Charles Sheehan-Miles

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Wednesday Hero - PFC Joseph Allen Jeffries
2007-05-23 13:21:00
Pfc. Joseph Allen Jeff ries 21 years old from Beaverton, Oregon Army Reserve’s 320th Psychological Operations Company May 29, 2004  Below is all the information that could be found on Pfc. Joseph Jeffries. Pfc. Jeffries was killed with two fellow soldiers, Capt. Daniel W. Eggers and Sgt. 1st Class Robert J. Mogensen, and an unnamed sailor, when their vehicle drove over an IED in Kandahar, Afghanistan. All four service members were attached to the Combined Joint Special Operations Task Force – Afghanistan. He is survived by his wife, Betsy, and his parents Mark and Linda Jeffries.  These brave men and women sacrifice so much in their lives so that others may enjoy the freedoms we get to enjoy everyday. For that, I am proud to call them Hero . We Should Not Only Mourn These Men And Women Who Died, We Should Also Thank God That Such People Lived This post is part of the Wednesday Hero Blogroll. To find out more about Wednesay Hero, you can go here.

On the road
2007-05-22 07:20:00
I never manage to get around to blogging when I'm on the road. Last night I drove to DC, then spent all day today in meetings and running around. Finally cleared out about 7:30 pm to drive back to Cary. Didn't make it that far -- too tired. So I've availed myself of the beautiful and excellent Motel Six beside I-95. They don't have wireless here, so I'm getting my mail over the bluetooth on my phone, which is kind of like pulling teeth, or downloading big graphic webpages sometime in 1995. I suppose I'll be back posting drivel tomorrow.
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White House opposes military pay increase
2007-05-19 21:01:00
Big surprise here -- for the fifth time in as many years, the White House has gone on record opposing a pay increase for the military. Go figure. The Senate Armed Services committee this year recommended a 3.5% increase, half-a-percent more than the White House asked for in its budget. That half a percent was apparently enough to throw down the gauntlet, as the White House sent back a policy statement opposing the increase and theatening a veto. More in the Navy Times
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Republic: Chapter Eight (part 2)
2007-05-19 17:31:00
Republic Charles Sheehan-MilesChapter Eight Copyright © 2007 Charles Sheehan-Miles This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 2.5 License. You may copy or distribute the electronic version of this book freely, in unaltered form. You may not create derivative works or use this work for any commercial purpose without the permission of the author. Any resemblance to real people, living or dead, is unintentional, with the exception of certain named historical characters. Printed in the United States of America     OrderBack to Table of Contents | Listen to the Podcast CHAPTER EIGHT (Part 2)JUNE 8As people streamed into the high school gym, Murphy spoke to those he knew, many of them wives and husbands of employees at the plant. Murphy was surprised to see Vince Elkins. A family practitioner in Highview, he had referred Kenny to the specialists when the boy’s symptoms began to crop up. On the occasional weekend and ...
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Republic Podcast going live
2007-05-17 18:14:00
As I wrap up the podcast of Prayer at Rumayla (there are now only two episodes left), I wanted to make sure that my 3 listeners knew there is something new coming. As of today, the first episode of Republic is now online.Check it out hereor Subscribe with iTunes 
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Domestic spying details revealed
2007-05-17 13:37:00
The Washington Post ran a story yesterday that revealed more interesting information about the administration's massive spying domestic spying efforts. The story: after the Justice Department ruled the program illegal in 2004, the White House sent Andrew Card and Alberto Gonzales over to the hospital to strong-arm John Ashcroft into reversing the decision.I've been intensely interested in this issue for some time, and it is, after all, the main theme in my new book. What it says about the Bush White House is disturbing and is yet another indication that the President and his staff have little or no respect for the law. Whether the topic is torture, domestic spying, or the mundane incidents such as VA executives awarding themselves massive bonuses while hundreds of thousands of disability claims are backlogged in the system, this administration is as broken as any we've seen in recent decades. Tom Ricks's inbox, also in the Post, reveals this interesting exchange betw...
