Book Publishing and Published Books: News and Opinions

Betty White on moving books and repacking them in cartons

2011-04-28T16:51:00.002-04:00

Betty White on moving books and repacking them in cartons

By Walter Haan, www.war-books.com, www.southfarmpress.com

New York Times writer Frank Bruni has an article about and an interview with actress Betty White in today's paper. The following lines are from that piece:

"When Putnam asked her to sign 2,500 books in advance of publication, it offered to rent her a hotel or office suite for the task and to provide assistants to unpack the books, turn each to the title page, refresh her pens and the like. That’s pro forma, but she wasn’t having any of it. The boxes were delivered to her house, where she has lived alone since 1981, when Allen Ludden, her husband of 18 years, died. And she has been moving them around and repacking them all on her own.

“'It’s good exercise,' she said..."

Damn right! That's what I've been saying for the 28 years of working at Southfarm Press. And I've been ridiculed for saying it because some people don't consider repacking book cartons and moving them around to be exercise. To save them embarrassment, they shall remain nameless.

But I feel vindicated by 89-year-old Ms White's statement that it IS exercise. Of course it is. Book cartons can weigh 30 to 50 pounds. For example, last year I sold 33 cartons all at once of Dudley C. Gould's Follow Me Up Fools Mountain. That meant that I had to move the 33 cartons to the garage door, down one flight of stairs on the lower floor. Then when the truck arrived, I helped load it.

Now you might be asking, "I thought you were the editor and publisher at Southfarm? Couldn't you get a Southfarm flunkie to do that?" Well, I'm also the flunkie, graphic designer and marketing exec. That's the way it is at a small press. You wear multiple hats. I'm always lugging book cartons around to the post office, from room to room, repacking them after adding jackets
or invoices in the cartons. When exhibiting, I've lugged them to the USS Intrepid on the Hudson River and to air shows in Pennsylvania. At the air shows I set up a screened tent beforehand to actually exhibit books in.

I'm 70-years old now and still lugging. I admit that sometimes the cartons feel heavier than I remember. But if Betty White agrees with me that book carton lugging is good exercise, then maybe there's hope that I'll reach 89 too.

Of course I doubt that Nooks and Kindles packed in cartons weigh as much as real books. They're advertised as being lighter than paperbacks, as if that's important to a book reader. Other than to students with backpacks full of books, I don't think that's worth bragging about.
More importantly, future small press publisher/flunkies are going to have to join a gym to get the exercise I've gotten. Copyright © 2011 by Walter Haan, www.war-books.com, www.southfarmpress.com

The case for destroying book inventory

2011-04-12T12:48:00.002-04:00

The case for destroying book inventory

By Walter Haan, www.war-books.com, www.southfarmpress.com

We recently finished destroying about 250 copies remaining of a hardcover that has done well for us over the years. But our contract was up and one of the authors wants to rewrite the book and add some romance so the story will be more appealing for a film deal.

This author thought we should give away these roughly 250 copies to libraries, veterans and any one else interested. But if there's one thing I've learned with 28 years of running an independent press, no one appreciates a free book. Libraries, for example, just throw it into their book sales instead of adding it to their collections.

I believe a publisher should support the people that really believe in a book. Those are the librarians and individuals who actually bought books with their hard-earned money. The used book market has really taken off thanks to Internet sellers such as Amazon.com and Abe Books. Used Southfarm books are offered on those sites for sometimes as much as a hundred dollars.

And I think if a genuine buyer of a book needs to sell it somewhere down the road, then he or she deserves to profit from a used book sale. After all, he or she paid for the book, made an investment in the scholarship of that book, and by doing so, encouraged both its author and publisher in their endeavors.

So, there will be no free books from Southfarm for opportunists to profit from. If anyone deserves to financially benefit from a book in their collection, it should be real buyers. And that is why in some situations we destroy books rather than give them away. By not flooding the market with free copies we hope it makes it possible for real buyers to benefit even more from their decisions to buy a book.--Copyright © 2011 by Walter Haan, www.war-books.com, www.southfarmpress.com

Google bamboozle hits pothole

2011-03-30T19:58:00.002-04:00

Google bamboozle hits pothole

By Walter Haan, www.war-books.com, www.southfarmpress.com

Reported by The New York Times on March 22, 2011: “Google’s ambition to create the world’s largest digital library and bookstore has run into the reality of a 300-year-old legal concept: copyright.

“The company’s plan to digitize every book ever published and make them widely available was derailed on Tuesday when a federal judge in New York rejected a sweeping $125 million legal settlement the company had worked out with groups representing authors and publishers.

“The decision throws into legal limbo one of the most ambitious undertakings in Google’s history, and it brings into sharp focus concerns about the company’s growing power over information.”

Thank God Google was stopped. I am a publisher of nonfiction history books and have been for 27 years. To me the biggest questions were, "What is an orphan book?" and "Who decides if a book is an orphan?" Is it an orphan because Amazon.com, the seller of record, no longer carries an older book even though the original publisher is still offering it on its Web Site? All of our in-print books published prior to 2005 were suddenly dropped by Amazon in 2008 and the site only offered used copies at inflated prices from other sellers, even though we still had an inventory of new, unsold books we were selling to museums, or online, at book shows and air shows. I have greatly feared that because Amazon.com or bn.com didn't offer older books any longer new from the original publisher, in this case Southfarm Press, that Google and others would jump to the conclusion that the books were out-of-print and ripe for Google to digitalize. Google pushed this with us, asking wouldn't we like it if we could make money from their digitalized, sold copies? The answer was and is no. We'd rather sell our inventory. We made the mistake of signing up for Google Books, a program where Google digitalizes and shows a few pages of each book for potential customers, along with Google advertising, from which we would supposedly share in the revenue. From what I have seen over the years, we are owed 12 cents by Google and we haven't been paid even that. Since 1984, my late wife and I have published Southfarm Press books and we were totally "at risk" for everything, the editing, publishing, you name it. The last thing I want is for an Internet behemoth to swoop in, cut us out and make money from our hard work. The judge's suggestion that publishers and authors must "opt in" instead of "opt out" from Google's massive usurping of the intellectual property rights of others is a good idea.

