When I checked the calendar for something unrelated earlier this week, I realized that I turned in my gear and became a civilian again exactly 30 years ago this month, after serving 4 years and 2 months in the German Army. I was only 21 when I got out because I was barely 17 when…
Category: military life.
Veterans and mental health
Part of what I have tried to accomplish with Frontlines is breaking out of the typical military SF mold a little bit when it comes to depicting soldier mindsets. With the sixth book in particular, I wanted to address the endless wars we tend to fight lately, and their effects on the minds of the…
relics.
The idea for the different beret colors for the service branches of the NAC military in my Frontlines novels isn’t unique to my fictional universe, of course. Every military that issues the beret as headgear has a color-coding system for the particular branches and military specialties. In the Frontlines universe, the NAC issues midnight blue…
battleship.
My friend Mark went to visit USS Iowa (BB-61). Being a 3D animator type, he took a metric crapton of detail pictures. If you’ve never been on an Iowa-class battleship, or you’re just a sucker for those big-ass ships and their big-ass guns, his Picasa page of the trip is worth a look.
fakin’ it.
And another example of people making up stuff to make themselves look like war heroes. What kind of kills me about this one is that the guy served honorably in the MN National Guard, and was actually deployed to Afghanistan and Kosovo. Why would he feel the need to embellish his service record? At least…