Just a Little Bit of Politeness and Self-Respect: Why I always answer emails...

 

Dinner with one of the nicest bestselling authors in the world: Joe Galloway. It doesn't take surviving the Ia Drang Valley to be polite these days...or, does it?

 
What is it with some bestselling authors? You put down your hard-earned money. You really enjoyed their book. You took time out from your life to share with the author your joy, how the book touched you, that you were overjoyed to have a literary adventure to just take a break with the content between those pages...and all you did was ask a nice little question about the new book they're coming out with, or how they arrived on a certain plot twist.

You click on the submit button...

And you wait...and you wait. And the self-absorbed author turns out to be a totally rude a-hole! Did you insult them? No.

Did you ask a question that's about to be answered in a PR released FAQ? No.

So what gives? Oh, yeah, the author is too damned busy to stay in touch with the very people who made him or her so successful in the traditional publishing world.

...Well, look out rude gals and guys, your days are numbered. Traditional publishing has been looking for the elephant graveyard for years, and with what has been happening in the world of ebooks and Kindle, traditional books might in the future be only found in used bookstores and libraries. In the meantime, saying hello and thank you to the fans is not that much time out of your writing schedule.

Remember that little thing called voice? Well, voice is part of an author's identity, and since it goes both ways, the identity of an author can color a fan's view of an author, especially in the world of the Internet--I smile politely and turn my head from rude people, don't you?

In the past, you could wonder what Ian Fleming must have sounded like, or seemed, in person based on a major magazine's interview of the famous book author. Or, you could possibly have felt a connection with an author interviewed on a radio or television show. That was enough for authors back then. Oprah took it to the bank. These days, if your name isn't John LeCarre or Frederick Forsyth, forget it!

The Internet, and the "official author website" has made it too easy for our fans to connect with us: the question is whether we respond appropriately. Sure there are glitches in software, where the email doesn't get through...

And it doesn't matter that we have newsletters and blogs. Yes, they're good for keeping the fan base up to date on the appearances, our special interests and upcoming books. Even sharing what we have to go through in the process of writing, marketing and selling books.

This is afterall a business. If we just wanted to write, we'd just type away on our computer, or crack open the diary and bleed onto the page.

As you can imagine I've interacted with a number of celebrities: they're always wondering if there's possibly a film idea with my next book, or something in my past that can be adapted to the screen. Some of them, like many of the paycheck writing producers they cower under, can be real self-centered little dweebs that make you wonder what did they think they did in their lives that earned them the right to look down on others as if they're owed something by their fans: they act like they earned a Medal of Honor for saving a division, though they only played a first or last name-only soldier character in a low budget film. You know who I'm talking about.

Then, there have been other film and TV actors, those who remember that respecting other people is a high level of self-respect, those like Gary Graham, Adam Baldwin, Michael Gregory, Patrick Kilpatrick, Kenn Scott, and Tim Abell, and, of course the dearly departed Charleton Heston, who not only put his actions behind his words, but also was kind enough to a neophyte book author, to write a nice little plug for the open of my Vietnam prison/Captain Kidd treasure hunting memoir, The Bamboo Chest. What applies to them, is what applies to anyone in the public eye.

If you want to keep your readers and you want them to recommend you to the uninitiated, then responding to an email is definitely worth a few minutes of your time...

It's also common courtesy--just being polite and in my book, in this time of increased rudeness as everyone goes about their lives as if they're alone (or they were just not taught how to treat other people with respect, which can be an indicator of self-respect), being polite and sharing common courtesy goes a long way!

And while I'm at, I want to share with you my most heartfelt words of appreciation for reading my books--THANK YOU.

...I'd never have gotten here without you!