Finally, I’m not against offering digitalized books using our print books as their basis. But, we should be the ones creating these ebooks and profiting from them along with our authors, not Google. I understand Google offers its employees at its headquarters near San Francisco free gourmet lunches every day. Dishes like rack of lamb. Google’s staff has gotten fat on free goodies. Let’s not let them get fatter by gobbling everyone else’s intellectual property rights. --Copyright © 2011 by Walter Haan, www.war-books.com, www.southfarmpress.com

Famous people think writing children's books is child's play

2011-02-09T14:12:00.002-05:00

Famous people think writing children's books is child's play

By Walter Haan, www.war-books.com, www.southfarmpress.com

Once upon a time there was a nation in love with movie stars, TV personalities and brand names. Eventually, some of these famous people, holed up in their castles or high rent condos or Malibu beach houses, discovered another trade to dabble in between making movies or being politicians: writing children's books. People such as President Obama, actress Jamie Lee Curtis and actor Treat Williams come to mind as star personalities who have suddenly discovered they could write books for children. Who is next? Charlie Sheen, writing while in rehab?

Famous brand-name people know that editors and publishers in castles at big name publishing companies love brand-names too. To them, whether a children's book has a story with engaging fictional characters and interesting imaginary worlds is less important than the bottom line that acts like the moats around publishers' castles to prevent non-famous writers from getting publishers' attention.

The big-name publishers in their castles sign distribution treaties with important brand-name distributor kingdoms and online and bricks-and-mortar book retail empires. That way they assure that their brand-name books by brand-name authors are displayed prominently in brand name stores and sold to the peasants in large numbers.

The peasants, exhausted from trying to survive in this brand-name world and indoctrinated by brand-name celebrity television shows to believe that celebrity politicians and actors are talented in all fields, purchase their books in record numbers.

The End (really).

--Copyright © 2011 by Walter Haan; www.war-books.com, www.southfarmpress.com

The Halloween Ride of the Bony Express

2010-10-27T10:13:00.004-04:00

For children everywhere this Halloween, we bring you
the following poem for the little ones. Read to the kids
in a darkened room:

The Halloween Ride of the
Bony Express

By Wanda Haan
From Zoo Snooze: Poems, Rhymes and stories for Children
ISBN: 978-0-913337-71-4
Text copyright © 2009 by Walter J. Haan; All Rights Reserved

The Bony Express comes rattling down the track,
Nine riders up front… and one hanging on the back.
Ten smelly skeletons are out to have some fun
On the Bony Express’s big Halloween run.

Where’s the train coming from? Nobody knows.
But while it’s here—hold on to your nose,
Squeeze it real tight, and I will be your guide
While this Halloween gang takes its Halloween ride!

The first stop is Booville, a booming little town.
Taboola hops off… and boos Mrs. Brown.
Hold your nose! Taboola’s sunk.
Mrs. Brown’s a skunk!

Second stop is Meowtown. It’s full of gnats.
Off steps Gooey with a cage full of cats.
Hold your toes and socks!
Gooey found a dirty litter box!

Third stop is Pigsville, a p-u-ey place.
Off jumps Groanz and Moanz for the skeleton’s race.
Hold your nose again!
They fell into a pig pen!

Now The Bony Express comes to stop number four,
But the crabby engineer won’t open up the door.
“Please let us off,” begs bony Bobby Gibbs,
And gives the engineer a sharp jab in the ribs.

The conductor yells “Sit,” so everybody does.
Fuzz’s baggie full of bees begins to buzz.
Fuzz jumps off, and the rest begin to whine.
They know The Bony Express is near the end of the line.

It’s time to turn the train around at Stinkleyville Station,
Everybody gets off for The Bony’s rotation.
Back down the track goes The Bony Express,
Picking up the skeletons but leaving quite a mess.

Fuzz jumps aboard. Remember his bees?
He gave them to the kid who said, “Trick or treat, please.”
Hold your toes and I'll tell you thumpkin:
Bees just love a rotten pumpkin!

The train’s back at Pigsville, and quick as a breeze,
Groanz and Moanz have a triple-decker sneeze!
Groanz flies away with a swoosh and a swish,
Most of him lands in a satellite dish.

Moanz flips south and hits somebody,
He ends up on the roof of a port-a-potty.
The conductor (what a monster!) laughs at all the mess
And calls, “All aboard for The Bony Express!”

The Bony’s back at Meowtown. Remember Gooey’s gnats?
They nipped the paws and claws and jaws of several cats!
It turned out just fine and dandy:
The gnats preferred the Halloween candy!

The Bony’s back at Booville, the home of Mrs. Brown.
Taboola bursts aboard… in an odoriferous gown.
Do you just suppose
She smells like a rose?

Everybody’s in and it’s time to say goodbye,
So the Halloween gang has its Halloween cry.
Then The Bony Express goes rattling down the track.
Nine skeletons up front… and one hanging on the back.

Where’s the train off to? Nobody knows.
But you can turn loose of your rosy-red nose.
Those ten smelly skeletons with bones bleached white
Won’t be back again till next Halloween night.

Note: The book Zoo Snooze: Poems, Rhymes and Stories
for Children is available at all Barnes & Noble stores, bn.com
and amazon.com

Blog copyright © 2010 by Walter J. Haan--www.war-books.com,
www.southfarmpress.com

Dudley C. Gould, historian, author (1920-2010)

2010-09-28T15:01:00.003-04:00

Dudley C. Gould, historian, author (1920-2010) Chronicler of “Hitler is a jerk, Hitler is a jerk”

By Walter Haan, www.war-books.com, www.southfarmpress.com

Word has come of the death of Dudley C. Gould, author of seven nonfiction books published by Southfarm Press. He was 90 years old and died a few weeks ago. I don’t have the exact date he died as everyone I’ve contacted about it doesn’t seem to know the date!

Dud was a creative writer, author, painter, sculptor. Heavily opinionated about all those subjects, he was passionate about writing popular American histories concerning the American Revolutionary War without footnotes getting in readers’ ways.

