Thoughts Of The Day

When one looks at horror X (The Homodor, The Holocaust, The Killing Fields, 9/11, etc) one finds that the perpetrators believe they are the good people with their victims and opponents being evil.  I won't quote Santayana (we ALL know the quote) but I will say this, those who have no memory of history are highly sought by those who value political power.  Some people want to behave as masters but don't want to identified as such.  The villains in Nightmare believe they're the heroes.

Putting a happy face on evil (like advocating "Democratic Socialism") doesn't make it less evil.  Evil remains evil, no amount of force (such as that wielded by Scientology) can ever change that fact.

Sacred Cows should be machine gunned.

An unchosen characteristic, such as race or gender, should be irrelevant in politics and in business.

A Scene From A Work In Progress

This is a scene from a novel I'm currently working on:

Carl Grant had arrived on Freya and checked into a hotel in one of the suburbs of Landfall..  But he had to wait a full local day for the scheduled meeting with the defense secretary as all local government offices were closed on what would have been a normal business day. 

Why was this?

Grant left the hotel early for the meeting and hailed one of the taxicabs waiting at the cab  stand.  It was a Ford Galaxy sedan that had seen service as a police car and was now painted in the company colors of red and white.  The driver appeared to be entering middle age with glasses, a mustache, and a fringe of blond hair.  And he wore his old style M1911A1 in a shoulder holster.

The driver asked a question.

“Where to, sir?”

“The Planetary Government Center in Landfall.”

“There are multiple buildings on the site,” said the driver, “so what department are you visiting?”

Grant answered.

“The Department of Planetary Security.”

“Okay.”

The driver switched on the meter and electric motors hummed as the cab pulled away from the hotel.  But something about the way the driver responded to him seemed a bit odd to Grant.  It was as if he were speaking with a long term veteran soldier.

 “Is there a problem?”  He asked the driver.

“No sir, it’s just that the Founders wanted to call it the War Department, but the groundhogs wouldn’t allow it.”

Grant responded.

“The Federation authorities?” 

“Yes.”  The driver replied.

And then the driver asked his own question.

“Are you a writer, sir?”

“Yes.”  He replied.  “Of military theory for the most part, of works such as On War by Clausewitz.”

The driver’s response was a surprise to him.

“Vom Kriege by General Karl Maria Von Clausewitz.”  He said.  “I tried several times to read the complete Standard English edition and the damned thing always put me to sleep.”

“Well military theory is not for everyone.”  Grant curtly replied.

The driver quickly and clearly responded.

“The thing is that Clausewitz began to write at a time when Kant was barely cold in the ground and Hegel had just started his emissions.  At that time the intellectual culture in Germany was already in deep trouble with clarity and brevity already going out of style.   

Grant had not expected a lecture on intellectual history from a common working man.

But he responded.

“I wrote a book on military doctrine titled Future Forces: Organization and Doctrine.”

“I’ve read it.”  Said the driver.

“So how do you feel about it?”

“I think Colonel Simmons wrote a fairly good review of it.  He clearly understood how the citizens out here on the colony worlds would respond to an invasion by your Future Force but didn’t explain the why...”

Grant sneered.

“Simmons...that moron...”

The driver solidly interrupted the sneer

“I served with him when he was a battalion commander in Afghanistan--and we don’t give out Sky Blue Berets as supermarket promotional items--even to West Point graduates.”

“So you were in the Quarantine Force and then retired out here?”

“No.”  The driver replied.  “I enlisted here and served on Earth.”

“Why?”

The driver smiled before answering.

“Because that’s where the enemy combatants are.”

Grant thought for a moment and then spoke again.

“So you feel that the Quarantine Force are all true warriors?”

“Hell no!’  The driver suddenly snapped back.  “The goal of every warrior is to impose his will upon his victims.  And our mission in the Quarantine Force is to hunt down and kill warriors.”

Present tense.  Grant thought.  He spoke with hostility in the present tense.

Grant was now concerned for his own safety.

Is there a round in the chamber of his gun?

The cab then entered the main drive of the Planetary Government Center and stopped at the DPS Building.  Grant paid the fare in cash and without a gratuity.

Step Back - Part 18

The Eagle was under spin as Judith Grant was being wheeled by a medical assistant into the main shipboard mess. On this morning she would eat a solid breakfast for the first time since she was brought on board.

