All posts by Machine Trooper

Military, Politics/Current Events, Reviews, SHTF

We Defy!

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There was activity by one of the vans. Some agents were trying to get back to a van, probably to get some gear they intended to use.
Roberts figured that had to be stopped. We can’t afford some
counter sniper activity, when it came down to it there would be no extra risk tolerated to either his men or himself. “All X-ray
elements, this is X-ray 47, prevent equipment recovery from the van on the highway, 4th vehicle from the last.”
The FBI Hostage Rescue Team was in a bad spot. They (or more
accurately, previous members of the Team) had been present at Ruby Ridge and at the Branch Davidian compound in Waco.
Those incidents were sore points with the tea bagger movement, and the agents on the Team knew that if given the opportunity, the tea baggers would kill them with relish in revenge. The agents had to get the sniper rifles into action, or they would be dead men.
There was no way the average agents, even those who had SWAT training, were going to get the Team out of this situation. The tea baggers were over 300 meters out, and they knew that most agents couldn’t hit an elephant at 200 meters. The Team had to get back to the van.
Roberts RTO was approaching, saying into the microphone
“Standby for X-ray 47 actual.” And then he handed the mike to
Roberts.
“This is X-ray 47 actual, over.”
“This in X-ray 72, request to take targets by van down, over.”
“Shred the van, knee cap them if you can, then take them down, over.”
“Roger, out.”

Above is an excerpt from the action chapter of this book, when the JTF (Joint Task Force) raid runs into an ambush by a well-organized militia.

To describe this book in one sentence, I might say Atlas Shrugs meets Armor at Fulda Gap. There is no character development, to speak of. In fact, character establishment is mostly lacking throughout. Yet it is a gripping story of a few good men who have had enough of the long march to a 3rd World police state, and band together to do something about it–something more effective (and realistic?) than “going Galt” to some fantasy retreat where the jackbooted Feds will just leave them alone.

In this speculative tale of a near future secession effort in Texas, the focal character is Jim Roberts, a former armor officer who is well-versed in military SOPs, TOOs and overall military doctrine. He also knows a great deal about the law and politics, though toward the end we discover he hates politics (and I can relate). From a storytelling perspective it seems he’s not all that necessary for 2/3rds of the narrative, which is in a summary format. Nevertheless, after a couple pages it was hard to quit reading.

I’m tempted to call this “an optimistic dystopia” because everything seems to fall into place for the good guys. Oh, they have opposition, and that opposition is depicted credibly. The optimistic part is how so many individualists can put aside petty differences, come together with realistic plans, attainable goals, and work selflessly to actually make a change while pretty much getting everything right along the way. From my experience, this would never happen. Nevertheless, it is an engrossing read because I like to dream about how we COULD preserve some of our freedoms IF IF IF this, that, that, and this all went right, and if key people handled thus situation exactly in this fashion, and Joe and Moe could check their pride at the door in order to work together, etc. Perhaps patriots and Texicans would enjoy this book as much as I did. It might be just the ticket for those who don’t normally read fiction (or read at all), because it’s full of information and action plans which could, theoretically, be mimicked in real life.

The version of this book that I read was not edited. It reads like a first draft by somebody who doesn’t know (how) to punctuate, with seriously challenged spelling and grammar skills…and who only made matters worse with what spell check function was utilized. In other words: a typical Indie e-book. Difficulty telling dialog from inner-dialog from narration was compounded by a haphazard use of quotation marks. During one passage of dialog which went on for quite a while, there were no attributions at all and you might could figure out who was saying what if you took notes and kept score. There were several paragraphs I had to re-read a few times to deduce what the meaning would be without so many errors, and more than a couple places where the sentence construction was so mangled that I just couldn’t figure out what information the author was trying to convey.

I was given a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Politics/Current Events

More Hillary Follies (That She’ll No Doubt Get Away With)

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Without massive election fraud, Hussein would not have continued his occupation of the White House in 2012. Possibly wouldn’t have occupied it in the first place. So what happens when the people don’t hold their public servants accountable?

The same thing happens, of course. Over, and over, and over…

Not even counting the hordes of non-citizen invaders, dead voters and serial voters, here’s what Stanford University uncovered about lying, crooked Hillary.

Now WikiLeaks is releasing emails which show more dirty dealings from the Democrats. The first wave has already hit.  The founder of WikiLeaks has expressed an intention to get Hillary indicted.

hillaryvoterfraudDon’t hold your breath, dude. There’s more than enough to indict her already, many times over; and Hussein, too. There was enough back when her hubby the Teflon Traitor was in power. 40 % of the population would vote for whoever the Democrat candidate is, even if they strangled a baby and raped its corpse on prime time network news. And in case you haven’t noticed, the entire “Justice” Department is in the Clintons’ pocket.