He is remembered here for calling our editor a Commakazee as she punctuated Times of Brother Jonathan (ISBN 978-0-913337-40-0; 2001). But he was a talented historian. His most successful volumes for us were about his experiences fighting in the Korean War. In my opinion, these books are brilliantly written and The Military Book Club evidently agreed with me by offering one of them.

Dudley C. Gould joined the Royal Canadian Army before World War II, transferring after Pearl Harbor to the US Army Air Corps where he was a tail gunner in a B-26 Marauder bomber in North Africa and Britain. Gould later transferred to the infantry in France where he received a commission.

He was recalled to active duty in 1951 and, following a year of combat with the 2nd Infantry Division in Korea, decided to remain in the service and establish himself as a military writer. He wrote a column on US military history for Army Times and, during a tour in the US Army Information Office in Japan, prepared a course syllabus for the University of Maryland about American military history.

While stationed at Fort Devens in Massachusetts in the late 1950s, Gould began his exhaustive research on the War of Independence in the stacks of Boston’s Public Library. Times of Brother Jonathan, is one of the results of those years of research.

His 2002 war memoir, Follow Me Up Fools Mountain (ISBN 978-0-913337-47-9), recounts the action he participated in as part of the 2nd Infantry Division during the Korean War. The Military Book Club issued its book club edition of Follow Me Up Fools Mountain in 2003 and the book was offered by The Book-of-the-Month Club that year too.

Recipient of the Silver Star, Soldiers Medal, Bronze Star and Purple Heart, Gould had resided in San Antonio, Texas.

As I was his publisher for eight years, I received a lot of correspondence from Dud, most of it revealing and interesting. The following paragraphs are among my favorites from his letters.

“I have considered writing my autobiography—more interesting than some others already printed. I remember being hoisted up on the right wing of Winnie Mae, the all white, record breaking stubby airplane which Wiley Post flew around the world in seven days, to shake the hand of Wiley. I was 13 and was repulsed as I looked up at and in the black hole behind one eye patch. My father was Secretary of the Watertown, New York Chamber of Commerce in charge of the welcome committee as Wiley flew around the States on his victory route.

“That same year, 1933, I stood on the banks of the St. Lawrence River at Cape Vincent, New York to watch the 24 war planes of the Italian Air Force’s Lieutenant General Italio Bilboa, Governor of Libya, flying at about 10,000 feet along the Canadian side. They were on their way to the fair at Chicago, intimidating as they flew in combat formation.

“We watched our movie screens as the brave Italian Army thrust their two-man tanks at the tall, spear throwing Abyssinians. A couple of years later the bully Russians tried it against the white clad Finns and were beaten back to the loud cheers of us patrons of the Pathe News.

“Movieland is where we witnessed the beginning of World War II, where I got the idea of personally trying to stop that dirty, boastful sonofabitch! Hitler.

“Kids went around singing—

“Hitler is a jerk, Hitler is a jerk,
Mussolini broke his weenie
And now it will not work.”

Dud, thank you for your service and creativity.

All seven of Dudley C. Gould’s books published by Southfarm Press can be purchased from us at our Web Sites.

--Copyright © 2010 by Walter Haan, www.war-books.com, www.southfarmpress .com

Ten largest book publishers in the world

2010-08-29T21:00:00.002-04:00

And only one of them is American :(

By Walter Haan, www.war-books.com, www.southfarmpress.com

Ever wonder why you can't get your manuscript published in the USA? Could it be because our book publishing business is dominated by foreigners, and they favor their own writers from back home? Just a thought.

Every time you buy a book published by Reed Elsevier, you're helping to pay for another jewel in the Dutch queen's crown. As an aside, every time you food shop at a Stop 'n' Shop Supermarket, which is owned by the Dutch firm Ahold, you are again paying for another jewel in the Dutch queen's crown.

As an American publisher, I'm against Random Haus being owned by the Krauts. But, according to a recent survey, the most successful publishers today are those that have abandoned national orientation for a global scale.

Out of the ten largest book publishers in the world, only one is American: McGraw-Hill Education, in eighth place. So if you're going to write a manuscript, make it a textbook.

However, eight of the top ten publishers generate the majority of their book revenue in the USA. And then take their profits home to London, Berlin, Paris or Amsterdam. A lot of good that does for creating more publishing jobs here during this never ending recession.

Here are the top ten book publishers in the world:

1. Pearson (British)
2. Reed Elsevier (British-Dutch)
3. ThomsonReuters (British)
4. Wolters Kluwer (Dutch)
5. Bertelsmann German)
6. Hachette Livre (French)
7. Grupo PLaneta (Italian)
8. McGraw-Hill Education (American)
9. De Agostino Editore (Italian)
10. Holtzbrinck (German)

It's all too sad. --Copyright © 2010 by Walter Haan, www.war-books.com, www.southfarmpress.com

Joan Rivers on the value of a library card to young women

2010-07-24T15:32:00.002-04:00

Joan Rivers on the value of a library card to young women

By Walter Haan, www.war-books.com, www.southfarmpress.com

Comedian Joan Rivers once commented on the value of a library card to young, single women:

“No man ever put his hand up your dress looking for a library card.”

Having once been a young man, I can honestly agree with that statement.

In these day of ebooks, the Internet and Google, of what use is a library card you might ask. These days I use mine most of the time to check out DVDs of recent films.

Back in the 80s I used my local Russell Library in Middletown, Connecticut for research about the books Southfarm Press published. I even used it to garner a graphic or two that I couldn’t seem to find anywhere else for a book jacket design. I remember needing a small hammer and sickle graphic and couldn’t find it anywhere except at the local library. That was pre-Internet days obviously.

My older daughter lived in Los Angeles for two years in the 90s and was surprised to find that the libraries there were loaded with films, which were placed in the front spaces of the libraries. Actual books were in shorter supply she found. But this makes sense because LA is a company town for the film and entertainment businesses.

