating from the bottom of blue glacier ice……
by James Strauss |
I helped a guy in Hawaii once. I was helping him run his little bitty but very upscale auto repair shop. He worked on cars I loved, like Ferrari and Porsche. I worked for free and I didn’t even have a car. This guy was a seemingly great expressive and...
by James Strauss |
Arch slept deeply for the first time since the classified file had appeared out of nowhere to give him his life back but also to offer him death once again, in a life controlled by unaccountable serendipity. He awoke next to the woman who lay just like he’d left her many hours before, with Harpo the Dingo lying across her feet…..
by James Strauss |
Why did we, as a country, choose to ‘toy with the system in here in America? What did we do when we made that decision? What will be the result of sweeping changes that are now going to reverberate back and forth across the country and then the world?
by James Strauss |
It is always interesting when people reveal their true underlying belief system on social media. There is a coldness that lays there dormant in so many human beings. Is it better that they normally disguise it or is it better if it is revealed to everyone around?...
by James Strauss |
You simply must go back and read and study some history if you want to understand the damage potentially coming to the world when Trump takes office. The wording of his comments and those of his awful appointed officials is the same as in Germany in the early 30s....
by James Strauss |
Arch waited, backing up slowly each time he was sucked toward the cloying grasp of a swelling wave about to break. He had to get it right. He picked up a slight ‘crumping’ sound that was different from what he’d been hearing, as the waves broke in front of him, one after another without let up
by James Strauss |
My life in the America I have known will not be going on for too much longer. Oh, I’ll still be alive, for the most part, but the America that so admired and loved John Glenn and then mostly voted for Donald Trump shows the underpinnings of a place I am about to...
by James Strauss |
Well, it’s pretty much certain now that the new administration coming in will be stacked with climate change deniers and their Fairy Dust Anyone remember back when they had smog alert days in some of our major cities and all that? I don’t know what to...
by James Strauss |
Why do I have to be afraid of Christians? Because of history. Because life is becoming steeped in a headlong pursuit of going back in history. Because preachers at churches across the land are instructing their flocks to treat non-believers as lepers and those lepers...
by James Strauss |
Somehow Amelia Earhart was a name that appeared to have some importance in Arch’s life. Once back inside Cynthia’s home Arch spread the file out so it could dry completely, and also to give him time to lay out a rough plan of escape from the island….
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