She was wheeled up to the head table and to a position to the left of the head of the table. Doctor Boatman sat down on the opposite side of her. The chair at the head of the table remained empty.

Alice looked at the empty chair for a moment and spoke.

“He’s usually early for breakfast.” She said.

“Who is?” Asked Judith.

“Dad.” She replied.

At that moment Evelyn Boatman came to the table . In his hands were a fully loaded plate, a cup of coffee and the eating utensils.

Alice spoke up.

“Dad, you don’t have to go through the line like everyone else!”

“Of curse I do,” he replied, “As the mission commander I have to set a good example.”

“It’s not that!” Said Alice. “It’s not that at all! You’re still recovering from that gunshot wound and you still need to take it easy.”

“Yes, Doctor Boatman.” He said.

Judith quietly stared at the two. Her mind saw a that the doctor was obviously older but she spoke to a boy her age as if he were her father.

“I don’t understand.” She said.

Evelyn replied.

“Miss Grant, you are still recovering from that fall you took while leaving your father’s house. Try to remember farther back. What was reported about my apparent youthful state?”

Then she remembered and replied.

“That you’ve underwent a treatment that recreates your mind in a newly grown body.”

“Yes.” He said. “And you were in a very bad condition when you were brought aboard, Doctor Boatman was actually prepping to do the procedure on you.”

“Yes.” Said Doctor Boatman.

“You were?” Said Judith.

“Yes,” Doctor Boatman replied, “The recording of the memories we could have done right away, but it would take about two standard years to grow a new body. And the new body would be at the equivalent age of twelve standard years.”

“And then comes the fun part.” Said Evelyn.

“The fun part?” Said Judith.

“Waking up.” He replied. “It takes time for the conscious mind to learn how to speak again and use the new body. So much so that some people have opted to not do the procedure for a second time.”

“Unfortunately yes.” Said Alice.

She then looked down on her father’s plate. It was covered with scrambled eggs with cheese sauce, four sausage links, and hash brown potatoes.

“Dad. How many times have I told you to back off on the fats? There’s at least four eggs on that plate!”

“I’m a growing boy.” He replied with a smile.

Judith got the joke and keeled over in laughter.

If there was actually such a thing as midnight oil they would be burning large quantities of it at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. In one of the assembly halls two Soviet bureaucrats who were administrators at the cosmodrome were watching as the nuclear payload was being attached to the Proton launcher.

“I still think we should send a properly manned Soyuz Capsule for a contact mission.” Said the senior administrator.

“The Proton is not a man rated launcher.” Said the second.

“Neither was the R-7 when we sent up Gagarin.”

The second administrator looked at the first

“So who would you send up?” He said.

“Leonov as the mission commander, and there would be no shortage of volunteers for the second seat.”

The second administrator nodded.

“So write up your suggestion.” He said.

“I did.” The senior replied. “There’s been no reply, yet.”

The second administrator thought he had better connections within the party apparatus, and it was at this time he decided to write his own paper on the subject.

At the base in Nevada a delegation from Israel, including the Netanyahu Brothers, were watching a documentary. Onscreen a middle aged civilian man with an obvious military bearing, the Presidential Chief of Staff Allen Keller, was being escorted to a grey painted advanced helicopter on the flight deck of a supercarrier. The number 75 painted in white was clearly visible on the island of the ship.

“What ship was this?” Yoni asked.

An uptime NCO, a navy chief, answered.

“The U.S.S. Harry S. Truman, sir.”

Yoni nodded.

Once the helicopter lifted off Keller spoke to the pilot over the intercom.

“Lieutenant?” He practically shouted over the noise of the main rotor. “How far east can we go?”

“Did you want to see Jerusalem, sir?” The pilot replied.

“Yes!” Keller shouted.

“Me too!” The pilot shouted back.

Yoni had another question.

“What type of helicopter was that?”

“A Sikorsky SH-60 Seahawk, sir.”

The Seahawk flew over the beachhead set up by the Marines as one of the evacuation points for the survivors. The pilot had chosen to fly low as he approached the hills to avoid hostile MANPAD missile fire.

And then they saw it.

In the final hours of the Six-Day War in 1967 the Chief Rabbi of the IDF had desperately searched for some army engineers and some explosives. He wanted to remove the abomination, the Al Aqsa mosque, that the Arabs had built on the Temple Mount.

