Blog Archives
Dog Tags and Ghost Roads
Dog Tags and Ghost Roads is a poetry collection about military service as both a calling and a haunting, moving from enlistment and duty into combat, homecoming, healing, and legacy. D.C. “Buddy” Lee writes from a place of deep reverence for veterans, families, faith, brotherhood, and the invisible weight that follows people long after the uniform comes off. The book begins with the solemnity of “The Oath” and “For God and Country,” then widens into the dust, salt, fear, and fellowship of service before settling into some of its most affecting terrain: the kitchen-table quiet of coming home, the startled body that still hears war in a slammed door, and the slow mercy of therapy, love, and ordinary mornings.
What moved me most was the book’s emotional honesty about what service costs. Lee doesn’t treat sacrifice as a clean, polished word. He lets it drag sand into the house. In “The Echoes of Service,” honor becomes heavy enough to make breathing hurt, and in “Where Shadows Wait,” home is warm but not simple, because safety feels like a language the veteran has forgotten. Those moments stayed with me because they feel intimate rather than ceremonial. I believed the wife’s hand on the shoulder, the daughter’s laughter in the kitchen, the veteran sitting on the edge of the bed watching the dark. The best pieces in the collection understand that war doesn’t always announce itself with gunfire. Sometimes it lives in a hallway, a cup of coffee, a flinch.
The writing has a strong, thunderous pulse, full of flags, storms, steel, salt, sacred vows, and ghosts. At times, that grand register gives the poems real force, especially in the sea poems like “Underway,” “Run Silent, Run Deep,” and “A Life in Salt and Wind,” where Lee’s Navy background brings texture and authority. I loved those sensory touches: brine, deck, whistle, harbor, anchor, tide. The collection uses repeated images of fire, bone, flame, honor, and eternal watchfulness. When Lee lets the poem breathe in a specific room with a specific person, the book becomes richer and more piercing.
I felt that Dog Tags and Ghost Roads is interested in bearing witness, and there’s something earnest and worthy in that. Its ideas are rooted in respect, resilience, faith, service, and the conviction that healing is not weakness but another form of courage. This is a heartfelt, reverent book with its strongest power in the places where public honor meets private pain, and I’d recommend it especially to veterans, military families, caregivers, and readers who want poetry that speaks openly about duty, trauma, love, and the long road home.
Pages: 92 | ASIN : B0DST3795Y
Thru The Eyes of a Warrior
This book is both memoir and meditation. Merrill A. Vaughan blends poetry, storytelling, and raw personal truth to explore what it means to serve, survive, and remember. Through the fictional voice of Jack Delaney, a veteran haunted by his experiences in Vietnam, Vaughan builds a bridge between past and present, between the young soldier who went to war and the older man learning to heal. The story moves between letters, memories, and poems that capture the brutal honesty of combat and the quiet ache of coming home. It’s not a linear tale but rather a mosaic of moments, stitched together by grief, guilt, and grace.
The poems have grit and rhythm, the kind that comes from someone who has lived the words he writes. I could feel the heaviness in Jack’s silence and the relief when he finally found his voice again. Some passages felt personal, like peeking into someone’s private confession, yet that’s what made them so powerful. Vaughan doesn’t hide behind pretty phrasing or elaborate structure. He just tells it straight. The scenes in the jungle, the letters to Ella, the haunting of lost friends, they all stay with you long after you close the book.
What I loved most was the sense of hope quietly pulsing beneath the pain. The character of Claire, the nurse who teaches Jack to write, and Ella, the granddaughter who asks to hear the truth, turn this story into a full circle. It’s not only about what war takes but what art gives back. The poems woven throughout, about veterans, remembrance, and America itself, feel like collective prayers for understanding. The mix of fiction and poetry works surprisingly well. At times, it feels like a diary cracked open. I found myself pausing often, just sitting with the weight of the words.
I’d recommend Thru the Eyes of a Warrior to anyone who wants to understand the emotional landscape of a veteran’s life, beyond statistics and slogans. This book would especially resonate with veterans, their families, and anyone who believes that storytelling can heal what silence can’t. Vaughan has written something painful, tender, and brave.
Pages: 110 | ASIN : B0FPT9WGZP
And Never Looked Back
The Mongoose Crew follows a military veteran that wants to keep his past in the past, but everything he built starts to fall apart when his former crew starts looking for him. What was the inspiration for the setup to your story?
