Seems like a good day to post this

This week in my free Substack, I go over some ways The Felon could interfere with the midterm election -- including one possibility involving the USPS that I've not heard others talking about. Link to the post is in the reply; click, share, and subscribe!

This week in my free Substack, I look at two newcomers to Colorado politics, the plans of the outgoing governor, and the appeal of Democratic Socialism. Link is in the reply; click, share, and subscribe!

These bears come by often in the morning

I'll be signing books at Barnes & Noble Briargate Saturday from noon to 4. This would be a great time to get the book if you've not yet done so! If you already have a copy of Chaos in the Green Zone, bring it by and chat for a bit.

This week in my free Substack, I describe some of my favorite fireworks before discussing the 5 -- yes 5 -- self-evident truths in the Declaration of Independence and the possibility of a new constitutional convention. Link in the reply -- read, share, subscribe!

Happy 10th birthday Alibi!

p. 224 Tom Ruby convinced me to write it out as truly as I could, rather than as fiction. We had been discreet in Hope Is Not a Plan to get it past the military censors. The full story deserved to be told. Writing would also help me come to terms with it. Buy in reply @univpressofkansas.bsky.social

This week in my free Substack, I reflect on what stinks about The Felon's red tide: the slime, the dirty pool, the dead zone being created where democracy once lived. Link is in the reply: read, subscribe, share!

p. 223 I was helping a few people achieve their goals, I was helping a few people have a better experience in the mountains, but all of this felt trivial compared to what I had been doing in Baghdad. My thoughts kept going back there. Buy in reply @univpressofkansas.bsky.social

p. 221 She had figured out how to make it work and was doing fine--as was my other daughter, now in Texas on her way to a doctorate in psychology. Speaking of Hawai'i, that was where I met the woman who had become my second wife. Buy the book in the reply @univpressofkansas.bsky.social

p. 219 Khris Scarcliff, the civil affairs captain, transferred to psychological operations and spent several tours in Afghanistan and Africa before retiring to Texas and opening a brew pub featuring PsyHops beer. Matt became a bit of a legend. Buy in reply @univpressofkansas.bsky.social

This week in my free Substack, I relate some history of people on the left undermining candidates of the left, beginning with the environmental and human rights campaign against Al Gore in 2000. Elections are choices that have consequences. Link in reply; read, share, subscribe!

Quite the paragraph in the AP story just now

p. 212 Maybe they were returning to better situations than I was. I had escaped a foreign conflict only to return to a domestic one. I filed for divorce first thing in the new year. It got messier and more expensive than I wished, but it needed to happen. Buy in reply @univpressofkansas.bsky.social

p. 211 Someone, maybe an employee or a manager, called out to me, asking if I was an American, an American soldier. I said yes, hoping that was OK, and he urged me to take some fruit—no charge! I didn’t know what to do. Was I supposed to accept this gift? Buy in reply @univpressofkansas.bsky.social

p. 210 I ventured farther up the parkway. Soon I came upon a large mosque set back in expansive grounds, and there didn’t appear to be much of anything built up beyond. It was still quiet and calm, but it no longer felt safe. There were few people. Buy in reply @univpressofkansas.bsky.social

p. 209 I had slept in a real bed, and now I was sitting on the roof with a view, not of concrete barriers and shipping containers stretching to the Palace looming over everything, but of the sea all the way to a horizon broken by two docked oil tankers. Buy in reply @univpressofkansas.bsky.social

p. 208 Ch 8: Acceptance There I was: reclining atop a seaside villa watching the horns of the new moon follow the sun into the industrial haze of Kuwait City. I had been lucky. I didn’t have to wait long before I found a C-130 to Kuwait with an open seat. Buy in reply @univpressofkansas.bsky.social

p. 207 The neighborhood looked nice. Everyone had a rooftop where they could seek refuge from the heat. Did anyone on the rooftops also have small arms or rockets to fire at us? A bit farther away was a giant mosque surrounded by construction cranes. Buy in reply @univpressofkansas.bsky.social

p. 206 Then it was off to bed for one final night as a target for indirect fire. Sun 12 Dec: Hard to believe it’s really over. Redeployment day dawned very unlike Iraq. It had rained much of the night, so puddles were everywhere. Buy the book in the reply @univpressofkansas.bsky.social

p. 204 My own plans had progressed enough that I would still leave as scheduled. Thank goodness. Maybe I didn’t want to go home, but I wanted to go home. The two-star said a few nice words about me and the work I’d done and gave me a campaign flag. Buy in reply @univpressofkansas.bsky.social

p. 202 Today, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld mused, “You go to war with the army you have, not the army you might want or wish to have.” It was kind of funny how he would talk about the war as if it were some abstract thing he had nothing to do with. Buy in reply @univpressofkansas.bsky.social

p. 201 Kind of like a neighborhood watch for the area, at least if neighborhood watches were made up of well-armed men who had given themselves the authority to shoot to kill as they deemed necessary. This stop wasn’t as risky as it seemed. Buy in reply @univpressofkansas.bsky.social

p. 200 Were others laughing behind their backs, saying: “Ghazi—he’s all robe and no camels!” We ordered in lunch. It took a long time for the lamb kebabs to arrive, but they were so delicious! By midafternoon, it became apparent they wouldn't show up. Buy in reply @univpressofkansas.bsky.social

p. 199 Trash was everywhere, and many windows and doors were boarded over. Given the style of architecture, the palm trees, the disrepair, I was reminded of a crappy section of San Diego. Nevertheless, it was so exciting to be on the ground in the city. Buy in reply @univpressofkansas.bsky.social

p. 198 But I had not been paying attention, so I only realized this when, a short distance from the civil affairs compound, Khris tapped his driver, pointed, and we turned onto a dirt double-track atop a levee separating the river bottom from...a farm? Buy in reply @univpressofkansas.bsky.social

This week in my free Substack, I write about wars. Past, present, and future. Link in the reply -- click, share, subscribe!