When I was a Buck Private in the Army, I earned $89 per month. Just beer and cigarette money we called it. Everything else was provided: Food, shelter, clothing, healthcare, etc. Obviously, we couldn't support a wife and family on such a pittance, but we were told that if the Army/Marine Corp/Air Force/Navy wanted us to have a wife, they would have issued one to us. That was in the days of conscription.

With the advent of the All-Volunteer Military, all service members were promised a living wage and many privates and corporals married and some have children. However, the promises haven't been kept. It's become so bad that many on welfare feed better at the government trough than those charged with protecting our nation and its Constitution and people.

There are a few quaint traditions that have faded from the culture but not from my memory. People wore poppies on Veterans Day. Everyone wore a carnation on Mothers Day, red if she was alive and white if not. Americans stood for the playing of the National Anthem, hands held over hearts. Sure, some still observe these traditions. Others do not. Many do not even know that they were common practices once upon a time.

I saw the disparity of memory and knowledge as I sat outside a neighborhood grocery store this weekend passing out Buddy Poppies for the Veterans of Foreign Wars and taking donations from those who cared. A few paused to talk. One offered to fetch me a cup of coffee for it was chilly this November 11th in Southern California. I could not help but wonder how many or how few understood the significance of the little red artificial flowers that I offered.

Movies were a popular escape from the cares and woes of the Great Depression. Just five cents could buy a brief reprieve in a theater where audiences laughed in mutual appreciation of the antics of the Keystone Kops and Laurel and Hardy among others. Sadly, there is little escape today from the unrelenting assault of the liberal/progressives who dominate Hollywood and the television producers. Fortunately, one show on CBS, Blue Bloods, provides a more rational approach to storytelling. The October 24th episode, Loose Lips, was a silver-lined example. The granddaughter of the police commissioner is caught venting her frustrations on the Internet over a Fascist school teacher and is denied admission to Rutgers. The following minute-and-a-half clip contains the scene where she returns to the classroom with her mother to apologize to the teacher.

Sadly, the high school teacher portrayed in this scene is representative of many American teachers and college professors. In a later scene, she targets the police commissioner's granddaughter during a class extolling the virtues of progressivism and castigating the authorities like the girl's mother and grandfather. Her sanctimony is sweetened by the iconic portrait of Ernesto “Che” Guevara peering over her shoulder. No one ever abused authority more rapaciously than the hero of progressives and misguided children everywhere.

Have you attempted to help a child with their Common Core homework? Confusing isn't it? Common Core seems to complicate even the simplest of tasks just for the sake of complication. Is there another agenda? Are they trying to drive a wedge between us and our children?

Read Emancipation: A short story about a boy luring his younger sibling into the world of emancipated youth.

Are you bored with roller coasters, pendulum rides and drop rides? Are their height and speed no longer thrilling? Are you becoming bored with amusement parks?

Maybe, just maybe you're ready for a ride on the Carousel...a new short story.

Many people in the United States are unhappy with its national anthem. Some complain that it's too war-like and mean. Others find it hard to sing. However, I believe that it has a redeeming value in the question that it asks: “Does that star-spangled banner yet wave?” I ask myself the same thing almost every morning now almost two hundred years after Francis Scott Key penned that question.

Key was a captive of the British while their fleet bombarded Fort McHenry in Baltimore harbor all day and night, until 3 am on the morning of September 14th. He wondered why the shelling had stopped. Had the fort fallen? That would seem the most likely outcome. The British had besieged the defenders since September 12th during which time not a shot had reached the British ships from the fort's guns. Thus, Key stood (popular myth has him standing atop the bulwarks, clinging to the ship's standing rigging to steady himself) as he strained to see which flag flew above the walls: The American stars and stripes or the British Union Jack. Alas, not a breath of air stirred and the flag hung limply from its standard, its nationality indistinguishable.