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Army court-martialing yet another soldier for seeking help
2007-05-17 04:46:00
Back in the fall of 2003 Georges Andre Pogany, who has since become a tireless advocate for vets, was brought up on charges of cowardice in Iraq. I got a call from CNN and was asked to come in for an interview about the case. Now they're doing it again.My quote in the interview with Paula Zahn:But I'm very concerned that, in a time when the Army is going out there and saying, we're trying to make sure that we provide good counseling for the troops, that, when someone has asked for help, they're potentially facing a court-martial. We're talking about a situation where people see hideous, horrible things. And the natural reaction to seeing those kinds of things is panic and fear and rage. And those troops need assistance. They need help. And they need counseling when they return back from the battlefield. And when somebody went through the chain of command, clearly requesting that help, and now they're facing a court-martial, the Army's got a real probl...
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Wednesday Hero: Lance Corporal Steven Chavez
2007-05-17 01:21:00
This Weeks Soldier Was Suggested By CindyLance Cpl. Steven Chavez 20 years old from Hondo, New Mexico2nd Battalion, 4th Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division, I Marine Expeditionary ForceMarch 14, 2007Tears ran down cheeks and strong men choked back emotion as the city of Hondo, NM payed tribute to fallen Marine, Steven Chavez. LCpl. Chavez lost his life on March 14, 2007 in a non-combat incident in which he was accidentally shot.Chavez enlisted in the Marine Cops. right after he graduated in 2005. "You pray and you pray that the day never comes, and then it does," said Novelda Chavez, Chavez's mother. "Your emotions are mixed — it’s not true, it’s a bad dream, a bad dream you never wake up from."In a letter Chavez wrote before he was sent to Iraq, he wrote:"First of all I would like to thank everyone for your support. When I'm home on leave and when I'm away. That is so important to me. Thank you for your kind, supporting words i...
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Idiots on the left, idiots on the right
2007-05-17 00:56:00
The Progressive ran an article a couple of days ago profiling a couple (a Gulf War veteran and his wife) who were offended when they saw a military recruiter in a meeting with someone (presumably a potential recruit). They proceeded to post notes in the window of the private meeting room, a confrontation ensued, and they were arrested.I suppose this sort of thing is par for the course -- I've been seeing a lot of "counter-recruiting" stuff for some years. I tend to think that disrupting someone's private meeting is going a little too far, but whatever.  The real reason I'm posting is because of the both offensive and idiotic conversation that ensued on the site in response to the article.  You can read the comments here.For the record, this is the response I posted, hoping to take some of the other posters to task for their generally blind and one-sided arguments: I'm seriously unimpressed with all of your arguments on both sides.First -- lot...
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Featured Author Interview
2007-05-16 21:31:00
After the review of Prayer at Rumayla last week on the Podler Book Review, they asked me to do an interview as their featured author. I was quite honored. Here is the interview:http://podler.blogspot.com/2007 /05/featured-author-interview-charles.htm l Charles Sheehan-Miles is the author of A Prayer at Rumayla and is our featured author. Below is the interview.Prayer at Rumayla is your first novel. Tell us about the impetus for writing it. I started work on the first draft about two weeks after the ground war ended in Iraq. To be honest, it was that, or blow my brains out. I was very disturbed not so much by the violence of the war as my emotional reaction to it. The first version was entirely autobiographical, nonfiction. It was terrible — primarily because by writing about myself, I found that the writing was very technical and distant. In 1993 I tossed out everything I’d written and started again from scratch, initially with a short 500 word story I’d writte...
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My War wins Blooker Prize
2007-05-15 22:23:00
If you haven't read Colby Buzzell's "My War," you need to stop what you are doing right now and go get it. Colby was one of the most prominent "Milbloggers" a couple of years back, when the phenomena was pretty new. His take on the war was pretty raw and honest, and turned into a bestselling book. This is one of the books I gave to my nephew as he was considering whether or not to enlist in the Marine Corps -- an honest account, and from someone a little more contemporary than me (after all, he was a toddler when I came home from Iraq). I mention it here because My War just won the 2007 Lulu.com Blooker Prize, which is awarded to the best book based on a blog or website. 