New 2nd Edition of Bamboo Chest and return to Blogger

Well, we've been away from Blogger.com, since they no longer let us control our ads. But, now with the new format, we'll give it a try again. Been heavily on articles at http://www.corksoutdoors.com/ and http://www.globalcounteterror.com/

And real news is that a new 2n Edition of Bamboo Chest is now available on Amazon Kindle! Yep, that might be what save book publishing and I'm working on being at the head of the wave, instead of the back end. You can expect a number of new books this year. In the next couple months, we'll be releasing my first political intrigue novel. Until then, check out the NEW BAMBOO CHEST

"Memories of an Interesting Life" by Col. John H. Roush (RET)

If there’s one thing that I can delight in living the life I’ve lived is that I’ve had the opportunity to meeting some very interesting people, not the least of whom are those I consider friends, such Col. John H. Roush, Jr. (RET). A fellow outdoor writer with a past military life, Roush has lived and traveled in a number of countries and through a number of times that I have found most interesting and so read with great relish his much anticipated memoir: Memories of an Interesting Life.

Born in Oregon in 1923, he moved to San Francisco at the start of the Great Depression. To hear Roush talk about that time it’s as though a different world, more reflecting the San Francisco that had so pleased my father, when he was a communications instructor for the US Marine Corps at Treasure Island during the Korean War, that he would later move his family to the Bay Area after years overseas.

Memoirs of an Interesting Life not only recants those times of San Francisco's grand days, but also a life during WWII in Europe, fishing and hunting around the world, and in eloquent style sharing his love and admiration for his wife and family. And no less interesting the life of a professional soldier willing to talk openly about such subjects as death, ghosts and Divine intervention.

Roush describsd with great detail memories at such a young age, the days after the death of his grandmother, seeing her rocking in her chair in the living room, and a cousin saying that he saw her seated in church. For many this might seem bizarre in this modern world where death is not as impacting as it once was due to video games that lessen the emotional impact of loss due to death, and science that has done such a good job in prolonging the lives of those who only 20 or 30 years ago would have perished at birth.

But, for those of us who were in harms way, as Roush most definitely was during the Battle of the Bulge, noted by a statistic that 90 percent of platoon leaders were killed during WWII, being visited by the dead shortly after their can be a common occurrence. Is it the mind playing games? Or, a last chance for us all to say goodbye? Whichever it is, hard for me as a reader to say, no, it didn’t happen. And it sure makes for interesting reading!

As a combat veteran myself who has a pretty good understanding of the psychological impact of war (My first memories are of the Tet Offensive, I spent 4 years in the Central America War and worked for 10 years as counselor for those dealing with PTSD) I was especially intrigued by comments about post-traumatic stress disorder, something I don’t really consider a disorder, and actually a normal response to very traumatic events, but can be especially aggravated when tainted by stigma and cultural misunderstandings. Many deal with combat-related PTSD every day, and it affects their lives in no way other than to remind those affected of that place and time they were tempered.

In reading the chapter titled, “Crack Up!” (Roush’s thoughts on PTSD), I was reminded of the differences of those who fought in Europe in contrast to those in the Pacific Theater. Roush mentions that he never experienced such effects. He recalls taking the time to “have a talk” with a cousin who returned from fighting in New Guinea. The very journalistic manner in which it is told offers the reader a clear cultural and historical understanding of why his cousin was so profoundly affected by PTSD and Roush wasn’t.

This was the same argument put by Vietnam Veterans that the war in the Asia was so effecting in PTSD because of the lack of bonding and post-combat processing: that the important talking it out with those who were there (replicated later by VA counseling sessions), and also the cultural differences of fighting in Asia which seemed so foreign, as compared to Europe where a victorious Allied soldier more easily felt a liberating hero, moving along a countryside and language barriers not as different than those heard back home, as it was for many US combatants island-hopping through cultural and people so foreign on their way to Japan.

Perhaps as more government and military personnel learn PTSD isn’t a disorder or syndrome and really just a natural post-event response to traumatic events and very healthy when understood and worked with, free of stigma, calling it instead what I do--PTSR (Post-Traumatic Stress Response)--the more extreme symptoms and reactions will lessen and disappear for those returning home.