Southfarm Press books have been ordered by libraries, big and small, across the nation and by international libraries as far away as Manila, the Philippines over the years. Reviews in Publishers Weekly or Booklist or local newspapers or magazines such as Naval History spurred those sales.

But we were surprised that our fewest library and bookstore orders came from the state and region where our offices were located: Middletown, Connecticut and New England. In the 80s we had a banner up in the offices that declared we had more book orders from Guam, the American Island Territory north of New Guinea, than we had from Connecticut. I once came up with a statistic that pointed out that New England had fewer readers than any other part of the nation. That was surprising to me since New England includes such hotbeds of reading as New Haven, Connecticut (Yale) and Boston (MIT and Harvard).

One tactic of libraries has often irked me. That’s their habit of unloading older books to make room for newer ones. Why can’t they enlarge their facilities to have the best of both? And what’s going to happen now with ebooks and Kindle becoming popular? This past week, Amazon.com announced that for the first part of this year, it had sold more ebooks for Kindle than hardcover books. I don’t know that I actually believe that because Amazon.com is known for only promoting what it has the most financial interest in.

Once at my local library years ago, I was asking a librarian for research help and I guess she didn’t like having to actually work. So she asked me in a surly manner, “Are we done here?” I assured her that we were and never did my research there again.

Now that question can be asked about libraries themselves: “Are we done here?” Libraries could be, as we know them. Besides unloading worthy older books, they refuse to buy POD books, that is, books printed on demand. Over half the books published in this country are now POD books. –Copyright © 2010 by Walter Haan, www.war-books.com, www.southfarmpress.com

Outsell The Bible...without the vomit

2010-06-28T10:23:00.003-04:00

Outsell The Bible...without the vomit

By Walter Haan, www.war-books.com, www.southfarmpress.com

I have stickies posted near my computer with quotes, mostly about publishing, printing and bookselling, that I like and want to use on this blog. So instead of waiting any further for places to use them, I thought I'd just publish the following examples on their own.

Here goes.

Comedian Kathy Griffen, in a Publishers Weekly interview by Rachel Deahl published in the September 9, 2009 issue, had a quote that I think all authors and publishers would agree with. Griffen had just published a book (or was about to publish one) and that's why she said:

"My goal is to outsell The Bible. The Random House people tell me that The Bible is the number 1 seller every year, so this year I'm gonna outsell The Bible."

That would be a dream come true for many of us in book publishing.

I found this quote somewhere by Jay Pearsall, author of Mystery and Crime: The New York Library Book of Answers, (paperback--published March 1, 1995). I love it:

"Bookselling must be a lot like tending bar, without the vomit."

Pearsall was also the former owner of the bookstores Murder Ink and Ivy's Books and Curiosities. He probably knows what he was talking about.

Of course the latest trend in independent bookstores is combining book selling with trendy little restaurants or snack bars. I myself head to the Atticus Bookstore in New Haven, Connecticut every once in a while because it combines a great menu with great books on its shelves. That menu includes a black bean soup that I can't get enough of.

Rethinking the two quotes above, I wonder if there is a combination bookstore and bar somewhere. If you know of one, let me know so I can check it out and alert others to the possibility of using The Bible as a coaster. By the way, I think The Bible should be located in the Myth and Folklore sections of bookstores.

I like the following quote too, even though its relation to book publishing is just that it was published in a suspense novel:

"Our great universities will never be able to furnish inner strength, no one can. What teachers provide is always superimposed on the person that already exists."

In other words, teachers burnish what the student furnishes. Sorry college professors and teachers everywhere. You just polish the already existing diamond. I found this quote in the novel Spy Sinker by Len Deighton (hardcover-- published March 3, 1992), page 198.--Copyright © 2010 by Walter Haan, www.war-books.com, www.southfarmpress.com

Memorial Day Words: Tell us more about home

2010-05-31T11:36:00.008-04:00

Tell us more about home...


By an unnamed copy-
writer employed by Nash-
Kelvinator Corporation
for a full page adver-
tisement in the
October 3, 1944 issue of 
Look Magazine; additional
Memorial Day commentary
by Walter Haan,
www.war-books.com,
www.southfarmpress.com


Nash-Kelvinator Corporation. That's a
name from the American past. It made
cars under the Nash brand and home
appliances under the Kelvinator name.

During World War II, American automobile manufacturers
stopped making automobiles in order to manufacture
tanks, bombers and military trucks for the war effort. A
lot of those trucks lasted a long time. I remember
riding around in Studebaker 2 1/2 ton trucks in the
60s while in the Army.

But the American automobile manufacturers wanted to remind the
public that someday, when the war was won, they would be back
manufacturing automobiles again. Cars that were bigger, better
and safer.

The edited copy appearing below is from one such institutional ad
by an auto maker, in this case Nash, and is very appropriate to
reread today, 65 years after the Allies won World War II. Did you
know that in 1944, we had nine manufacturers of automobiles in
this country, with another started one year later. Now we have
three companies that manufacture cars. When GM and Chrysler
went bankrupt last year, I wondered if they went under where
America would get needed military vehicles. I immediately
thought of foreign manufacturers such as KIA which I decided
stood for Killed In Action when they broke down and we were
waiting for parts from Korea.

Here is the copy from the Nash ad in 1944's Look Magazine.

"Tell us more about home...

"It's a long trip we're on...

A long time...a long way...

"And home is long ago.

"Tell us more about home...

"Tell us how bright the dresses swirl when girls go into Putnam's
in the afternoon for cokes. Tell us they still laugh and joke and make
a game with drops of water and wrinkled jackets off their soda
straws.

"Tell us they're still beautiful, still true as they were two years...
one hundred and four weeks...seven hundred and thirty days...
seventeen thousand five hundred and twenty hours ago. Tell us
more about home...

"Tell us the church still stands and [about] the rusted gate.
Tell us the trees are gold as they ever were and bells sound clear
on the autumn air and the reverend's voice still leads a prayer...

"Tell us more about home...

"Because out here, the roar of motors in the dawn and the take-
off of hundreds of planes and jets of flames from a thousand guns
set a wild pulse beating and wild blood leaping...and the will to
kill fires our brains.