Why didn't Key ask one of his captors? Most likely, they couldn't have answered him. They were awaiting word from Robert Ross, the British general who led the troops that had disembarked at Sparrows Point, at the confluence of the Patapsco River and the Chesapeake Bay, and were supposed to capture Baltimore. Ross's force had already captured and burned Washington. Surely they could brush aside the Maryland militia and recreate their victory in Baltimore. When Ross's courier arrived, they were stunned to learn that he was dead and that his forces had been defeated by Sam Smith.

Writers are readers, avid readers. Like you, we're always on the lookout for a good book. Come join us on a blog hop as we visit some of our favorite authors. 

What's a “blog hop”? It's a trail of links from one author's website/weblog to another. This trail leads to articles about the characters populating books in progress, soon to be published, or recently released novels. Now meet mine: Nick Andrews, an American who joined the Army just in time for the Korean War.  

Studies have shown that as many as 20 to 30 percent of soldiers never fire their weapons in combat. No, I'm not including those in the rear echelons. I'm talking about combat troops, under fire. In some skirmishes, it has been reported that fewer than a third fired their weapons. Unfortunately, the research does not include the reasons why they didn't return fire. Some may have been too frightened to emerge from their foxholes and fight back. Still others may have been unable to find a target. The ones I'm interested in are those who simply couldn't overcome the natural reticence to kill another human being, even one who is attempting to kill them.

I created a story set in Korea during the war there to explore this issue. I created a character, Nick Andrews, an ordinary person with whom readers can identify. He's been well-trained to fight as an Army Ranger, but never taught to kill. That's a skill that can only be learned on the battlefield.

There are only two arguments that matter in support of granting citizenship to all who have slipped across the borders without permission. Political arguments do not matter. Latin Americans, especially Mexicans, argue that they have more right to occupy the Southwestern territories of the United States than US citizens inasmuch as the land was stolen from them. I addressed this issue in another posting regarding the legitimacy of conquest wherein I argued that the Spanish conquest of these regions is no more legitimate than the US conquest of them. In other words, we only stole what was stolen. Indeed, you would be hard pressed to find a square inch of habitable land on planet earth at any point of history that isn't held by right of conquest. In this posting, I would like to address a far more important issue: The Rule of Law.

Obviously, those who have entered the United States without permission will be bewildered by my obsession with The Rule of Law. Their mere presence is clear evidence that it is of no importance to them. Sadly, many native born US citizens are likewise bereft of any understanding of it. The absence of civic lessons in our public schools, as well as many private schools, has denied them the opportunity of learning its importance.

Can you unplug from your iPad, iPhone, and iPod, sit alone, and just think? I do, quite often. Indeed, When I turn to other stimuli, I prefer any form of entertainment that will inspire me to seek a quiet corner and reflect on what I have learned. It matters not whether it comes in fiction or nonfiction stories. Truth is simply true, and it belongs to anyone willing to embrace it. The Somme: The Darkest Hour on the Western Front by Peter Hart is one of those books, full of true incidents, and it gives people like me something to think about.

Hart's book illuminates the battle of World War I in which nearly 1 million men were either killed or wounded in during the brief period of July1 to 18, 1916 on the banks of the River Somme in France.

The Somme chronicles the events leading up to the battle as well as the carnage that ensued. It is this early part of the book that caused me to reflect on my war, the one in which I participated, Vietnam. It dwells not only on the engagement of forces, but also on the steps and missteps that led to it. We become familiar with the heads of state, mostly royal cousins, trading notes in familiar language, and their respective statesmen giving the appearance that they want to avoid the unavoidable, and yet secretly rushing to war. We learn how the armies came to meet on the bucolic plains of rural France where they had to improvise an infrastructure to support the men and machines of war. I paused to remember Vietnam after reading this part inasmuch as America's military victory in Vietnam, a place where so many others had failed, was largely based on logistics.

Ah, I can see that you are thinking. What does he mean, “...America's military victory...”?

The daily news is pregnant with inspiration for stories. The photo below that appeared recently proved especially inspirational, at least to me.

Obviously, it is an excellent example of a "Straw Man Argument", a form of propaganda wherein these people are arguing against those who contend that all Mexicans are "illegals". We must surmise that "they" are those who oppose amnesty for all Mexican immigrants. Personally, I don't know of any such people, do you?