Coronavirus (COVID19) Reflection #11
Reflections on the Coronavirus (COVID19) Pandemic March 25, 2020 How tough are you? Oh, not the Harley Davidson, Sylvester Stallone or even Bruce Willis kind of tough. I am writing about how tough you may or may not be when the chips are down. When the job is gone, as...
Coronavirus (COVID19) Reflection #10
Reflections on the Coronavirus (COVID19) Pandemic Dateline: Lake Geneva, Wi March 24, 2020 Who is in your life, and why is that seemingly strange question important right now? I received an extremely complimentary call last night from a rather important person living...
Coronavirus (COVID19), Reflection #9
Coronavirus (COVID19 Reflection #9 March 23, 2020 Neither you, nor I, created this Coronavirus situation, or the result of being grounded to our homes. And, it doesn’t matter. What matters is what we do in response to these situations. Staying at home, aside...
Coronavirus (COVID19) Reflection #8
Coronavirus (COVID19) Reflection #8 SOCIAL DISTANCING A Short dissertation today Why it can’t work. Social distancing can work to assure that human to human transfers of all manner of communicable ills is not spread. That part of disease resolution is patently...
Coronavirus (COVID19) Reflections #7
Coronavirus (COVID19) Reflection #7 March 21, 2020 Can you hear the thunder? A distant thunderstorm. is on the horizon of America, but most American’s are deaf to its approach. The storm is one of violent cells, each with the potential to destroy vast segments...
Coronavirus (COVID19) Reflection #6
Reflections on the Coronavirus (COVID19) Pandemic,, March 20, 2020 “Do you hear the people sing…” What is happening to the United States under the pretense of a grand ‘zombie’ sort of unstoppable and super deadly disease is hard to...
Coronavirus (COVID19) Reflection #5
Coronavirus (COVID19), Reflection March 21 Dateline: Lake Geneva, WI It’s all over the place if you are paying attention. I went to the Sentry Grocery Store today and passed through the fruit area. Yesterday, Honey Dew melons were on sale; 2 for $5.00. I...
Coronavirus (COVID19) Reflection #4
Reflections on the Coronavirus (COVID19) March 21, 2020 Adapt. The most fundamental and nearly unspoken primary asset and philosophy of the United States Marine Corps, and one I found to be the only place to go, when I was a Marine in combat, to give me any hope of...
Coronavirus (COVID19) Reflection #3
Reflections on the Coronavirus (Covid19) March 20, 2020 I am coming to hate them. I never hated them before, not any of them. Oh, I have not cared from some of the Fox commentators but I never thought much about the anchors. Now I am thinking about them, and not just...
Coronavirus (COVID19) Reflection #2
COVID19 To be made in what image? To be reproduced at who’s direction? The nation is being brought to its knees and the causal factor is being touted as this new virus. But is that it? This nation, if it goes to sleep for the next two to three months, will never...
Reflections on the Coronavirus (COVID19)
Coronavirus (Covid19) March 18, 2020 It becomes ever more draconian, regardless of statistics seeming to indicate that this new virus is much like old ones when it comes to making people very ill or killing them. Right now, as I write this, one of the major leaders of...
The Duke, Part Seven
THE DUKE Part VII Jimmy and Darren sat in dejection on the curb in front of the Moana Hotel in downtown Waikiki. Neither Judy nor Alice had come back to the front part of the closed-off rear bar area of the lobby where Elvis was filming. Star Black had been let...
Sitting On The Bottom, Looking Down
Dateline: March 16, 2020 Lake Geneva WI Sitting on the Bottom and Looking Down. There is only one direction to go from that orientation. That light up there, when one can take one’s eyes off where they’ve been directed to go by nearly everyone, is the...
The Duke, Part Six
THE DUKE Part Six Sunday dinner at the Cannon Club was the big event of the week. Darren went in early, more to figure out how to accommodate, or at least survive, the rage Chef Wu would be expressing, than anything else. There was always cleaning to be done so...
THE CAT, Chapter XXV
The raft came in toward the river bank hard and fast, faster than the boy, or anyone on the raft, except for the cat, was ready for. Hasti leaped from the bow of the raft just as it struck one of the larger rocks sticking up just above the water, its revealed size...
The Duke, Part Five
THE DUKE Part V There was only one person sitting in the room when Darren and Jimmy entered from the hall. Jimmy brushed against a lamp and had to settle it back on its table with both hands shaking in nervous anticipation about what he had glimpsed. A man sat at the...
The Duke, Part Four
The Duke Part IV Darren was as little prepared for the awesomely frightening nuclear display as Jimmy had been. Star Black had actually taken it best, although her comment when they got down from the mountain neither understood “I don’t understand what’s such a big...
The Trevi Fountain, Arch Patton Short Story
The day was a bad one and Arch knew it could only get worse. He and his broken-down alcoholic and hungover partner, assigned at the last minute from supposedly experienced embassy staff, had been following the ‘target’ all morning. The woman wasn’t a target for any...