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Who is the source? Chasing the kids with power tools
2007-05-15 21:42:00
This was sent to me via email, and having discovered some similar ringers as my editor beat me about the head over the various drafts of Republic, I suppose I have to share. I have no idea who the original source of this item is -- if it's you, please send me a cease and desist letter. My favorite (being a parent): Number 22. It was an American tradition, like fathers chasing kids around with power tools.==================== Every year, English teachers from across the country can submit theircollections of actual analogies and metaphors found in high school essays.These excerpts are published each year to the amusement of teachers acrossthe country. Here are last year's winners.....1. Her face was a perfect oval, like a circle that had its two sides gentlycompressed by a Thigh Master.2. His thoughts tumbled in his head, making and breaking alliances likeunderpants in a dryer without Cling Free.3. He spoke with the wisdom that can only come from experience, like a guywho we...
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Military increases restrictions on online communication
2007-05-14 18:33:00
It's unfortunate that as al-Qaeda and the iraqi insurgency have gone full swing into using youtube and other online networks to get their message out, the U.S. military is going into full retrenchment.  The best advertising in the world our military could have is the troops themselves and the things they are posting, but no longer -- according to CNN today, the biggest social networking sites on the web will be off-limits for military networks.More in this on CNN: http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/in ternet/05/14/military.sites.blocked.ap/in dex.html 
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Amazon Reviews are back
2007-05-12 16:03:00
About a week ago, for the second time this year, all of the customer reviews of Prayer at Rumayla disappeared from Amazon .com.  This is actually pretty crippling -- the book had very good customer reviews, and when they vanished, my sales rank plummeted.  So, the good news is, they're back. I spent several days emailing back and forth with Amazon's catalog department, and whatever went wrong, they fixed (hopefully permanently this time).  You can check out the reviews here.
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Republic: Chapter Eight (part 1)
2007-05-12 06:28:00
Republic Charles Sheehan-MilesChapter SixCopyright © 2007 Charles Sheehan-Miles This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 2.5 License. You may copy or distribute the electronic version of this book freely, in unaltered form. You may not create derivative works or use this work for any commercial purpose without the permission of the author. Any resemblance to real people, living or dead, is unintentional, with the exception of certain named historical characters. Printed in the United States of America     OrderBack to Table of Contents CHAPTER EIGHTJUNE 8Murphy knew it was bad when he saw his daughter hunch over and whisper into her phone. Her face twisted with shock, fear and grief all at once. What could be wrong? Murphy’s heart thumped as he watched her lean forward and whisper to Clark.Clark’s face went pale, and he quickly wrote a note and passed it to the chairman. The chairman nodded to him, and...
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Wednesday Hero: Specialist Josiah H. Vandertulip
2007-05-12 06:06:00
Spc. Josiah H. Vandertulip21 years old from Irving, Texas2nd Battalion, 7th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Cavalry DivisionOctober 14, 2004Louise Vandertulip fussed at her son about his spending. He bought wild, overpriced hats that had flames on them or horns coming out of the top, she said.While in Army basic training, he bought portraits of himself. His mother told him to save his money.She's glad he didn't listen.The hats and the pictures are all a part of her memories now.Spc. Josiah H. Vandertulip was killed in Baghdad when his patrol came under small arms fire.Josiah Vandertulip joined the Army right after his graduation from Irving High School in 2002. He spent a year in South Korea before being stationed at Texas' Fort Hood in February. Against his mother's advice, he volunteered to go to Iraq. She told him to wait, to go to college."When he was determined to do something in his heart, he would do it and hell or high water couldn't keep him from it," sh...