Not that Network news, or any facet of the Narrative Enforcement Ministry, would report on it, anyway. Case in point is Faceborg, which admits to censoring links to WikiLeaks. Can’t have the unwashed swing voters exposed to unfiltered information and using their unwashed brains to decide for themselves what to think about it, now can we? The Faceborg claims it was an automated spam detector, of course. After all, there’s no pattern of one-sided censorship at Farcebook, is there?

And the “peoples’ uprisings” that shut down or otherwise disrupted Trump rallies (which included physical assaults against attendees)? Organized by the DNC. Of course the press covered this up, and blamed the violence on the victims. Socialist midwits across the country lapped up the agitprop and swallowed it whole.

Let’s not forget Hillary’s definitive moment as Secretary of State:

Politics/Current Events

What Will Happen in Cleveland?

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The Vietnam generation had two defining moments. One was Woodstock, and the other was the 1968 Democratic Convention, where a “war on the streets” was waged to convince politicians to abandon the war in the jungle.

It may seem odd that the potheads, civil rights protestors and Communists (and perhaps even some true believers who just wanted the killing to stop, but not necessarily for the Communists to win) would target the DNC Convention while leaving the Republicans alone, but it was a Democrat war, with Democrats controlling Congress and the White House. The Convention was their storming of the Bastille, their Great Patriotic War, and those who were there will still talk about it that way.

The 2016 election theater will turn out much different, though no less of a defining moment. And the level of violence could very well make 1968 seem tame by comparison.

You may have noticed a trend of violence lately, increasing in frequency and intensity. The latest police assassinations in Baton Rouge have most people focused on the escalating black/white and police/citizen tensions, but there are many wrinkles to this “Summer of Change,” and don’t forget the organized violence that has been perpetrated on Trump supporters all year, carried out by La Raza, BLM, Bernie/Hillary zealots, etc., but predictably blamed on the victims.

It’s hard to imagine that “Black Lives Matter” and similar groups would let the Republican convention go by unmolested. In fact, there are indications that what we’ve seen so far will pale in comparison to the violence they have planned in Cleveland. There is also a strong possibility that the authorities in Cleveland will give them “room to destroy” as in Baltimore and other places.

Local police have been militarized around the country, and along with their Federal funding, much of the Federal attitude has rubbed off on them, too. They normally act like occupation troops in a hostile nation, but when nationalists are targeted for assault by leftist agitators, in some cities the police just stand down and smirk.

So what will it be? If left-wing stormtroopers attack conventioneers, or Trump supporters who gather outside the convention, which is very likely, how far will they be allowed to go? It might be on the scale of the terror that’s been going on in France, or worse.

What happens if the victims retaliate? Of course we know how the media would report it. They blamed Trump and his supporters even when they didn’t fight back. Imagine what they’ll do with some carefully selected video footage if nationalists have the audacity to defend themselves against the globalist pawns. And retaliation might motivate the government in Cleveland to unleash an army of police in riot gear with deadly force authorized.

This is a powder keg for more than one reason.

The nation-within-a-nation of entitled America-hating cutthroats are just looking for a reason to go totally berserk, and they are encouraged to do so from the White House down.

As if cops weren’t aggressive enough already, now their hostility toward citizens is even higher. It shouldn’t take too many more media circus cop killings before solidarity with their brothers in the Blueshirt Fraternity takes over and they begin looking for revenge.

(Don’t forget that the Federal government might just give them an excuse for that at any time, especially with a horrific-enough crisis–real or artificial.)

It’s obvious I can’t speak for anyone else, especially anyone in the “alt right,” but Trump supporters, nationalists and other so-far peaceful citizens have got to be tired of getting pushed around. There are hot-heads on every side, and when that last straw breaks the camel’s back, the reaction might be way out of proportion to the provocation.

It might turn out to be worse than all the above, combined, because the cabal occupying our government is willing to manufacture a crisis when none is handy. A false flag attack is probably not necessary in Cleveland (and would be more likely at the Democrat Convention anyway), but is not impossible, either.

There is one other possibility, and that is that peace reigns during the conventions. Such would be miraculous, but many of us cling to the hope, anyway.

The war drums have been getting louder over the last several months, and are getting close to deafening, now. The powder keg may very well be sparked between now and when this post goes live.