The inspiration behind the “Mongoose Crew” started with my own tour in the United States Army, where I served on active duty, of which a portion of that time was spent in Somalia from August of 1993 through December of that same year. Like the main character, “Mickey Frank,” I was a member of a team of five soldiers who provided mobile security for military personnel throughout our entire tour in country. The words “Mongoose,” was stenciled on our modified gun ship (vehicle), and other soldiers in the area began referring to us as the Mongoose Crew. About a year later, my Army tour was over, and I returned home to begin a new chapter. As the years passed, I started noticing that I had some internal difficulties as I tried to adjust to civilian life. I didn’t know it at that time, but like many other military veterans, I was suffering from trauma due to my experiences in the military, and self-medicating with alcohol to manage my mental health. Ultimately, I was diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. I tried to discover healthier ways to manage the emotions, and writing my thoughts on my laptop served as effective therapy for me, and still does. Of course, the story I create in “The Mongoose Crew” is fiction, but the guts of the story came from our deployment to Somalia in 1993, and the memories I have of the four other members of my crew, all of whom were wonderful people when I served with them, and nothing like the sadistic characters portrayed in my novel.
Mickey is a good guy that ended up in the wrong place in Somalia. What were some driving ideals behind your character’s development?
The main character, “Mickey,” is a guy who was very gung-ho throughout his time in the Army, and clearly identified with the gritty and tough-minded American Soldier mentality. He embodied all of the characteristics of a tough soldier, but Mickey also had a conscientious side to him. He was well read with a passion for political issues and social justice, not only in America, but around the world. His buddies joked with him about being an intellectual because Mickey would often challenge his buddies on the politics and business of war, and the motivations of the power elite in our government. Mickey loved America and would be the first to fight for her, but he was not naive when analyzing the history and policies of his own government. Once he’s in Somalia, and is able to witness the level of poverty and the inhumanity happening around him, he comes to the conclusion that the civil war among the Somali clans were about basic human survival and power, survival of the fittest. Mickey saw it as the poor vs. poor, fighting a civil war in one of the poorest nations on earth. Perhaps he was still a bit naive at age 22, but Mickey wondered how the world would be if the power elite around the world, could share a small portion of what they have with the poorest among us. He grew up plenty during his deployment, and when he was primed and groomed by superiors to accept his next promotion, the conscientious Mickey Frank chose to decline the promotion and chose to leave the Army. He loved his time in the Army, but he was ready for the next chapter in his life, and never looked back.
What were some themes that were important for you to explore in this book?
When focusing on the strong antagonist in the story, “Tommy Cuttler,” I wanted to explore the theme of power and privilege in our society. If you have the political muscle and financial fortune behind you, a person can get away with almost anything, especially when those very influential elite are being provided cover by their wealthy and powerful friends. That theme could not ring truer after analyzing Cuttler and the influential people in his life. A second theme that I was not aware of until already in the midst of the project, was the conviction and trust that all the characters in the story had in one another. Mickey and Jimmy Ortega were always close when serving together on active duty, but the two had to re-establish that trust in one another if they were going to accomplish their mission. They had not spoken or kept in touch since Mickey left the Army many years ago, so you can only imagine the doubt that each man had when teaming up again. How had the other changed over the years? Would each man be committed to the other in their mission? The same applies to all three antagonists in this story. “The Stooges,” as they are often referred, had the clear advantage of remaining inseparable over the many years, but when people can do the evil deeds as they have over a long period, there is no conviction or bond stronger than those three individuals. The three men were really an extension of one another, with the same conviction and purpose, which was to kill.
What is the next book that you are working on and when will it be available?
I’m currently working on a single book of short novels, which will be my first volume, and I hope to have it completed this summer. Some stories revolve around social justice themes, so I’m basically writing often, taking breaks on some projects and tackling others with a bit more vigor. I do plan to link my work to the social media platforms that you mentioned, so that’s coming. Thank you again for this opportunity to share my thoughts on my book, as well as my future plans.
Author Links: GoodReads | Amazon
As the years passed, Mickey has grown comfortable in his family life, until he is shaken to the core by the knowledge that members of his past life are searching for him. He believes he knows why the army is after him, but he is not prepared for the even darker secrets three members of his crew hold.
The Mongoose Crew is a deep dive into the complexity of a soldier’s experience in a land thousands of miles away from home and the trauma many veterans experience when they return.
About the Author
Marcus F. Fair is a social worker and has enjoyed a twenty-five-year career in the field as an investigator, along with several other titles over the years. He has been blessed with a wonderful woman and life partner to be by his side for the past twenty years, whom he owes his life.