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Prayer at Rumayla earns spectacular review
2007-05-07 14:21:00
A few weeks ago I submitted Pray er at Ruma yla: A Novel of the Gulf War for review to the Podler, a book review blog. Last night the review came back, and it was far better than I could have anticipated.Here's the review, and I want to send my thanks over to the Podler for the very flattering review.******************** Original review posted here by the Podler Profoundly moving, raw, exceptionally well executed vision into one man's troubled heart as he deals with betrayal and the complexities of life after returning from the 1991 tour in Iraq.In Prayer at Rumayla you will find an expertly written psychological thriller charting the slowly building resentment and psychological degradation of the protagonist, Private Brown. The story begins with betrayal and disappointment, this theme informing nearly every relationship that the protagonist has: that with his lover, with the Army life in the States, personified by a new and overly harsh sergeant, and finally with his re...
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Republic: Chapter Six
2007-05-04 15:21:00
Republic Charles Sheehan-MilesChapter SixCopyright © 2007 Charles Sheehan-Miles This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 2.5 License. You may copy or distribute the electronic version of this book freely, in unaltered form. You may not create derivative works or use this work for any commercial purpose without the permission of the author. Any resemblance to real people, living or dead, is unintentional, with the exception of certain named historical characters. Printed in the United States of America OrderBack to Table of Contents Chapter SixJune 7The key was stiff in the lock: it hadn?t been opened in nearly three years. Finally, the bolt drew back, and Murphy opened the door to the shop and stepped inside, the real estate agent behind him.?Sorry about the dust,? he said. ?I haven?t been in here in a long time.?Inside, Martha?s florist shop was largely empty. Display tables had been cleared of flowers three years ago, and everythin...
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Authors: Promote each other, increase your visibility
2007-05-03 16:19:00
A point I made the other day is that you can't sell books if nobody knows about them. I'd like to invite other authors to join in on the Authors Blogroll -- allowing each of us to share links with other authors, increasing our visibility and helping customers find our books. How do you join? It's simple. 1) Past the following code for the blogroll somewhere on your site: Once that's done, post a comment here and I'll add your site. Simple as that. Three reasons to do this: 1) It will help increase your Google page rank and technorati ranking because of more links to your site 2) It will help increase your visibility 3) It will help promote other writers Qualifications to join the ring: You must have at least one title on sale somewhere. Doesn't matter if its on Amazon, a traditional publisher, or Lulu.com, or whatever. Someone has to be able to buy (or download) your stuff Who's on the blogroll so far? Well, at the time of writing, no one. Check in my right ...
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OpSec trumps information operations
2007-05-03 06:06:00
Over the last several years, I've been a consistent reader of a number of military bloggers, as well as Iraqi bloggers, because I'm obsessed with the war and want to know what's actually happening on the ground. Over that time, much of what I read from both Iraqis and soldiers and marines serving in Iraq has had a deep impact on my views of the war.Among other things, I've come to strongly believe that leaving Iraq prematurely would likely be an even bigger disaster than the ongoing war is.  That's why, nearly two years ago, Erik Gustafson and I co-wrote Why Abandonment of Iraq is Wrong for TomPaine.com.Soldiers blogging about their real experiences on the ground there has given both the good and the bad on the war. Nowhere in the media do I find reporters writing about real reconstruction projects in Iraq, or the interaction between the troops and the folks on the ground. The often heard conservative complaint that the media "only reports bad news"...
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Smart People 2.0
2007-05-03 04:12:00
I'm always intrigued by the interesting and creative ways people come up with the help promote their blogs, products, or themselves. Link exchanges, blogrolls, my brother is doing something called the Alexa Project. So I thought that Hammer Uncut's Smart People 2.0 was interesting.I may not be the world's smartest man, but I know that in order to sell books, people have to know about them.  Do I have to become a traffic whore to make that happen?  Hopefully not.  Generally everything I post here has to do with politics, war or publishing.  Of course, that's pretty broad in terms of topics, and my interests are broad enough that this will never be one of those targeted niche blogs (like most of the ones I read). Anyway, this was about Smart People 2.0, which is either about generating traffic for Hammer Uncut or generating a web of traffic for all the participants.  Who knows.  I will be watching to see what kind of traffic comes in to ...

