Is time travel an important part of Science Fiction?

With faster than light, or even getting closer it has always been part of - is it an important part? There is a effort to get some science fiction writers, a new generation of them.

Military Sci-Fi Book Needs Writers, Guns, and Money

So I look at it, having read most of the great ones, and think Ender's Game becomes many other titles, Forever War touches on it, and my favorite Starship Troopers never touches it. Reminding me to go see Ender's Game today. There will never be Time Travel there will always be Time Travelers.

I am a time traveler, I study History, I have lived History and will soon just become History.

Ever wonder about the Patriots of 1775 in Lexington and Concord on April 19th? How did they become the Patriots of Tom Brady in  2013? Take that fifty some man team back into the early dawn of Lexington and place them beside Captain Parker and his muster, would it have slowed the Light Infantry companies marching onto the green, chanting Huzzah, huzzah? I always wondered when Hoo-ah got into the modern military lexicon.

Personal Short story - all real time travel:

I think you were my drill sergeant.

Answer: I have no idea if you were in one of my platoons, I was Drill Sergeant for the 1st Platoon of A Btry, 2nd Battalion. I looked at the picture books I have copies of and never found your name. But still it is possible.

You were my Sergeant!  It is really quite amazing to be able to converse with you.

We had you for the first part of our training, and then suddenly one day you were gone.  Spent several days without an assigned Drill, and then got a SFC  named H or He.  I don’t remember much about him, except that he was a bit lazy, and couldn’t sing or even march troops.  We were used to you, and we had some pride in our D&C abilities so a couple of us were allowed to take over those duties.  One of my proudest days there was the day I got to move the whole Battery a couple of miles or so, and there were quite a few spectators whose lives we were interrupting because the cattle cars didn’t show up to pick us up.  

There was an incident at the record fire range with him and one of the trainees.  Some kid from one of the other platoons allegedly cooked off a 5.56 round...they said towards him...  I know my weapon disappeared from my hands to the hands of a Drill, and we were left standing for quite some time in the culvert Firing Points facing “down range only”.  The only other thing I remember about that incident is we were put in the back room of the Orderly Room Building for several hours after we got back to Garrison...  I do not remember if that was before you left, or after.

Answer: I disappeared to work in the S3 at Battalion Headquarters, since I was having trouble being less than I thought I should be.

That whole incident was after I left, I never heard about it.  While I was there we had no trainee Drill Sergeant problems, all the problems were with officer control of training and Drill Sergeants which you would not have known about. Nothing to do with firearms, just the standards of training.

That range incident was for a couple of days pretty “front burner” amongst the trainees.  Then it was addressed in a Battery formation rather succinctly...as in “you all will shut your mouths unless asked to speak about it!”.  We did just exactly that!

I was never convinced the shot was fired back towards the range control.  From where I was, and where the trainee was, it would have had to pass pretty close to my six.  I always thought I would have heard it...but who knows.  I know the kid was a screw up, and he was a bit “off center”.  He had words with the 2LT XO earlier in the week.  I was the Training Platoon Leader, and it was witnessed by one of my guys who was assigned a Female Barracks Roving Patrol one night.  I had to tell the CSM about it, and it was not one of my favorite days.

I will write more as I remember, but know that in a part today, I am who I am due to you!  I have an evening fire at the range tonight that I have to Range Master for...we are going to open up the 1Km lane tonight...it will be all .308 and .338 stuff. 

End of Story, kind of... but there we were and now here we are. Still with troops in Asia, my father was there in 1945, Easter April Fools day, yep. This video from YouTube SPITFIRE 944 is a great story about a great story and time travelers.