Aviation, Historical, Military, Reviews

Phantom Leader

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In the third book in the Wings of War series,  Mark Berent has not lost any steam. In fact, some readers think he picks up the pace as the series goes on. In any event, I still maintain that you will not find a more authentic big picture of the US involvement in Vietnam (the air war in particular) in any single non-fiction work. Certainly not in movies (though Go Tell the Spartans is a suprisingly credible depiction of the early days on the ground) or in other fiction ( though Jim Morris’ Above & Beyond is certainly an accurate depiction at the tactical level, from a Sneaky Pete who was there).

Court Bannister was tantalyzingly close to getting his fifth confirmed MiG and making ace, but was yanked from MiG CAP (Combat Air Patrol) over Hanoi and reassigned to strike missions in the Steel Tiger. Now he’s in charge of a “fast FAC” mission, for which he builds a unit out of volunteers for aerial search-and-destroy of trucks and guns along the Ho Chi Minh Trail.

Special Forces officer Wolf Lochert is back, and as primary a character as ever. Toby Parker is back, too, sobered up and straightened up, but the more responsible he gets, the more he slips to the background. And one of the previously minor characters, Flak Apple, becomes major in this novel, as he becomes a guest at the Hanoi Hilton.

Unfortunately, like too many US citizens, I am so squeamish (and infuriated) at the torture our POWs had to go through in North Vietnam that my instinct was to avoid being informed at all, and I was tempted to skim over the chapters focusing on Flak Apple. But I didn’t. Whoever was responsible for leaving our men over there to suffer and die deserves to burn.

The “fast FAC” was a Forward Air Controller mission flown in fast movers, rather than propellor-driven observation planes–namely, in this case, F-4 Phantoms.

Before reading Berent I didn’t appreciate just how huge a fighter jet the F-4 is. Evidently it weighed more than a WWII B-17 bomber. There’s a whole lot more you will learn from this book, and the series, despite yourself. You’ll be too caught up in a hell of a good story to realize you’re being educated.

Even though Wings of War is a five-book series, I had intended to only read the first three. For some reason I assumed the characters and story would be spent after that, I guess. But they’re still all going strong. I’m in for the whole shebang, reading Eagle Station now, and couldn’t stop if I wanted to.

Reviews, SHTF, TEOTWAWKI

Executive Orders: Homeland #2

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The second book in R.A. Mathis’ SHTF series has just gone live on Amazon. I was fortunate enough to have read an advance copy (after nagging the author a little bit–that’s how much I liked the first one: Falling Down), so I’m ahead of the curve.

I reviewed the first book here; then the author and I had a conversation about our books and TEOTWAWKI in general here and here, if you want to get up to speed. You can also read an excerpt.

Executive Orders follows the three main characters from Falling Down as order is established from the chaos. But order isn’t always what it’s cracked up to be–especially when the chaos was purposely orchestrated to bring it about.

Unfortunately, I think the author’s take on how easy it is to manipulate the masses is spot-on (which is to say: even easier, when they’re facing starvation and other severe hardships, than it is now).

America’s “second founding” is how characters in this story refer to the whole order-from-chaos/pheonix-rising-from-the-ashes plan to swallow the USA into the globalist dictatorship certain insiders have referred to as the New World Order . They have utterly destroyed the US economy; taken down the power grid; hijacked the Armed Forces; implemented martial law; begun to kick off their population reduction and relocation initiatives; blamed the patriot resistance for all the above; obliterated what individual rights Americans had left; and made the average Joe beg for servitude by using food shortages as a weapon. This is all right out of the globalist playbook.

I was a bit surprised at how much freedom and initiative Sheriff Hank was able to enjoy, given the stranglehold Big Brother has on everyone and everything. In retrospect, perhaps he was merely given enough rope to hang himself. And scapegoats are always needed in situations like this.

The stranglehold was achieved very quickly. The author has illustrated just how fast our way of life can permanently change. (The same government/media complex that so expertly herds the population using the Hegelian dialectic before the fall will have an even easier time herding with the simple carrot-or-the-stick paradigm.) They waste no time weaponizing the surviving population (now reduced to property of the State), starting with the very youngest.

I got irritated with Sheriff Hank a couple times, due to his naivite`…but, to be honest, he’s no more naive than most people are, or will be, in real life. Will normalcy bias linger on, even after normalcy has been shredded, napalmed and nuked into oblivion? Yes, it probably will, while evils are sufferable.