"Tell us more about home...

"Tell us the power that built squadrons and hundreds of squadrons
of planes and fleets and scores of fleets of ships and submarines will
be the power not only to destroy but to create, and build, a dream...

"Our dream of us...

"Our dream of home...

"Our dream of you we're longing for...

"Our dream of America we're hoping for...

"Our dream of the world we're fighting for!"

Great words for every Memorial Day. I hope many get to read this
instead of the Memorial Day sales flyer from Wal-Mart.
--Copyright © 2010 by Walter Haan, www.war-books.com,
www.southfarmpress.com

George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Bill Clinton, and now, Richard Blumenthal

2010-05-19T22:03:00.003-04:00

Blumenthal learned, “The past is not dead, it’s not even past.”

By Walter Haan, www.war-books.com, www.southfarmpress.com

Educated, affluent young men were running for cover to avoid going to Vietnam in the 60s and early 70s. Men like former President George W. Bush, former Vice President Cheney, former President Clinton and, now we learn, Connecticut’s attorney general Richard M. Blumenthal, currently seeking the nod to run for Senator Chris Dodd’s senate seat.

Ever since the Vietnam War era, those with less opportunities have served as our Armed Forces enlisted personnel, with barely a college graduate in sight. Since the repeal of the draft, the situation has gotten worse, with military and economic systems that literally force poorer young people to join the regular forces and the National Guard.

The Angrist-Krueger analysis of World War II veterans suggests that they earned five percent less over the decades after their service than those who did not serve. Joshua Angrist’s study of the Vietnam experience calculates that military service during the Vietnam War reduced average overall earnings for white males by 15 percent. Skills acquired in the military do not make up for lost civilian work experience.

It is arrogance on our part to maintain a two-tier system where the disadvantaged that do serve are economically punished for the rest of their lives.

Former Vice President Cheney is on record as saying that it was inconvenient for him to serve in the military. That is probably how Blumenthal felt, perhaps only joining the Marine Corps reserves when it appeared he might be drafted.

During World War II singer Bing Crosby said on his radio show, the Kraft Music Hall, "Don't let anything you do undo what they died for." Blumenthal’s misrepresenting his military service to gain election does that.

General William T. Sherman, famous for Sherman's March through the old south during the American Civil War, defined war as he saw it: "War is cruelty, and you cannot refine it."

Now that our economy is in free fall, everyone is suffering including the families of our servicemen and women across the country. No one can blame our armed forces' soldiers, sailors and airmen for what is happening economically. But imagine dodging bullets in Afghanistan after reading a letter from your wife that she needs food stamps to help feed their children.

The current unemployment rate for veterans is 30% higher than for those who never served.

As Sherman defined it, war is cruelty. Not including the sons and daughters of all classes in our military is cruelty too. It means that it is only our poor who serve in the military and wind up in Afghanistan or Iraq or both. Not only unfair, it is cruel to a targeted segment of our population.

I suggest reading Monk's War in Vietnam by a real former Marine, Frank M. Beyea (2009; ISBN: 978-0-913337-70-7). A paragraph from Beyea’s book, illustrates what Blumenthal went to great lengths with his deferments to avoid:

“I was having a hard time getting my breath back and all hell had broken loose since the explosion. Three NVA were coming at us down the trail with guns blazing, and as I tried to get off my back and into a firing position, I discovered that the entire stock of my M-14 had been blown off at the narrow part of the grip just behind the trigger. Nevertheless, I did manage to fire off a short burst that got one of the NVA and that’s when a round grazed my shoulder and knocked me down once more."

Now in his 60s, Beyea has suffered from prostate cancer, possibly due to his exposure to Agent Orange.

I wonder what the lives of the current crop of American servicemen now in Afghanistan will be like 15, 20 years from now without education, without association or connections to men and women from other segments of society. Probably not that good. Why? Because the privileged of this country allow, even encourage, men and women with limited futures to enlist for death or a debilitating injury.

Headlines ask whether Afghanistan will be Obama's Vietnam. That's the wrong question. It should be: Will America be even more divided in the future, with ill, homeless veterans from Afghanistan and Iraq roaming our streets. And will privileged Americans continue to step over these veterans as if they were dirty puddles?

William Faulkner once stated: “The past is not dead, it’s not even past.” Connecticut’s attorney general has just been reminded of that.--Copyright © 2010 by Walter Haan, www.war-books.com, www.southfarmpress.com

CBS TV show NCIS slammed book business

2010-05-11T17:13:00.003-04:00

CBS TV show NCIS slammed book business

By Walter Haan, www.war-books.com, www.southfarmpress.com

A week ago today, on May 4th, the CBS TV show NCIS included the following line in its script:

"Books are a dying business."

That's like the kettle calling the pot black, sort of. The book business is down slightly in sales, but broadcast network television is tanking as far as ratings. All three of the network television news programs are down in the number of viewers compared to a decade ago. NBC , the network of Uncle Miltie, Friends, Jerry Seinfeld and ER needs mouth to mouth, last of the four broadcast networks in ratings. Don't forget the Jay Leno 10:00 pm debacle. Back in the 50s, the DuMont TV network was in fourth place and by 1957 was gone. NBC is the DuMont network of our day. Jackie Gleason started his TV success on DuMont but it isn't where you start, it's where you finish. He finished on CBS.

Another plus for book publishing today is the number of books being published now, way up from five years ago. And there's now new platforms to deliver books to readers. Undoubtedly some of them will be gone shortly, but the new platforms show that the book business is innovative. How is network broadcast TV innovative? (Think Jay Leno again. Or think about broadcast TV networks not developing any new shows for Saturday night. Is retrenchment innovative?)

Not only that, there are many more book publishers today than ten years ago. Sure, most of them are smaller firms, but more fleet of foot than the bigger publishers owned by the Germans for example. In this age of technology, being able to act on a dime is important.

Broadcast TV networks are putting less resources in their broadcast shows and are hooking up with cable networks. For NBC, think MSNBC for example, For ABC, think the ABC Family Network, also known as rerun city around my house.