Forty five years and a few months later, the wish was finally granted.

The abomination was gone. The Temple Mount was for all practical purposes cleared of all but the smallest pieces of stone. Of the city of Jerusalem all that remained was ashes and rubble. There were no living things, human, plant or animal, to be seen.

“I think we've seen enough, Lieutenant.” Keller shouted.

“Aye, aye, sir!” The pilot replied.

The Seahawk turned back toward the beachhead.

Step Back, part 9

In a walnut paneled boardroom on the penthouse level of a palatial hotel off of Central Park in New York a meeting was being held.  The white haired man at the head of the table spoke to the obviously subordinate middle aged man at the far end.

“So Mr. Black, what happened in Minneapolis?”

“Sir, the two local police officers had intercepted the subject before our people could obtain him.”

“And how was it that our people in Minneapolis could not obtain the subject in accordance to the plan?”

“Sir, his trip to the White Castle in North East Minneapolis was completely unexpected.  It was assumed by our people that he would take his lunch beak at an...um...better restaurant.”

The man at the head of the table stared at Black for five seconds before responding.

“Of course,” he said, “and where is the subject now?”

Black looked at his notes before answering.

“He was taken back to their base in Nevada, we believe he is still there.”

“And how are preparations for another attempt to obtain the subject at another location?”

“Sir, as far as we know his schedule has been cancelled until further notice.”

The man at the head of the table paused again before responding.

“This is unacceptable.”  He said.

All Mr. Black could do was nod in agreement.

Above the Earth the starship Eagle had dropped to a slightly closer orbit to Earth.  The result was that it would slowly creep forward in position with respect to the Earth’s surface.  Earlier in the week it allowed the ship to fire on targets in Nigeria.  Now it was time to operate in Indochina.

On the way up to the command deck Evelyn Boatman had chatted with Robert Heinlein.

“So you are recovering from that gunshot?”  Said Heinlein.

“Only so, sir.”  Boatman replied.  “On the ground I would still be stuck in a wheelchair.  Alice believes that I would heal faster in free fall or under spin on board the Eagle.”

“I’m sorry,” said Heinlein, “Alice?”

“The ship’s surgeon, sir.  I adopted her two incarnations ago.”

“Oh...”

Once everyone was strapped in on the command deck the order was given to proceed.

The secondary mission was to bombard targets on the ground in Indochina.  This included trucks, bridges, and other logistical facilities on the Ho Chi Mihn Trail in Laos and Cambodia, as well as tanks, artillery pieces, barracks, warehousers, aircraft and their bases, and anti-aircraft missile sites in North Vietnam proper.  And finally the port and railroad facilities at Haipong and Hanoi.  As there was an unlimited supply of coherent light available for the operation there was no effort made to distinguish decoys from real objects on the ground.

The primary mission was to rescue prisoners of war being held in North Vietnam.  For this mission four of the five Ranger platoons of the reinforced company embanked on the Eagle would be dropped on the POW camps.  Once the areas were secured larger landers would be brought in to evacuate the inmates.

The initial laser strikes would be on fighter bases and SAM sites followed by supporting strikes at the POW camps.

On the command deck one of the fire control techs spoke up.

“Sir, we have an American aircraft in the zone, it appears to be a SR-71 recon bird, I’ve marked it as a don’t shoot.”

The Allied Command in Vietnam was warned that a major operation would be carried out tonight and that aircraft should stay out of Northern airspace.

“Well done,” said Commander Boatman, “you may proceed.”

The American Blackbird reconnaissance aircraft was approaching Hanoi when the operation began.  Suddenly the night sky was lit up by the laser strikes.  Each laser beam appearing like a razor straight bolt of lightening that suddenly appeared and vanished.

“Holy shit!”  Said the pilot.  “Are you seeing this?”

The Navigator/Recon Systems officer in the back seat looked out the port side window.

“Wow.”  He replied.

“I’m aborting the mission.”

“Roger that.”

In the skies over North Vietnam the four platoon landers approached their targets.  Each lander was twice the size of a C-5A Galaxy tactical transport aircraft.  For the night’s mission each Ranger platoon would be split into one or two squad groups.  It was deemed essential that all prisoners be rescued on this night.