And what does a warrior think of more than getting back when the war is over: wife, family, good things in life! No wonder the return from WWII for those who survived was one of the wealthiest moments in US. A real swords to plowshares moment!

…But the Army wasn’t done with Lt. Roush—they put him in Austria.

Though his depictions of fighting in WWII are short, already having been described in critically acclaimed World War II Reminiscences, 1996, more recanting of what life was like in Austria right after the war are delivered in more detail in “Memories of an Interesting Life”. Of course there’s more hunting, often just to cut the boredom and meager offerings of army food, but it’s also telling information about a country bringing itself out of its prior furor as Hitler’s birth nation.

Finally, Roush gets to come home and get married and build a family. Two sons carry his name and the same love of hunting and fishing. There’s the fishing for mega-sized Mackinaw trout that used to swim in great numbers in Lake Tahoe. Nimrod adventures in New Zealand, Africa. Angling for a sharks, salmon, and tarpon. In all there’s a feeling of appreciation for having been able to come back and enjoy, though only through reading, what his generation had as the opportunity to have experienced…

The books are priced at $30 for soft cover and $40 for hardcover, autographed, postage and mailing included. Please send checks to Col. John Roush at 600 Deer Valley Road, # 2E, San Rafael, CA 94903, or FAX 415-499-5112

It can also be ordered through Amazon.com, but without a signature, of course:

Are you in San Francisco on March 8th at 7 p.m.?

Much ado!

If you're in San Francisco at 7 p.m, Come on down to the Union Square flagship of Borders Stores. I'll be doing a presentation and book signing.

This will be my last book signing for Bamboo Chest and for a while in the US as I'm headed to South Korea!

Former-Investigator for POW/MIA Div. of the Pentagon clarifies statements about the case...

Well, it's good to know that people are actually doing searches under their names to find out what's been written. Here's an e-mail that my friend and ex-POW/MIA Division debriefer Bob Destatte asked I post to clarify a post from July awhile back:

"Please permit me to take this opportunity to respond to a note you posted on your BLOG back in July 2003 (see copy below). I serendipitously ran across the item this evening while searching for information on a separate topic.

In your note, referring to a passage in an e-mail (see copy below) that I had authored and that was posted on teamhouse.tni.net, you correctly pointed out that Rach Gia is located "...on the WEST side of Vietnam (not the east),..." In my e-mail I inadvertently and mistakenly wrote "...Rach Gia (a coastal town on the SE coast)..."

Charitably you refrained from pointing out a second typographic error in my e-mail, where I had written, "...1) the amount was far short of the $1,000,000,000.00 fine (read ransom) local authorities reportedly were trying to get from Schooley's 'associates',..."

I had intended to write "$1,000,000.00", but inadvertently added three-too-many zeros. The correct sum was one million dollars.

In your note you wrote: "And if Schooley was captured with Thais, then for sure he's still going to be in the Thai Gulf." It seemed to me that you were responding to a question posed by one of your correspondents. If that is the case, I was not able to find the question. In any event, although I am not at liberty to divulge the source of my knowledge, I can assure you that I and my office had unimpeachable knowledge of the date, location, and circumstances that Vietnamese maritime forces took Mr. Schooley and his associates into custody.

Also in your note, you wrote: "Funny that Senator Kerry went in after a drug dealer, such as Schooley..." I and some of my colleagues had urged Senator Kerry to press the Vietnamese regarding Mr. Schooley. I believe that Senator Kerry simply was trying to assist us in making a point we were trying to make with Vietnamese central authorities. His assistance proved helpful.

I knew the correct location of Rach Gia and the correct amount of the ransom Vietnamese authorities tried to extract from Mr. Schooley's colleagues. Unfortunately, my spell-checker was not able to compensate for my careless proof-reading of the factual content of my e-mail."