Tonight another new episode of NCIS will run at 8:00 pm eastern time. What industry will it slam tonight to cover for broadcast network TV's rapid slide? --Copyright © 2010 by Walter Haan, www.war-books.com, www.southfarmpress.com

Producing books that didn't exist until I created them

2010-04-25T15:15:00.003-04:00

Producing books that didn’t exist until I created them
By Walter Haan, www.war-books.com, www.southfarmpress.com

The online version of The Sunday New York Times has a book review today of Design and Truth by Robert Grudin, an American writer and philosopher. According to the review by Alice Rawsthorn, “The moral of Mr. Grudin’s book is that designers should be true to themselves…and never compromise. ‘Good design enables honest and effective engagement with the world,’ as he puts it. ‘Poor design is symptomatic either of inadequate insight or of a fraudulent and exploitative strategy of production. If good design tells the truth, poor design tells a lie, a lie usually related, in one way or another, to the getting or abuse of power.’”

Mr. Grudin finds examples of good, honest design in everything including Thomas Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence. I was glad to see that the Mr. Grudin included a written document as a positive design example. As someone who has published nonfiction and children’s poetry books, I actually was inspired by a quote from a Dutch designer, someone who had designed Dutch coins among other things:

“I’m a designer. That means I work for the future—the moment I produce what’s been made in the past, I cease to be a designer. Making things that don’t exist yet—that’s my profession.” The quote is by artist Bruno Ninaber-van Eijben and appeared in the magazine Holland Herald, Volume 16, Number 9.

I felt the quote spoke to me personally as I labored as a “designer” under tight, abnormal corporate staff restrictions. There was so much that wasn’t allowed by supervisors who wouldn’t recognize good writing or design if it hit them on the head. Two examples: One editor of a children’s periodical for kindergartners scolded me for not putting two fingers of space between each word in headlines because that was the way children were taught when printing on a blackboard. But my favorite example is when I was scolded by a supervisor for designing a two-color poster when he wanted a one-color poster. The two colors he saw were black and gray. He was clueless that it was a one-color job, with the gray created by halftone screening of black. No one should have to put up with corporate idiots like that.

I escaped these idiots by starting my own publishing firm, Southfarm Press, in 1983. I have edited, designed and published 43 books for the firm, plus two others for a university press. Some of them have received critical praise from Publishers Weekly, Booklist, Library Journal and consumer magazines and newspapers. These books, these written and visual objects, will be around forever, somewhere. My wife and I published them because larger firms would not.

I was also inspired by my working for almost three years for an educational, supplemental book publisher in New York City. I’d go home at night on the subway and frequently saw middle school and high school students carrying dog-eared copies of our books. The firm only employed 34 people, including nine in the shipping department and seven salesmen across the country. I was impressed that such a small group of people could have such an impact on books that children learned from.

Making things (books) that didn’t exist yet. That has been my profession for 26 years. Copyright © 2010 by Walter Haan, www.war-books.com, www.southfarmpress.com

The past is not dead, it's not even past

2010-03-30T15:15:00.004-04:00

The past is not dead, it’s not even past
By Walter Haan, www.war-books.com, www.southfarmpress.com

Ralph M. Knox was the only witness left to General Douglas MacArthur and his entourage’s escape from the Japanese in the Philippines on March 17, 1942. Knox, a B-17 crew chief in the Army Air Force who was working 68 years ago at the airfield where MacArthur took off, asserted that the general had a third plane fixed to take out the personal possessions of his staff and family. Army Air Force personnel and nurses were left behind so that Mrs. MacArthur’s fur coats would not fall into the hands of the approaching Japanese, according to Knox.

I published, edited and designed the cover for the hardcover edition of Knox’s book, The Emperor’s Angry Guest, in 1999, in which he made the assertion above. The photo in the upper right pictures Knox showing his book to a famous POW of the Vietnam War, Senator John McCain.

I just found out this month that Knox died on November 25, 2008 in tragic circumstances. Knox evidently fell in front of his house, couldn’t get up and called for help. Neighbors did hear his call for help and looked but couldn’t find him when they went to look for the person calling out. He died of exposure that night on his front lawn at 86 years old.

Knox’s account of the three B-17s does not agree with historians’ versions, however, such as the one by William Manchester in his book American Caesar. Manchester and historian John Costello both claim that only two B-17s were used and that MacArthur’s group had to leave behind their personal possessions. But Air Force records from the period support Knox’s account about there being three planes used.

Knox explained in his book, The Emperor’s Angry Guest, that before loading the personal possessions of MacArthur's entourage, he and his teenage soldier buddies discovered the contents of the crates and footlockers while rummaging through them looking for cigarettes to steal. They didn’t find any cigarettes.

Instead they found the General’s pipe tobacco in the footlockers and crates of clothing packed up to be flown out. Knox and his buddies also loaded several straight back chairs, a rocking chair, and toys belonging to the general’s son in the third B-17.

“I am not going to back down about this. MacArthur sacrificed personnel to take out his stuff. I was there. I helped fix the third B-17 and helped load the possessions of MacArthur’s family and the officers in his staff,” Knox recounted. “I want the truth known.”

Knox and his buddies were captured by the Japanese on Mindanao on May 10, 1942. Knox spent 40 months as a prisoner-of-war and slave of the Japanese in the Philippines and Japan. He was transported twice by the Japanese in the holds of their infamous, unmarked "Hell Ships." He weighed 89 pounds when liberated by American troops in August 1945.

William Faulkner once said that “The past is not dead, it’s not even past.” It does seem that public memories of the past are now the battlefields of today. Knox, who lived in South Carolina, wanted to know, “Whose memory lives when the last survivor dies? The historians’ or the memory of someone who actually saw and participated in the event?” Knox and veterans like him have realized that this is their last chance to put their imprint on the historical events they actually lived.

