The premise of this novel is simple, revenge. I knew brothers in the same Special Forces Group, different BN. I knew Father and Son in the Special Forces. My son joined the Army because of my influence. He hated it. My best friend deployed to Afghanistan with me when we returned, his wife deployed to Afghanistan, leaving them almost no time together. He hated it. It’s not a reach to recognize that brothers would, for various reasons, join separate branches of the military simultaneously and meet on the battlefield.

When I first wrote the book, the UN and US were still in Afghanistan. Of course, since then, we left, which meant I had to do a bit of a rewrite. Fortunately, on one of my deployments, we landed in Tajikistan for a layover. This gave me something to work with. My protagonist could also land and deploy from the same airbase I landed in. One problem solved.

I used many of my experiences from my four deployments and integrated them into the story of Mike Mason and his quest for revenge. One of those experiences is based on the book's first title, Rock of Authority.

While training up to move out to our new firebase, we were doing a little shoot, move, and communicating in a shoot house. In one iteration, the training goal was to move into the building, simulate a casualty, and have one of the medics attend to the down man while the rest of the team did their jobs. The next iteration was to be the next medic’s turn to shine. Unfortunately, the first medic, let’s call him D, didn’t get the memo. D jumped in and started treatment before the 2nd medic could even move. Now everyone is standing around because they know things didn’t go according to plan. I’m standing on a rock-filled hesco bastion overlooking the action. I call down to D he doesn’t hear me. I shout down at D, he doesn’t hear me, but everyone else does. I yell down at D, he doesn’t hear me. Everyone else stands up and moves away. Next, I pick a nice-sized rock and hurl it at him. Not to worry, he’s wearing body armor and a helmet, safe as a bug in a rug. The rock hits him in the back, and he finally wakes up and listens, and we get back on track. Later, when I retired, one of the gifts I received was a nice-sized rock, maybe the actual one. It was painted black, and in fancy script, it said, Rock of Authority.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Not much of a story, but life is like that, little stories that add up to a lot of life. There are nap of the earth helicopter rides, gun fights, mounted and dismounted patrols, and more fun things in the book to make sure Mike didn’t have an easy time of it. All of which in my career I've had experience of.

I also did my research. I read about Alexander the Great and his exploits in Afghanistan and how that didn’t turn out so well. I read the Soviet - The Bear Went Over the Mountain: Soviet Combat Tactics in Afghanistan. Their success and failures against the Mujahideen. And, The Other Side of the Mountain: Mujahideen Tactics in the Soviet-Afghan War. I visited an old British fort from their ill-fated foray into the mountains. And finally, at an antique store in Kabul, I purchased an old kukri with a worn leather sheath. I can’t guarantee its legitimacy, but it looked like the real deal to me, so that’s all I needed.

I haven’t said much about the novel itself. I’ll do that in my next post.

I hope you enjoy it.

Baabaa Dave