To publish or not to publish?

"No Easy Day" competition or writing on the wall?

 

With the release of "No Easy Day" questions have been raised and answered by many. As long as mankind has a mind, opinions will vary like the shades of flowers in a field. As a member of the American Legion I received my monthly email and lo-and-behold even the Legion chimed in on the subject. They conducted a survey as to how their members felt about the book. The survey gave 5 or 6 options and the last option was "Other" which allowed you an opportunity to write a short opinion. I never have been known for keeping my opinions to myself I wrote a reply as follows:

 

As with all my fellow Legionnaires, there are many opinions on this matter. Mine is just as confused. I have been carrying secrets in my mind for the past 40 years. I could have gone for the gold and published a book, but then I would have labeled myself a traitor. Over the years more and more of our achievements have been released and I hope that before I die they all will have become part of the Freedom of Information Act. Then I can put my words on paper and have my family, my children and my grandchildren read about where and why we spend so much time apart from our families. As to the argument that so much was already released before the book, may I remind you who released it. POLITICIANS... what they released was nothing but political fodder. If their words were the same as Mr. Owens, he would sell very few copies. They are in no way alike and his book will sell through the roof. Remember this little information my dad left for me: POLITICS comes from them Greek words POLI = Many , TICS = Bloodsuckers. How true that is.

 

 

To my surprise as of today I have had 9 "Likes" attached to my rambling. Moving on from this, it made me rethink what I was doing. Yes, I to had pledged secrecy and being a man of honor I held that secrecy within my head to the point that at times it would nearly drove me crazy. What I did different than Mr. Owens was that I got in touch with my comrades in arms and asked their opinion about me writing a book. They gave me sound advice and to a man told me to write, write, write. My story is aged, I realize, but some things are still secret (for now) The names of my team are never displayed or given in any way. Personal descriptions of the men have been altered in order to not give any information to anyone. What I did give away is the mission, but by now many people know about this just like we all knew about the mission Seal Team 6 was on. The details are what must be kept from our enemies so that they cannot prepare themselves should we ever have to do it again.

Bottom line is . . The book will go on. Hopefully within a couple of weeks we will be on Kickstarter.com to raise the funds to publish and with the help of others the book can be published by end of October. I still count on the help of many people and I hope they will step up and lend us a hand.

If you happen upon these pages and find them interesting, please pass them on to your friends. I need the word out there if I am to succeed with this project. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.

 

 

 

 

To my knowledge there are no pictures available of the aircraft we flew. Someone was kind enough to change an existing photo of a WB-57F with the black paint applied.