Fair finds family to be essential in his life and always tries to remember this face through the good times and the bad. In the community, he dedicates himself to aid those who are underprivileged and families in need. In his spare time, he enjoys playing chess, shooting at the gun range, reading a good novel, and anything involving outdoor activities. However, spending time with his family is what he enjoys the most.
Silent Freedom: A Memoir of Service with the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) in Iraq – Book Trailer
During war, anything can happen. Newly married, Aurea Franklin moved to Hawaii and joined the U.S. Army, following the call of her silent freedom. After moving all around the U.S., she witnessed the attack on the Twin Towers. Soon after, she deployed to Iraq. In this memoir, Aurea details her time spent with the 101st Airborne Division Air Assault in Iraq during Operation Iraqi Freedom. She discusses life as a soldier—abroad and at home—and the triumphs and difficulties that come with it. Silent Freedom is a story about love and loss, purpose and faith. It will take you to the darkest corners of the war zone in Iraq while demonstrating how faith and hope for a better future can make a difference.
The Korean POW Experience
Finnegan Found is a fictional account of the true horrors of Chinese POW camps from the Korean War. Why was this an important book for you to write?
When I met and became friends with the men called the North China Marines, men who were captured in China on 7 Dec 1941, I found something very unsettling to me. Their wives and children knew very little about their time as POWs. I came along at a time when they were finally willing to talk to someone willing to listen. My background as a Vietnam veteran and a history teacher, with at least a beginner’s knowledge of the POW experience, meant those men were willing to give me the details. I found it unacceptable so little was known to the public about their experiences. As a result, I created northchinamarines.com for family members to discover details they had missed. I then did some writing for the American EX-POW organization and found the same set of circumstances existed for families of our POWs from Korea and Vietnam. Those details went into the creation of the book, more a document than book, Bean Camp to Briar Patch-Life in the POW Camps of Korea and Vietnam. It is the only single source of information on all the major camps in both of those wars. The Korean POW experience especially bothered me. They came home to find themselves blamed for their own captivity. The media made them out to be weak, not the caliber of our veterans from other wars. When Bean Camp to Briar Patch was ignored, I decided to turn to fiction as a means of getting the Korean War POW story in front of the public. I believe the novel accurately presents the story. Now my job is to get that story recognized. Those men have gone long enough without the recognition they deserve.
I appreciated the candid and accurate nature with which you relayed POW experiences. What were some aspects you felt needed to be accurate and what did you take liberties with?
It was important to me to be highly accurate throughout the story. As a history teacher, the historical part of the novel is the story. The only liberties I took were in some of the actions of Swede. The sinking of the B-29, the burning of the records, the taking of the photographs of radar equipment, and his rescue of Mike Randall were completely fictional. As I explain in an addendum, details throughout the story are based on facts. Some characters in the story were real people, utilized to tell the facts of their story. To be honest, I glossed over some aspects of the treatment the men received. I have found some people will not believe what is sometimes required to survive horrific circumstances. Or they will be so upset by the facts they will put the book down and never pick it up again. So at times I just hinted at what took place.
What were some themes you wanted to focus on in this book?
Most important to me was historical truth, even if that meant portraying an individual or group in a negative light. I have never written a novel before. I really did not sit down and decide on specific themes I thought might give the story more appeal. I simply wanted to tell what I feel is an important story. I also wanted to correct a wrong inflicted on those men by a military and government that did not want to face their own shortcomings.
Paul Larson is an intriguing and well developed character. What were some ideas that guided his character development?
I needed a character I could like to help tell this story, a character with a built in strength to carry him through. A character who had been raised by strong characters. “They” say you should write what you know. I know mid-West farm culture. I knew the details of the story from my research on my first book. I needed characters that I “knew” to help in telling the story. Many of the main characters have a combination of traits of people I served with during my time in the military, again both the good and the bad.
Author Links: GoodReads | Amazon
They were beaten, starved, and kept in cages with little medical care. The Chinese POW camps of the Korean War brought out the best, and the worst, in men. Young Swede fights for himself and his fellow captives, determined to survive with his pride and honor intact.
First, he has to survive the deathly cold of the first winter, when half the prisoners die. Once he is allowed to join the other prisoners, he teaches them to resist, becoming one of the worst of the men the Chinese fear – the Reactionaries.
Described by readers as “hard to put down,” and “riveting.” “I thought Finnegan Found was a towering novel” that “takes its place alongside the great war novels such as All Quiet on the Western Front.”
Forgotten for seventy years. Now is their time to be remembered.
A Very Different Book
Atomic Kiss is a collection of thought-provoking poetry exploring emotion and the human condition. Why was this an important book for you to publish?
