All I ever wanted to know about war...

As a professional soldier I have often been asked by non combatants and wanna-be soldiers about war, they all said they wanted to know the truth, what I knew and where they could research it. I always told them to read and know The Iliad, by Homer, but the Robert Fagles version is close to my hand and lifted from the shelf to check some fact. Everything I have personally found out, seen, heard, felt and thought about war is in that poem. I know, there are no tanks, machine guns and rockets red glare in the plains of Ilium or the wails of the Trojan women. Doesn't matter, war is about human conflict not about the weapons. It is all there.

I am using my kindle to review Merlin's story of Arthur's Britain, the Angles were just coming in in the version I am living in... nice to read myself into the story and away from the disjointed United States of greats... and greatest fools floundering... The elected delegates to Congress have gone on the campaign trail, to win themselves and their parties and pimps some more power to plunder the rest of us'ns. You know, the voters. I was thinking that public employee unions wouldn't be so powerful if the voters had to vote and approve the contracts their elected officials bargained for... but then, many, many things wouldn't be approved if the voters had to put their chop to paper in approval, would it? The unions get to vote on accepting what is offered, why not the voters paying the money?

I am also re-watching the Korean Historic Drama The Slave Hunters. I am, of course being Earl, in love with the main female character, but I like the three slave chasers, the primary escaped slave, former commander in the officer training school, his enemy chasing him for the truly evil minister of the political powers enriching themselves... it is subtitled in English, if you get the correct versions, Japanese and two Chinese dialects are being produced more (larger audience). You can by all twenty-four episodes and enjoy the chase and the stories and linkage between the past of the characters and their gloomy future.

The nicest thing about my escaping into the stories of heroes and villains, ladies with spirit and beauty, cultures where races aren't as normal as mine, and the language differences are between social ranks not economic reality.... well, you just have to be there. And you are voyaging on the internet where Google maps don't play well on iPhone 5, or you are afraid to leave your home without the protection of the TSA and Homeland Security Department. Ah, I am blest, my wars are over, until something happens I may never work again. But I keep trying.