Strawpoll08.com censoring some politics
2007-05-02 21:52:00
So, I got an email from a libertarian friend who supports Ron Paul for president. I'm nowhere close to deciding who I'll support, but I like to keep an open mind. Apparently not everyone does. Go check out http://www.strawpoll08.com, where virtually every nutcase in the country is listed on the poll for president except Ron Paul. No big deal, I guess, except that their chat script goes in every couple minutes and deletes any mention of him. So I went to check it out, and it was true. People would type his name in on a comment, and a moment later -- poof! Any item that had the words Ron Paul in it disappeared.Here's a screen shot:  As you can see, I brought it to the attention of the moderator. A moment later, here's what I got: Now, I'm not a huge fan of Ron Paul. I'm an even smaller fan of people who set up forums that are supposedly open, then delete specific points of view. The fact that they were so obvious just indicates that they are comple...
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Republic: Chapter Five
2007-05-02 16:19:00
Republic Charles Sheehan-MilesChapter Five Copyright © 2007 Charles Sheehan-Miles This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 2.5 License. You may copy or distribute the electronic version of this book freely, in unaltered form. You may not create derivative works or use this work for any commercial purpose without the permission of the author. Any resemblance to real people, living or dead, is unintentional, with the exception of certain named historical characters. Printed in the United States of America  OrderBack to Table of ContentsChapter FiveMay 27Valerie Murphy arrived at work early the day after the attack and found the office in chaos. The phones were ringing off the hook, and already there were four people waiting in the reception area, without appointments, hoping to see the Congressman. She quickly sorted out the office, allocating emergency jobs to the staff to quickly deal with the onslaught of constituent calls, ...
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Wednesday Hero: Naval Hospitalman Luis E. Fonseca
2007-05-02 15:30:00
This Weeks Soldier Was Suggested By Echo9er Hospitalman Luis E. Fonseca Jr.  On August 11, 2004, Navel Hospitalman Luis E. Fonseca, Jr. was awarded the Navy's second highest decoration.  The Navy Cross, which is awarded for extraordinary heroism while engaged in an action against an enemy of the United States and must be performed in the presence of great danger or at great personal risk, was awarded for his actions while serving with Amphibious Assault Vehicle Platoon, Company C, 1st Battalion, 2nd Marines, Task Force Tarawa, II Marine Expeditionary Force.On March 23, 2004, Fonseca, Jr.'s unit were trying to take the Saddam Canal Bridge.  Five Marines were injured when their vehicle was hit by an RPG.  Fonseca, while still being fired upon by machine guns and RPG's, pulled the Marines to safety and established a casualty collection unit inside his own medical evacuation vehicle.  After his vehicle was hit once again, Fonseca organized litter tea...
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Republic: Chapter Four
2007-04-30 22:14:00
Republic Charles Sheehan-MilesChapter Four Copyright © 2007 Charles Sheehan-Miles This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 2.5 License. You may copy or distribute the electronic version of this book freely, in unaltered form. You may not create derivative works or use this work for any commercial purpose without the permission of the author. Any resemblance to real people, living or dead, is unintentional, with the exception of certain named historical characters. Printed in the United States of America  OrderBack to Table of ContentsChapter FourMay 27“Kenny, it’s time to go,” Murphy called. He’d had his coffee and his shower, but the horror of a nightmare the night before still clung to him, though he could no longer recall the specifics. Dreams featuring Martha—sometimes real freak-show dreams—were sometimes a staple in his life. The last couple years, they’d come even more frequent...