This is a dark vision of the near future. However, there were just enough glimmers of hope to read on. And Mathis has set the stage for the resistance to bring some major smoke on the bad guys in the third book.

Non-Fiction/Documentary, Politics/Current Events

Shootout at Dallas “Black Lives Matter” Demonstration

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Latest reports are that five police are dead and seven are wounded from snipers who targeted police. Early reports suggest that one suspect tipped off police about bombs planted around the city. Dallas Police used a bomb of their own to kill one of the suspects.

Phrases like “ambush” and “military tactics” are being used to describe the attack, but media talking heads are not known for accurate reporting and too few details are known as yet to describe how it went down.

According to the Chief of the Dallas Police, one shooter stated his motivations included a desire to kill white people and white police, and anger over police brutality in other cities.

Some of us have been warning for years that there will be more and more of these high-profile shootings until disarmament of law-abiding citizens is achieved. Of course this is dismissed as “conspiracy theory” even though Eric Holder’s “Justice” Department was caught red-handed arming violent criminals just for this purpose.

Here are just a couple items this shooting accomplishes:

  • Upping the hysteria for “gun control.”
  • Another step toward a race war that the government will need to rescue us from (at the cost of personal liberties, of course).
  • Distraction from Hillary’s scandal being covered up by Clinton puppets in the FBI and the office of Attorney General.

Again, it’s only going to get worse, America.

Reviews

Truck Stop Earth by Michael A. Armstrong

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A Guest Post by Jim Morris

The most important thing to know about this book is that it’s fun. It is, in fact the most fun I’ve had reading a book in a long time. Other books have perhaps explored more profound emotions but if you want to spend a few hours alternating between a grin, a rolling chuckle, and laughing out loud you probably won’t do better with anything contemporary.

What we have here is the memoir of a screaming nutjob, as told to author Michael A. Armstrong. The nutjob in question, James Ignatius Malachi Obediah Osborn is a multiple alien abductee, fierce fighter in the Resistance movement against the Alien Occupying Government. He can spot ‘em among the general population, because he knows their disguise tricks. Or maybe he’s just nuts, hard to say.

That’s where a lot of the tension in the story comes from. Some of what he believes is pretty convincing. Some of it just seems Loony Tunes.

After a scary encounter with the grays in Florida Jimmo heads for Alaska where the adventure continues. Aside from maybe being nuts Jimmo is a pretty competent fellow who can find work and do it well, fighting fires while fending off alien attacks.

He purports to be a spec ops veteran of Desert Storm, although while others were defeating Saddam he was further out in the desert, hunting grays with Delta Force. Thing is, he still talks the talk right. The guy has definitely been somewhere and done something.

Another thing this books does well is present the society of adventurous spirits who have absconded to Alaska as the last frontier where you can get a decent latte. A more brave and gaudy collection of tatted, pierced and bizarrely coifed expats can hardly be imagined. And, to paraphrase Ronnie Hawkins, Jimmo gets more trim than Frank Sinatra.

Warning: if you have a problem with people who unabashedly talk nasty, well, maybe you should read Jane Austen instead.

Michael A. Armstrong was born in Virginia, raised in Florida, and has lived in Alaska since 1979. He graduated from New College of Florida, and received a master of fine arts in writing from the University of Alaska Anchorage; his master’s thesis, PRAK, was published by Warner Books/Questar as After the Zap. Armstrong has published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Asimov’s, and Analog, as well as numerous anthologies. A writer in the Janet Morris Heroes In Hell series, he most recently was published in Lawyers in Hell.
He now lives in Homer, Alaska.

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Aviation, Historical, Military, Reviews

Steel Tiger

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Number Two in the Wings of War series, this novel gets its name from an air interdiction operation against a segment of the Ho Chi Minh Trail.

Author Mark Berent was a fighter pilot in Vietnam who also took the initiative to find out what the war on the ground was like. That means his characters/stories have, as a backdrop, a fairly cohesive strategic and tactical overview (such as a strategic concept was, in Vietnam).

SteelTigerpatchJet jock Court Bannister has finished his first combat tour and has managed to earn a slot in Test Pilot School for the second time. That’s a step toward becoming an astronaut, which is his ambition.

Meanwhile, Toby Parker is also stateside, officially earning his wings. His hoity-toity family is pleased with the enhanced status he lends them by having become a hero, but not so pleased with his intentions of remaining in the Air Force. Given his alcoholism and increasingly rebellious behavior, not everone in the Air Force thinks he should stay in, either.

