rlfj: Blog

Several readers with military experience sympathized with Grim’s issues finding work. Many of the support jobs in the Army translate to civilian life – medics can become EMTs, Army truck drivers can become civilian truck drivers, electronics technicians can do the same outside of the Army, etc. Combat jobs have a considerably different skill set and do not translate well to civilian life. More than a few readers commented on the limited number of jobs available for an Eleven Bravo.

Several readers did comment that there are considerable educational benefits for post-9/11 veterans, which is quite true, and I mention a number of them. I probably won’t go into that too much more in this story, but it will pop up much later, in the sequels.

Grim has a problem, in that one of the reasons he joined the Army, to figure out what he wanted to do after high school, turned out to be a bust. While many veterans can translate their military service to a civilian career, not all can. My son used his experience as an electrician’s mate on a nuclear carrier to easily move into electrical engineering and computer engineering jobs as a civilian. On the other hand, a nephew who served in Iraq discovered there weren’t a lot of civilian equivalent jobs for a gun bunny in a Marine artillery unit. More on this in the next few chapters.

One reader asked why I wrote the story as several books. During the writing process there are several natural breaks that occur in plot lines. In this case, it was getting out of school and then getting out of the Army. Each section is relatively easy to delineate and write about. By breaking it into sections or books, I can begin publishing even though I don’t have the whole thing written yet.

Welcome back! When last we saw the Grim Reaper, he was a hero, whole in body but damaged heart and soul. What will happen to him now? Now he has to go home, and maybe, somehow, rebuild his life and his spirit.

For those who want more of A Fresh Start, don’t worry. Carl Buckman will be coming back. Book 3 of AFS is the most important in the story, and when I finish TGR, I’ll go back to AFS.

I had a complaint that I don’t know the difference between psychology and psychiatry, and that I should be an expert in this if I’m going to write about it. Well, it’s true, I don’t know the difference. I’m not sure I care, either. Carl writes that he doesn’t know what’s wrong with Hamilton either. He’s not an expert either, it would seem. Hey guys, just go with the flow. Hamilton is seriously fucked up. It happens in real life, too. For every email I’ve gotten that says this would never happen in real life and I have mishandled the situation, I’ve gotten another email saying their brother/son/relative/friend is equally screwed up and they had similar problems with family members acting weird about it. The Hamilton character is drawn from a real situation, and I have only taken him and his mother about 10% beyond where they really are.

It’s time to throw a zinger into the system! Carl is going to join the Army! I was never in the military. I have numerous friends and family members who were, but for a variety of reasons, I never was. That being said, I have a lot of scholarly knowledge of the military, but not too much hands-on knowledge. I take a certain amount of pride in being realistic. I received a huge amount of expert military advice, which was extremely helpful.

A number of people have said that Carl should use his knowledge of the future to change history. Just how realistic would that be, however? Does he reveal himself to the world and say how he knows the future? Or does he find himself a phone booth and make an anonymous call to the government? The first gets him sent to the psycho ward (maybe he can share a room with Hamilton) while the second gets him ignored.

It is important to remember, that in all these cases, the government already knew what was going to happen! The failures were in the reaction, or lack of reaction, to the information they already had:

• Marine Barracks - The Marines in Lebanon knew they were targets and had been under sniper attack for weeks. Intelligence knew truck bombs were being built. The State Department overrode the Marine commander and ordered the Marines to assume a non-threatening posture. Ooops!

• Challenger - The engineers told the administrators the O-rings were too cold but were ordered to launch anyway. Ooops!

• 9/11 - The CIA and NSA knew that overseas terrorists were up to something. The FBI local field offices knew about the crazy Arabs talking flight lessons but ignoring the portion about landing the planes. Everybody buried it because headquarters in Washington didn’t want to know. Ooops!

• Hurricane Katrina - Everybody in America was watching the Weather Channel and NOAA plot the course of the storm for a week ahead of time, but nobody paid any attention in Washington. ‘Brownie’ did a heck of a job! Ooops!

I am not being partisan about these problems. These particular issues were under Republican Presidents, but there were just as many under the Democrats (Rwanda and Mogadishu come to mind, for starters.)

Chapter 22 is the end of Book 2. Book 3 will be coming soon; it is the pivotal heart of the story. Still, I plan to post some more of The Grim Reaper before returning to A Fresh Start.