In the Uptimer view Communism was a predatory ideology.  And when attacked the adherents of the doctrine were expected to respond as predatory animals under attack.  They were expected to violently lash out at any target within their reach such as prisoners of war.  This was pointed out as an objection when the original concept of attacking the Ho Chi Mihn Trail by laser fire was proposed.

Nathan Benson would lead the Rangers from the front on this drop.  In his original incarnation he served as a Ranger officer and ultimately retired as a Colonel.  When the mission to explore the Solar System after the passage of a neutron star was initially proposed he would volunteer to be incarnated and lead the reinforced Ranger company with the rank of Major on the mission. 

To any civilian observer the second incarnation of Nathan Benson looked like an 18 year old boy straight out of high school.  This led to no end of confusion on the part of the groundhogs living at the present time.

The navy chief acting as jumpmaster spoke up on the command channel.

“We are approaching jump zone Alpha. Alpha Group stand up!”

Two squads of the first platoon and part of the command group, a total of 30 Rangers, stood up.  As each fully suited Ranger had a mass of about a ton each the movement could be felt by everyone aboard the lander. 

“Hook up!”

Each of the Rangers hooked up the static lines, which would open their main parachutes after they jumped out.

“Thirty seconds to drop!”

Ahead of the Rangers two hatches opened.  The internal hatch which sealed the pressurized compartment from the outside and the rear ramp of the lander. 

The jumpmaster now performed the countdown to the drop.

“...three, two, one, jump!”

Major Benson was the first to step into the night sky over Hanoi.

Jerusalem

The following is part of an incomplete manuscript for a novel in progress:

The jolt of the landing gear woke me up.

I was the sole civilian aboard an Air Force C-17 Globemaster III transport with a load of Marine reservists and several pallets of ground crew gear for a Marine Corps Harrier-II squadron.

And if the jolt of landing at Gibraltar had not awakened me, the half-company strength chorus of “HOORAH” would have.

Regular or Reservist, a Marine is a Marine.

The Air Force pilot, of course, had to make her customary announcement on the aircraft’s speaker system.

“Ladies and gentlemen, we have arrived at the British overseas territory of Gibraltar and will be disembarking as soon as possible.  And thank you for flying Air Globemaster.”

Male or Female, an Air Force pilot has the ego and sense of humor of an Air Force pilot.

I thanked the pilot and the flight crew for their utterly boring display of professional competence.  Believe me, in old school aerodynamic aviation back on Earth in those days, a boring flight was a really, really, really good flight.  And they got the joke.

After stroking the egos of the Air Force folks I met the head of British Forces for Gibraltar at the forward door of the aircraft.

Yes, was a civilian, but I did return the salute, it would have been rude for me not to, I thought at the time. 

Okay, I admit it, it was an old reflex.

I will leave the argument over whether or not an executive order from President March constituted a proper commission to run a military operation to the professional historians.

So how did the British get involved in the rescue expedition?

It’s a long story.

Apparently during her weekly chat with the Prime Minister, a fellow from the Labour Party at the time, Her Majesty the Queen very clearly expressed her distress about the French attack on the State of Israel.  She couldn’t directly issue a command to the current PM, but she did ask him if something could be done about it.

The sitting PM said that he would look into it.

Unfortunately, the line taken by Labour Party at the time was that former President Null’s refusal to relinquish the office was legitimate due the claim of having a majority of the votes cast in the election.

In order for the Labour Party to do so they had to ignore the fact that many of those votes, in places like Chicago and other strongholds of the other party, were attributed to persons who were already dead or did not otherwise exist.

And of course they had to completely ignore the actual rules laid out in our actual Constitution and the actual outcome of the actual vote of the actually existing Electoral College.  

And on top of this the now former President Null, now known as the Big Zero, had openly stated his support for the destruction of the State of Israel.

Again, I will leave the question of whether the Zero’s  position on this was due to his well documented tendency towards moral nihilism -- or his other well documented tendency towards politically felliating his Muslim supporters -- to the professional historians.

In the meantime the sitting Prime Minister of the United Kingdom definitely had a problem.

And because I was in the process of organizing the evacuation of Israel I caught the phone call.

“Tom,” I said to the PM, “the first thing you need to do is to withdraw your government’s recognition of the Zero and his crew.”

“That will be difficult.”  The PM replied.

“But not impossible.”  I said.