This was in regards to an e-mail I had read at http://teamhouse.tni.net/:

From: "Destatte, Robert J., OSD/DPMO"
Thought you might be interested in the following. You might wish to pass the following comments. The comments represent my personal views, not necessarily the views of my office. In the article Jack wrote:
QUOTE: No US citizen has been released from Vietnam since Operation Homecoming in early 1973. The ambassador/JTF has found no evidence of any US citizen being held against his will in Vietnam since then. END QUOTE
That statement, as worded, is not accurate. In fact, several American citizens have been held against their will in Vietnam since 1973. The number includes the crews and passengers of several yachts that Vietnamese coastal security forces seized and detained for varying periods up to approximately one year. One of the most unusual cases was a young American photographer named Fred Graham who accompanied a British adventurer, whose name escaped me at this moment, who was arrested in the early 1980s when they landed on an island off the southeast coast of Vietnam to search for the legendary buried treasure of the pirate Captain Kidd (no kidding). The Vietnamese detained them in various locations for approximately one year. The Vietnamese did not inform us of any of these incidents. We learned about every instance through our efforts to collect information about Vietnamese prisons to determine whether Vietnamese authorities continued to detain any American wartime captives after Operation Homecoming.
In my judgment, a significant aspect of these incidents is the manner in which they illustrate our intelligence community's ability to learn about the existence of Americans in Vietnamese prisons after the war--when Americans were in their prisons after the war. For instance, in approximately September 1987 Vietnamese coastal security forces seized a boat and its crew of one American and five or six Thais in waters off the southeast coast of Vietnam. The American, a man named Thomas Schooley, had fled the United States a step ahead of the sheriff to avoid prosecution for alleged illegal narcotics trafficking. When the Vietnamese seized him and his Thai companions, they reportedly were transporting illegal narcotics. Not surprisingly, neither Schooley's family nor his friends ever reported this arrest to U.S. authorities, and Schooley himself did not try to seek assistance from U.S. authorities. Nevertheless, through our efforts to collect information about Vietnamese prisons we knew what specific cell Schooley was in within several weeks after he was arrested. U.S. authorities passed this information to Schooley's next of kin, who not surprisingly remained reluctant to cooperate. U.S. authorities pressed Vietnamese central authorities for information about Schooley; however, Vietnamese local authorities continued to thwart those efforts for several years.
Some of Schooley's 'business associates' reportedly paid a large sum of money, reportedly in the neighborhood of $100,000.00, to local Vietnamese authorities in Rach Gia (a coastal town on the SE coast) in an attempt to gain his release. Unfortunately for Schooley, (1) the amount was far short of the $1,000,000,000.00 fine (read ransom) local authorities reportedly were trying to get from Schooley's 'associates', (2) local authorities reportedly told Schooley's associates their courier was ripped off and lost the $100,000.00 en route to VN, (3) in my opinion, the initial willingness of Schooley's associates to pay a portion of Schooley's fine (read ransom) convinced local authorities that his associates would eventually pay the "fine" if they held Schooley long enough, and (4) we did not have normal diplomatic channels for resolving what was essentially a consular matter until we opened our embassy in 1995. Schooley's associates reportedly refused to pay any additional fine (ransom). Consequently, local authorities continued to detain Schooley until late 1992 or early 1993--until shortly after Senator John Kerry, acting on information we supplied, made a surprise visit to Rach Gia to find Schooley. Local authorities hid Schooley from Senator Kerry and his central government escorts; however, a short time later the local authorities released Schooley and allowed him to depart Vietnam. Senator Kerry's visit apparently made it too risky for the locals to continue to stonewall. I heard that American and Canadian drug enforcement officials greeted Schooley when he arrived in Canada--apparently intent on resolving the matter that was left pending when Schooley departed the States a few years earlier.
In my judgment, the fact that we were able to learn about the postwar detention of Americans such as the several yacht crews, Fred Graham, Thomas Schooley, etc., despite Vietnamese refusal to inform us about these detainees or grant us access to them prior to 1995, is strong evidence that we also would have learned about the continued detention of any Americans who were captured during the war--if the Vietnamese had withheld any captives at Operation Homecoming.
Regards, Bob Destatte"