Wolf Lochert, fighting a whole different sort of campaign on the ground, is an unconventional warrior in an unconventional war who is just too unconventional for the typical snooty brass who are overseeing the lose/lose experimental quagmire in Vietnam.

Both pilots are privileged offspring of wealthy parents, but also way too cowboy for their chains-of-command. By saving another test pilot’s life, along with an expensive aircraft, Bannister is judged unfit for the astronaut program. Parker is an outstanding flier, but his reckless antics get him barred from flying fighters. Both of them wind up returning to Vietnam.

Berentbyjet
The author, back in the day.

A fatal barroom brawl lands Wolf Lochert in military prison, and his fate appears grim.

From available information, it would seem that Berent was a good pilot. While I wasn’t there, hence can’t confirm or deny, I can confirm that he is a great storyteller. Tom Clancy said Berent spun yarns of “good men in a bad war” and that sums up Wings of War quite well. His three primary characters work within the idiotic constraints they are saddled with, and pursue a victory that is forbidden by Washington.

The author interprets the jargon and explains some technical details which might otherwise confuse some readers; but doesn’t interrupt the story flow long enough to be a nuisance. He’s also got some “character sketches” that will probably resonate with anybody who has served some time in the military.

With all this you get a Soviet MiG pilot, a wartime sting operation, plus glimpses inside the Hanoi Hilton and the Johnson State Department.

Steel Tiger is credible, informative, and great fun to read.

Aviation, Historical, Military, Reviews

Rolling Thunder

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Rolling Thunder is the first novel in Mark Berent’s Wings of War series. The title comes from a strategic bombing campaign during US involvement in Vietnam.

Here’s a little about the author:

Lt Col Berent began his Air Force career as an enlisted man, then progressed through the aviation cadet program. He attended pilot training at Columbus Air Force Base, Mississippi and then Laredo Air Force Base, Texas flying the T-6, T-28 and T-33 aircraft and then moved on to F-86s at Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada. He served on active duty for 23 years until retirement in 1974. He began his operational flying career in the F-86 and F-100 flying at various posts throughout the United States and Europe. He later served three combat tours, completing 452 combat sorties, first in the F-100 at Bien Hoa Air Base, South Vietnam, the F-4 at Ubon Royal Thai Air Base, Thailand, and then in Cambodia for two years to fly things with propellers on them and through a fluke in communications timing, to personally run the air war for a few weeks.

He has also served two tours at the United States Space and Missile System Organization (SAMSO) at Los Angeles, California working first in the Satellites Control Facility and later as a staff developmental engineer for the space shuttle. In his expansive career he has seen service as an Air Attaché to the United States Embassy, Phnom Penh, Cambodia and also as Chief of Test Control Branch at the Air Development and Test Center at Eglin Air Force Base, Florida. He also served as an instructor at the Air Force’s Squadron Officer School.

…His decorations include the Silver Star, Legion of Merit, Distinguished Flying Cross with one oak leaf cluster, Bronze Star, Air Medal with twenty four oak leaf clusters, Vietnam Cross of Gallantry, Cambodian Divisional Medal, and numerous Vietnam Campaign ribbons...

Quite a guy. And Berent tells a rip-snorting story of the air war over Vietnam.

The characters are great–Hollywood prodigal Court Bannister, soul sick rich boy Toby Parker, and devout killer Wolf Lochert. Much like W.E.B. Griffin, Berent seems to like privileged, wealthy characters who don’t have to serve, but do anyway and prove to be natural, superb warriors. Not easy for me to relate, but the author did a fine job winning my sympathy.

mapRollingThunderBannister is a jet jock who flies the F-100 Super Saber during his first combat tour. While males all over the USA were finding ways to escape serving in Vietnam, Bannister turned down his dream of Test Pilot and Astronaut training to serve there.

Toby Parker wasn’t even a pilot, but circumstances threw him into a situation where his exceptional skill and bravery earned him recognition as a hero. Unfortunately, a drinking problem might just ruin his career and reputation.

Wolf Lochert is a Special Forces officer and the consummate warrior. He’s no dummy, but one of his most trusted indigenous soldiers is determined to frag him when the opportunity presents itself.

SuperSaberVN

You will probably learn more relevant information about Vietnam in this one novel than you can from any and every history book that covers US involvement in the conflict. I’ve read plenty of fiction and non-fiction about Vietnam, and this has become my favorite so far–just from one reading.

I’ve also read Steel Tiger, the second in the series, and have started Phantom Leader. Reviews are forthcoming. It’s a fantastic series and well worth your time.