A paperback version of The Emperor’s Angry Guest by Ralph M. Knox is still available from Trafford Publishing. It can be ordered from Trafford’s Web Site or from Amazon.com. I still recommend the book and salute the author who claimed rightly so that the American government ignored the Philippines in 1942 in favor of World War II Europe and later refused just compensation for the former POWs of Japan captured in the Philippines. —Copyright © 2010 by Walter Haan, www.war-books.com, www.southfarmpress.com

Disapearing jobs in printing and publishing industries

2010-02-24T09:10:00.007-05:00

Disappearing jobs in printing and publishing industries

by Walter Haan, www.war-books.com, www.southfarmpress.com

Here's a list of the top 10 industries expected to lose the most jobs by 2018. I found this list on Yahoo.com. Note that two industries on the list (20%) relate to printing and publishing:

1. Department stores: Projected to lose 10.2 percent of the 1.56 million jobs they had in 2008.

2. Semiconductor manufacturing: Projected to lose 33.7 percent of the 432,000 jobs it had in 2008.

3. Motor vehicle parts manufacturing: Projected to lose 18.6 percent of its 544,000 jobs.

4. Postal service: Projected to lose 13 percent of the 748,000 jobs it had in 2008.

5. Printing and related jobs: Projected to lose 16 percent of its 594,000 jobs.

6. Cut-and-sew apparel manufacturing: Projected to lose 57 percent of its 155,000 jobs.

7. Newspaper publishers: Projected to lose 24.8 percent of its 326,000 jobs.

8. Mining support jobs: Projected to lose 23.2 percent of its 328,000 jobs.

9. Gas stations: Projected to lose 8.9 percent of its 843,000 jobs.

10. Wired telecom: Projected to lose 11 percent of its 666,000 jobs.

At Southfarm Press we've seen our printer vendors go out of business at an alarming rate already, including Eerdmans Printing of Grand Rapids, Michigan. Eerdmans had printed at least ten of our books, both hardcover and trade paperback, until it was gone in 2005. Its staff was friendly, skilled and helpful to publishers like Southfarm, but they said there was just too much unused printing capacity in the US for them to survive. Overseas book printing in China contributed to that. I've been told Eerdmans is now a parking lot for a hospital.

As a consumer, you can help at least stabilize the American book printing industry by refusing to buy books printed overseas, particularly in China. This isn't anti-Chinese, it's pro-American. In a time when unemployment in this country is hovering around 10%, Americans need to make buying stands to preserve and add to American jobs, not only in the printing and publishing industries, but across the board. Check the labels of the clothes you're wearing today. How much of it was manufactured in the US?--Copyright 2010 by Walter Haan, www.war-books.com, www.southfarmpress.com

45 years ago today I entered the Army

2010-01-20T11:05:00.002-05:00

45 years ago today I entered the Army

By Walter Haan, www.war-books.com, www.southfarmpress.com

I was inducted into the US Army 45 years ago today, January 20th in Hempstead, New York. My father had driven me to Hempstead from Peekskill, New York where I was living at the time. I was taken, along with the rest of the inductees from Hempstead to Pennsylvania Station on Manhattan for the train taking us south to Fort Jackson, South Carolina.

On my first night at Fort Jackson, another inductee took it upon himself to read a Wonder Woman comic book as a bedtime story to the approximately 20 new soldiers in the barracks after lights out. And so started my almost two years in the Army. Looking back, those two years were frequently cartoonish, random and comical.

It was at Fort Jackson I learned it was cold in the south in January. I didn’t have appropriate clothing for days before we were issued Army clothes. The barracks were heated by old coal furnaces and one of the duties on the roster was to feed them with coal and remove the clinkers.

After about a week we were bussed to Fort Gordon, Georgia. It was at Gordon that I had six weeks of basic training and eight weeks of Signal School.

Basic training was what you would expect with one surprise. The Army wanted us to be able to run the mile in eight minutes. I had been in the Peace Corps before being drafted into the Army and the Peace Corps expected its trainees to run the mile in seven minutes.

I was commended in basic training for choking and strangling. It was good I had mastered these techniques because I was a lousy shot with my rifle. In combat, I would have had to throw the rifle down to choke enemy soldiers who reached me because I couldn't hit the side of a barn if I wanted to.

During Signal Corps training it became obvious that when we returned for dinner each night, some sergeant would round up everyone for digging duty to install a brick patio in the compound. I skipped dinner for weeks, paying for a hamburger or something at a snack bar.

Every Friday at Signal School they would line us up at a parade ground to hold up, open and read the contents of an envelope that told where the latest group to finish Signal School would be stationed. For the first six weeks, the destination was Korea. For the seventh week graduating class, they announced they had no envelope and the group was held until the envelope arrived. Yep, you guessed it, this group went to South Vietnam. So when the eighth week group’s turn came, my group, we were a little apprehensive. But the officer up front had an envelope and when he read the contents, he announced we were going to Germany. Frauleins, here we come.

After two week’s leave at home, we all had to report to a Brooklyn dock to board Army transport for crossing the Atlantic. My bunk in that ship, the ex-President Adams of the American Presidents Line, was so low in the ship that those of us bunking there were given no duties. We gambled for the 10 day crossing. The most valuable lesson I learned on that cruise was that when you hear someone behind you in a companionway start to throw up, walk faster.

I’ll continue my Army story in another posting soon. Copyright © 2010 by Walter Haan; www.war-books.com, www.southfarmpress.com

Edible Pearl Harbor Sculpture?

2009-12-07T09:14:00.002-05:00

Edible Pearl Harbor Sculpture?

By Walter J. Haan, www.war-books.com, www.southfarmpress.com

Last month while visiting in the beautiful Hudson Valley in New York State, I came across the fall issue of a beautifully produced magazine: Edible Hudson Valley. While flipping through the pages I came across an article about art made from food and there was one photo that shocked me. In it was a sculpture of the twin towers made from cheese with a little plastic or metal plane wired to look as if it was crashing into one of the towers.

I thought this so tasteless I couldn't help but wonder what possessed the magazine to show the art, or what the artist was thinking when he or she created it. And today being the 68th anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, thanks to my seeing that photo, I can't help thinking about how an artist could mark this day in cheese.