After writing “War, What Comes After” I needed to provide another way for people to connect with or be introduced to the warrior from that book. My intent in my series of poetry books is to have them all connect and show the depth of psychology in a person. “Atomic Kiss” is intentionally a very different book but it contains lines and poems that connect with my first book. In particular, ‘You I Envy’ and ‘Atomic Kiss’ are direct constants that play off poems from my last book, with ‘Atomic Kiss’ being the sister poem to ‘My Sarin’. They provide an alternate context in which all the poems can also be interpreted as a psychological and emotional look at the Veteran returning home. But I also wanted the poems to provoke thought on different subjects as well, such as technology and the different types of abuse that people inflict upon each other.
Did you write this collection of poetry for this book or was it written over time?
Some of the poetry was meant for my last book but would have made it too unfocused so I saved those poems and built new poems around them and their themes.
My favorite poem from the collection is ‘AI > Human’. Do you have a favorite poem from this collection?
Besides that poem I like ‘The People that We Meet’ because the narrator felt one way but never allowed that to show. I also like ‘Crius of the Rams’ because there were several poems scattered throughout the book that laid the foundation for that poem, such as ‘Abuses Many’ and ‘The Language of Manipulation’. The poem introduces language commonly used in organizations as tools to exclude individuals or manipulate them. Phrases such as ‘perception is reality’, ‘valuable insight’, and ‘learning points’ are positive phrases but also have a dark twist in that they are often used as cover for discrimination. It starts to become very cult-like. The 2nd half of the poem uses more archaic language that most people wouldn’t know without using google. It even references an obscure mythological figure named Crius. This is because when manipulating, individuals may often attempt to overwhelm others with obscure and grand verbiage or ideas. It paralyzes the victim. This poem prepares the reader for the next book, which will discuss personality profiling and its damaging effects on people.
What is the next book that you are working on and when will it be available?
The relaunch of “War, What Comes After” is complete so the 3rd book in the story arc is code-named “…and Even the Stars were Bothered,” based off the name of one of the poems. I am aiming to release it around Spring of next year.
Author Links: GoodReads | Twitter | Instagram
From the bloody pen of The Nuclear Cowboy and the deepest depths of the abyss; comes another book of heartbreak, burnt donuts, and a spirit that keeps on fighting. Drown in an intoxicating and uplifting journey of trial and tribulations, beautiful scars, and of those strung along in toxic games in a world where love is not enough. Experience powerful themes and heartfelt messages driven by creative storytelling through prose and poems and clever wordplay as your soul goes nuclear and your mind awakens.
Nuclear love may bring you down but in your journey you will find perspective and strength…
But only for those that have the heart to read.
Keep Forever – Trailer
Now that Paul O’Brien has returned from serving in Vietnam, he wants nothing more than to piece together a meaningful life. But the war-spawned, guilt-driven nightmares won’t stop haunting him. In an era when veterans refuse to speak of their pain and the government denies that thousands of soldiers are coming home irreparably damaged, Paul is left to deal with the challenge of caring for his family amidst his erratic flashback episodes and moods. As his life unravels from the lingering effects of PTSD, Elizabeth is committed to helping him overcome the obstacles in their path. Determined to live in love, they struggle a lifetime with the burden that Paul brought home. However, in spite of the darkness he carries, he still manages to create a legacy of light, compassion, and understanding that Elizabeth and their children will keep forever.
The Second Truth
![The Second Truth: Korean War by [John Viola HM2]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41SjDOVJ50L.jpg)
Everyone has a second truth in their lives. There is always some choice which can be made that will lead to suffering. We often do not know what these choices will lead to until it is too late. There are many people who do not fully understand what is entailed by their choice to protect and serve others, especially the suffering that can easily result from this choice. In the case of the Korean War, many of these sacrifices went forgotten by people back home, with a lack of recognition, this war, and the people who fought it began to fade into obscurity.
The Second Truth written by John Viola is a riveting personal account of his time spent in the military during the Korean War. This intriguing memoir gives incisive and thoughtful insight into what service men and women actually experience during their tours of duty. There is a matter of fact feeling to the book that tells it like it is.
While I enjoyed this memoir immensely, I would’ve like to have had the military terminology explained a little bit more so that readers who have no direct relation to the military could better understand what is being discussed. However, the book had a natural feel to it as well as an integrity to it that I found very satisfying and authentic.
If you are looking for a memoir that provides a candid view of the military during the Korean War then I would highly recommend The Second Truth by John Viola.
Pages: 62 | ASIN: B0794RTL9M