The Duke, Part Three
THE DUKE Part III Darren and Jimmy never climbed Diamond Head during the week, as there was simply too much else to do, what with school, homework and real work, but weekends were special. A small Army facility was located deep down in the bowl of Diamond Head crater...
The Duke, Part Two
THE DUKE Part II Shimmying is what Jimmie called it. Darren slowly worked his way across the cinder block wide expanse of stone they called the anvil. Diamond Head. The mountain. A small stretch of it required passing across a twenty-foot section of stone that...
The Duke, Part One
THE DUKE A Novella by James Strauss Darren worked every Saturday morning at the Cannon Club to clean the place for evening dinner. The Officer’s Club was not large so he was the only busboy, just as he’d been the only slop boy the year before. The promotion had not...
THE CAT, Chapter XXIV
When Althesis and his men were gone, Tinda departed. The cat came to its feet as he left. Both Cetan and the boy nervously watched, as the cat followed the departing sub-chief for a few man lengths before turning to look back at them. Hasti’s head swung slowly...
THE TWENTY-NINTH DAY, SECOND PART, 30 Days Has September
No fewer than fifty Marines worked to drag the downed trees and jungle foliage up to the end of the bridge, and then secure it to the structure using the ropes that had been tied to make a cargo net for unloading the last resupply chopper and getting the supplies...
THE TWENTY-NINTH DAY, 30 Days Has September
I lay in the muck of oozing mud seeping slowly up through the packed, cracked, and broken debris of jungle and aging decay. The smell was of the damaged sort I’d come to know as my home away from home down inside the A Shau Valley expanse. I wondered if the smell...
The Rabbit, A Harvey Short Story
THE RABBIT Back over one shoulder, a crouching human could be seen creeping through the wet soggy grass that led up to the edge of the forest. Harvey waited, standing upright, shifting his gaze from the ungainly man to the forest and back. He turned his head each...
Friends and Friendship, Editorial by James Strauss
FRIENDS OF THE FRIENDLESS OPINION/EDITORIAL from my Newspaper, The Geneva Shore Report, January 8, 2020 There was once a bit of humor portrayed by two hoboes talking to one another on a park bench. They were having one of those not-uncommon hobo conversations about...
Intellect, Editorial from the Geneva Shore Report
OPINION/EDITORIAL INTELLECT First published in the Geneva Shore Report, January 1, 2020: INTELLECT Your definition is as good as anybody else’s definition of that word. What does it really mean to be smart, relative to other humans or even beings alive on this...
Wonderful Fans and The Funding Of This Journey
This article is a THANK YOU to all of my wonderful ‘Fans’ and an introduction to something new. For the past 8 years, I have been posting my writing as chapters are completed, along with Short Stories and Poems. After the books are completed and...
TWENTY-EIGHTH NIGHT, THIRD PART, 30 Days Has September
Whole Man and his A-6 Intruder were gone, and the jungle below was silent, as well as the drums mounted on what was left of the upper lip of the cliff. The lack of the mind-numbing drumbeats was balanced by the emptiness I felt over losing what air support we’d had...
THE CAT, Chapter XXIII
The cat moved again, this time backing slowly into the heavier brush until fully concealed. The boy watched Hasti move, so fluidly and deliberately that, with the warriors attempting to come down the path, as ordered by their leaders, it gave every appearance that...
THE CAT, Chapter XXII
The cat returned, not moving back along the trails and paths he used to make his journey to the very edge of his territory. He didn’t think about that part of his decision to return to where the humans were putting together what he knew would be his large single meal...
THE TWENTY-EIGHTH NIGHT, SECOND PART, 30 Days Has September
I slipped McInerney’s flashlight into my right side pocket, its end sticking out a bit and rapping back and forth against the hard leather of my Colt .45 holster. “Fusner,” I whispered, turning back toward the foxhole I’d left, but making no move to retreat...
THE CAT, Chapter XXI
The cat moved through the forest underbrush, slipping from side to side, making sure his front paws gentled down instead of solidly confronted the padded forest mat of long-accumulated and partially rotted vegetation. The beaten course of travel the intruding group of...
TWENTY-EIGHTH NIGHT, 30 Days Has September
The six of us moved on our bellies, out toward the jumbled remains in the killing field of the mudflat, as one, without any signal. The ability of Marines in combat to need a whole lot fewer signals and orders than the guys doing all the training back home thought...
THE TWENTY-EIGHTH DAY, THIRD PART, 30 Days has September
Puff came in for the third time, orbiting Hill 975 and pouring what seemed to look like liquid fire into the mountain, while it sounded for all the world like the place was being chewed up with a giant out of control chainsaw. The way the big cargo plane tilted and...
THE CAT, Chapter XX
THE CAT Chapter XX The boy lay awake in the night, listening to the slight changes of small jungle sounds, as they worked their way through the heavy material to arrive at the side of the river where they were encamped. The warrior was asleep. The boy knew that...