I thought for a moment. 

Then I resumed the conversation.

“What I would suggest is that you read to everyone in the House the section of our Constitution that governs the rules for our presidential elections, and particular you’ll need to explain how the Electoral College works and why it was adopted.  That should get everyone but the hardcore Marxists to go along with the change in policy.”

“But,” replied the PM, “there will be those who will claim that your Electoral College is undemocratic.”

Never mind all of the dead and otherwise nonexistent voters in Chicago and the other urban cesspits ruled by the other party.

“Tom, let me ask this question.”  I said.  “Does Her Majesty’s Government want to deal with an American federal government that is subject to a written supreme law?  Or do you want to deal with an unrestrained mob state which was empowered by false votes and subject only to the will of the leader?”

There was silence on the phone line. 

I broke the silence.

“The last time you had to deal with that was called World War Two.”  I said.  “And I can’t imagine that Her Majesty, or any other remaining veteran of that conflict, would want to see that happen again.  Especially with nukes.”

“No.”  Said the PM.  “Of course not.”

And with that I was going to let the PM deal with his own internal political issues.

I moved on to the next subject.

“The other problem is the question what you’re going to send on this mission.”  I said.  “If I recall correctly, you’re down to one escort carrier in commission, and you don’t even have a proper air group for it.”

Of the three Invincible class carriers built for the Royal Navy only the Illustrious was still in commission.  The Ark Royal was in storage awaiting disposal, and the lead ship of the class had already been stripped of useful parts and sold for scrap.

On top of this all of the Harrier jets built for their Navy and Air Force had been retired and placed in storage due to cuts in the British defense budget.

To an outside observer like myself it would appear that the worst enemy of the British Armed Forces was the British politician.

 I spoke again.

“Quite frankly, sir, I wouldn’t send the Illustrious out without at least a squadron of Harriers from our Marine Corps.”

“We would appreciate that, sir.”  Said the Prime Minister.

That caught me by surprise.

“Just a second, sir.”  I responded.  “I need to make a note.”

On a notepad I wrote a reminder to myself to talk about this to the Marine Corps liaison officer in our temporary headquarters in Omaha.
   
[Days later on the USS Harry S. Truman (CVN75)]

A master chief led me out across the flight deck to the Seahawk helicopter.  The Navy has strict rules that even very important people like myself have to follow.  And I had absolutely no desire to be decapitated by a main rotor or generally shredded by a tail rotor. 

Once I was aboard and my headset was plugged into the intercom, the Seahawk lifted off from the deck of the Truman and flew east towards the remains of the State of Israel.

As soon as I thought it was safe I spoke to the pilot over the intercom.

“ Lieutenant?”   I practically shouted over the noise of the main rotor.  “ How far east can we go?”

“ Did you want to see Jerusalem, sir?”   He replied.

“ Yes!”   I shouted.

“ Me too!”   He shouted back.

The Seahawk flew over the beachhead set up by the Marines as one of the evacuation points for the survivors.  The pilot chose to fly low as he approached the hills to avoid hostile MANPAD missile fire from the damned Arabs.

And then we saw it.

In the final hours of the Six-Day War in 1967 the Chief Rabbi of the IDF desperately searched for some engineers and some explosives.  He wanted to remove the abomination, the Al Aqsa mosque, that the Arabs had built on the Temple Mount.

Forty five years and a few months later, his wish was granted.

The abomination was gone.  The Temple Mount was for all practical purposes cleared of all but the smallest pieces of stone. 

Of the city of Jerusalem all that remained was ashes and rubble.  There were no living things, plant or animal, to be seen.

“ I think we've seen enough, Lieutenant.”   I shouted.

“ Aye, aye, sir!”   He replied.

He turned the Seahawk back toward the beachhead.

Update

I'm still working on writing a novel.  I'm a bit over 27,000 words of the minimum word count of 100,000.

In the event that I publish initially or only on Amazon Kindle I've already worked out a cover for it.

The image is from a photograph of silent film actress Louise Brooks.  So the image shoud be in the public domain.

Thought For The Day

As part of my project to write a military science fiction novel I'm rereading Dorsai(!) by Gordon R. Dickson. Quite frankly I'm astounded as to how this piece of literary excrement was ever published. But I will finish reading it because I'm basing some of the bad guys on the Dorsai mercenaries.