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Prayer at Rumayla Podcast: Chapter Six, Part Two
2007-04-28 17:45:00
The second part of Chapter Six is now online In this episode, Chet's company goes into combat at Battle Position 102 in Iraq, and Chet is reunited with his high school friend Julie. Listen. Enjoy. If you like it, pass the word to a friend -- word of mouth makes the biggest difference in the world for any project of this kind. About Prayer at Ruma yla:Nineteen year-old Chet Brown arrived home from the Gulf War in the spring of 1991 and found that, for him, the war was only beginning. Betrayed by his friends and lover, ignored by his family, Brown travels across the country in search of meaning behind the horrors of his war.?Bleak and disturbing... dead-on-target ...This first novel is a work of pure psychological conflict.? ? Pulitzer Prize winning reporter John Hanchette, Reno Gazette-Journal?Brutally honest, direct, and meaningful, Prayer At Rumayla is a compelling novel of coming to terms not only with dangers and traumas of the battlefront, but with its aftermath upon the ...
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Thinking Blogger
2007-04-27 17:37:00
To my surprise, Jen over at Did You Ever Get the Feeling has awarded me the Think ing Blogger Award. This came as a bit of a surprise, and may be a surprise to you as well considering that it was a month ago and I'm just now getting around to realizing what it's about...Thank to Jen, and I'm going to pass along my nominees, which may be ... a little different. Here they are: The Ground Truth In Iraq This blog is from the Education for Peace in Iraq Center, which has been working on human rights in Iraq since the late 1990s. No politics here -- they're looking for practical policy solutions for how to stabilize Iraq and find the best outcome for the Iraqi people.Small Wars JournalI often note interesting things from this blog. Counterinsurgency professionals, these guys are thinking about the same stuff as EPIC, but from the perspective of the military. Discussion boards over there are also well worth reading.My American Iraq LifeThis is the blog of a just tur...
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Republic: Chapter Three (continued)
2007-04-27 14:46:00
Republic Charles Sheehan-MilesChapter Three Copyright © 2007 Charles Sheehan-Miles This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 2.5 License. You may copy or distribute the electronic version of this book freely, in unaltered form. You may not create derivative works or use this work for any commercial purpose without the permission of the author. Any resemblance to real people, living or dead, is unintentional, with the exception of certain named historical characters. Printed in the United States of America  OrderBack to Table of Contents Chapter Three (continued) Turville could smell and hear it long before they arrived. Crammed in the back of the truck at the end of a long drive, he couldn’t see much, but the sounds and smells were more than enough. A roar rose from the still burning buildings, and acrid black smoke filled the truck, burning his eyes and throat. He saw flashing blue and red lights in the darkness, heard...
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Failure in Generalship
2007-04-27 13:21:00
Tom Ricks writes this morning in the Washington Post about a Army Lieutenant Colonel who has written a blistering attack on the Gene ra ls in our military in Armed Forces Journal. Lt. Col. Paul Yingling, who served in Iraq with the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment, makes the argument that the Army's senior generals have failed by a) focusing their planning on conventional maneuver warfare, b) not preparing their troops for what they really have to face, and c) not warning either the President or the public what the realities are in terms of what will actually be required for victory in Afghanistan and Iraq.The discussion on the Small Wars Journal discussion board so far is focused on what the impact is likely to be on LTC Yingling's career. I'm keeping an eye out, because I'm curious what the assessment is of the professionals on this question. Should be interesting.From the Post:Yingling said he decided to write the article after attending Purple Heart and deployment cer...
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Travelling this week
2007-04-26 04:33:00
I'm in Washington, DC all day Wednesday and Thursday, so probably won't post much new. There's is an interesting discussion about whether or not people pay attention to book reviews over at Nathan Bransford's blog. Nathan is a literary agent with Curtis Brown, and is rapidly becoming one of my daily reads. The same topic has been hot on one of the mailing lists I'm on as well, due to the decision by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution to discontinue their book review section.Speaking of book reviews, interesting stuff from Steve Weber and Aaron Shephard this week.  Steve, who wrote "Plug Your Book", write about authors spamming both potential customers as well as Amazon, and Aaron has put together a short "Amazon Etiquette" guide--the bottom line being the Golden Rule.If you are a writer or small publisher or both, it couldn't hurt to read all three of the guys on a regular basis.Finally a quick note -- now that they've resolved the...
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