TWENTY-EIGHTH DAY, SECOND PART, 30 Days Has September
I slept in my scooped out small spot atop the mud, dug down through the normal couple of feet of debris that covered those areas of the jungle not occupied by bamboo groves, trees, lianas and tubers, not to mention the vast dense thickets of ferns and other...
GUANTANAMERA, an Arch Patton Episode
Guantanamera Short Story by James Strauss The winds off of Lake Eerie blew cold and hard through the streets of downtown Buffalo. New York was cold and damp in winter, although Arch Patton had never been apprised of that kind of weather occurring in the great...
TWENTY-EIGHTH DAY, 30 Days Has September
The engagement with the enemy began while it was still full dark. The Ontos fired into the general area near the western wall at its base and flung flechettes across the open exposed area in front of it. With the artillery still coming in, responding to successive...
I Did The Thing… Vietnam
I did the thing in a country called Vietnam. I went on from there to have a fairly wild and messy but distinguished career in the CIA. How come, after all that, and publishing my story in books and more, I am expected on such social communication sites like this, to...
Yakuza, Chapter XXII
YAKUZA Chapter XXII A big gruff looking man in full Navy uniform stepped between members of Delta Force gathered together at the top of the gantry. “I guess your job, whatever the hell it...
The Pride Of The Small Lion
THE SMALL LION Even though the humans gave him the name Bentley, the small lion didn’t know he was a pet and would have resorted to almost any act in order to prove that being a pet was not something he found to be acceptable. In point of fact, he had his own pet,...
Yakuza, Chapter XXI
Yakuza Chapter XXI Lauren, in front of his ‘amigos,’ hit the upper Lido deck cabin door running, changed course slightly with the way the bridge attached to the top of the stairs, and then went through the deck hatch at a dead sprint, his small but powerful compact...
Yakuza, Chapter XX
YAKUZA CHAPTER XX The ship glided across the small chop inside the reef. Lauren watched swimmers along the shallow waters of the pristine sandy beach take note. Shapiro pushed a button and a shrill howling began to wail forth from outside speakers. The ship continued...
Hard Rain, Reflection of Life
Hard Rain. Does it cleanse? Does it cause more damage than it takes care of by providing plants and animals with plenty of pure freshwater? Does it flood and cause disease, famine and even death? Water coming down from the sky is almost an allegory for life itself....
The Forest of Lost Reality, an Editorial
Forest of Lost Reality An Editorial from the Geneva Shore Report What has happened to explain this latest emotional iteration of social unrest that has been created by opinions about current circumstances rather than likely reality? I write about ‘likely reality’...
Yakuza, Chapter XIX
YAKUZA CHAPTER XIX The ship accelerated at a furious rate with the U.S. destroyer Chaffee falling in behind it, no doubt running at flank speed. Lauren eased his way and then inserted himself into the bolstered chair next to where Shapiro stood on his own. The...
Yakuza, Chapter XVIII
Yakuza Chapter XVIII The .410 bird shot load blasted out of the revolver barrel at a thousand feet per second, sending most of its tiny shotgun load into Ashton’s right foot. The man screamed before going down in a heap to the deck, both hands moving defensively to...
Yakuza, Chapter XVII
Yakuza Chapter XVII Lauren felt himself being trundled along through the bowels of the ship, carried by three men holding his ankles, his waist and one cradling his neck. The pain from the effects of the electric stun gun was excruciating, but his inability to get a...
The Dorchester Hotel and a Shave…
The Dorchester Hotel, London An Arch Patton Short Story This is the hotel I used in Europe as a sort of a hideaway, heal up joint, and spa to recover from missions. It is very expensive now and was even more so back when I was an active intelligence agent in the...
In The Name Of The Father..
In the name of the Father… a prayer. A prayer that is as endemic to the Catholic Church as the existence and continuance of the pope. “Give us this day our daily bread; and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us;” What...
Yakuza, Chapter XVI
YAKUZA CHAPTER XVI “Fuentes,” Lauren said the captain’s name, looking at the envelope of documents with the Letter of Marque on top, but making no move to take possession of it. He had the vague feeling he wasn’t supposed to actually possess it yet, or if ever,...
Yakuza, Chapter XV
YAKUZA Chapter XV Lauren surfaced in the rolling roiling and broken waters of the Molokai Express, the powerful vessel above him allowing only the bright glow of reflected light to appear along under it’s rising and falling twin hulls. Both ends of the vessel, rising...
YAKUZA, Chapter XIV
The Navatek ripped through the torn sea at high speed; its passengers isolated twenty feet above the wild close combat of ten-foot cross-swells fighting it out for dominance. The Molokai Express was actively at its most dangerous, as offshore winds were reaching...
Yakuza, Chapter XIII
YAKUZA Chapter XIII None of the men, sitting sprawled around the corner of the great cabin, said anything for almost a full minute following Ashton’s stunning comment and Yee’s accurate analysis of it. Lauren was the first to speak. He did so by whispering a...Subscribe to FROM THE WILDERNESS
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