I may never have mentioned it but...

I was broken by the end of the Vietnam tour, or molded into the fellow I fool the world with, doesn't matter about the carving me out of the boy and grinding me into a man, but I remain very interested in the military, history and arts of war and will. I follow most of the space combat, good fantasy adventures and techno-thrillers. I have followed Stephen Hunter since Master Sniper - love both Earl (my Name!) and Bob Lee Swagger (Robert E. Lee is one of my heroes) and in the 47th Samurai I find another Vietnam Vet that is sixty and still a dangerous old man - certainly more dangerous than I could ever claim to be - nice story, fairy tale ending, but nice story.

Jerry Pournelle answers a question about an Introduction he made to a David Drake book titled Hammer's Slammers. It is titled "Mercenaries and Military Virtue" and worth the read, but then I am not giving up my copy of that book. I hear rumblings that Andy Rooney doesn't see any heroes now in America, and I laugh knowing where they all are - and they aren't in the media circles that Andy hangs with, the celebrities and politicians of note (they aren't risking anything for others, are they?). Andy saw heroes, he knows they exist but knows the current culture tries to make them out fools and foolish -- the stuff of myth and legends - fairy tales. In the age of Reason one needs the Romantic, in the era of Romance only those ruled by Reason prevail... or something like that. The heroes are all out there, getting up every day to fight the dragons, to bring in the treasures, to risk it all for someone else, for others in need, for the fears before the deed. But when victory is in the number of dollars one has control of - there isn't a culture appreciating heroes - just the greedy grubbers that haven't been caught. Shame - less, and without Honor - not the stuff of my heroes.