Here's what I came up with: A piece of cheese sculpted to look like the battleship USS Arizona sinking in the harbor as a Japanese plane is shown flying above. The Arizona could be made from white cheddar cheese to symbolize America's majority white race and the plane could be sculpted from yellow cheddar cheese to denote the yellow peril that the Japanese were thought to be during World War II. What do you think?

Obviously I am completely disgusted with food art that depicts wartime death.

A much better idea on this day would be to read about the Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor. Southfarm Press published Till War Do Us Part by Frank and Mary Bogart, ISBN: 978-0-913337-24-0, describing the Bogarts' Pearl Harbor experiences during the attack. The Bogarts were newlyweds living in Honolulu when the Japanese planes attacked Pearl Harbor. Frank was aboard his ship the USS Gamble, an old four-stack destroyer minesweeper. Though only a lieutenant j.g., Frank was the senior officer on duty. Mary, pregnant and at home in Waikiki, awoke to the roar of enemy planes and explosions all around her. It would be weeks before the two would see one another again.

The book is available only at www.war-books.com and there are a few copies still available. Till War Do Us Part is the Bogarts' wartime experiences, told by both of them in alternate chapters.
I promise you it's not cheesy. Copyright 2009 by Walter Haan, www.war-books.com, www.southfarmpress.com

New York City Veteran's Day perspective

2009-11-12T11:51:00.003-05:00

New York City Veteran's Day perspective
By Carrie C.

I received several responses to my cynical posting yesterday about Veteran's Day hypocrites. You know, those who view the holiday as an opportunity to shop instead of taking some time to honor our veterans. My favorite response follows here and is from my friend Carrie C. Thank you Carrie for this.

Sincerely,
Walter Haan, www.war-books.com, www.southfarmpress.com

New York City Veterans Day perspective: (although I was disgusted to see Banana Republic decked out in its Christmas finery last night)

The NYC Veteran's Day Parade is staging and starting in Madison Park and all along 26th Street; so at 8am it was my coffee cart guy and a lot of cops! 8:30 the classic cars assembled, getting their final polishings on this crisp fall day, first day I could smell leaves in the air! By 9am the Harley's where rolling in, thundering so that our 7th floor skyscraper windows shook! By 9:30 the soldiers from the armory, one block away, started lining the streets and we, the Americans in the office, took off for downstairs to walk around the block and "get coffee."

We headed west on 26th past the gleaming cars and the huge Harley's, thanking our way through throngs of Veteran bikers, age range 40 - 80+, and assembling 1/69th Infantry http://www.69inf.com/ (our neighbors on Lexington Avenue).

We walked through Madison Park, surrounded by marching bands of all branches and a huge number of ROTC and High School ROTC groups waiting to march. To avoid a line of Marines (in full dress blues) marching past and saluting the memorial statue on the west side of the park, we moved onto the grass to let them pass, only to find ourselves behind the stage on Broadway where the televised start of the parade speeches was under way.

An order was barked, words unclear but a drum roll started, fading out as the Star Spangled Banner started; in an eerie and awe inspiring moment the only sound we could hear, as we were surrounded, was a swoosh, if you will, of 1,000+ arms moving to salute formation. We were frozen momentarily, recovered and then put hands to heart as the entire park stood statue still; even the lone errant delivery guy sensed something was up and paused to look around before continuing on his way, albeit much more slowly.

The band leaders and company commanders began to organize their troops, groups to head out of the park to 5th Avenue. We decided to get out of their way (even in parade mode, being faced with 1,000+ soldiers is a bit, well gulp!) and returned to our office, with a last glimpse of the crowds of supporters, waving their flags and their "We love you!" banners. It was then I realized with pride why I love my city.

I planned to share a briefer encounter with you but I returned to your email and as I sat at my 7th floor desk, I was still able to hear the beating of the drums from 5th Avenue, not in my head but through the window! I felt it very necessary to let you know that while yes, today will be celebrated by a serious amount of hypocrites grabbing their discount junk off the shelves of Wal-Mart, in NYC we honor veterans today for the right reasons!

Happy Veterans Day and thank you to all who have served, their families and those who support them!

Thank you, Carrie.

Copyright 2009 by Walter Haan, www.war-books.com, www.southfarmpress.com

Attention Veterans Day hypocrites: big sales today

2009-11-11T08:16:00.003-05:00

By Walter Haan, www.war-books.com, www.southfarmpress.com

Hey there, calling all Veterans Day hypocrites. Big sales today, many in honor of Veterans Day. Get out there and shop on the backs of veterans, those alive and dead, who gave you the opportunity to be callous and ignore them.

News flash: Kohls is starting its Christmas sales today on Veterans Day. Though the ads don't mention Veterans Day, the chain knows you're all hopped up to spend money today. So get out there and buy meaningless stuff. Speed past the local Veterans Cemetery to get there as fast as possible so you won't miss the big buys.

Or perhaps you'll be passing a VA Hospital or medical facility. I hope all those slow driving, elderly veterans don't get in your way as you speed off to Macy's or Wal-Mart. Ever visit a VA Hospital or medical facility? Stop in and see the veterans waiting to have blood drawn. Elderly men and women, some not dressed well, some not looking well, patiently and cheerfully waiting their turns. Staffs at VA medical facilities are professional, caring and kind to the veterans, among whom are suddenly appearing young people who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan.

But you don't care about that. You care about a big sale on denims or blouses or sneakers which you call "cool boots."

You don't care about those who have served, just as long as it wasn't you or one of your family members. And that's why you won't support a draft in this country because, horror of all horrors, someone you care about might have to serve.

All day yesterday ABC Radio hyped that it was the 40th anniversary of the start of Sesame Street. This news was repeated all day, as if it was important in the scheme of things, like what happened last week at Fort Hood. Are you giving any thought to that while loading your basket in the toiletries aisle at CVS?

Happy Veterans Day all you hypocrites who at best give only lip service to veterans and their very real sacrifices. Copyright 2009 by Walter Haan, www.war-books.com, www.southfarmpress.com

Books cost too much? Or do they cost too little?

2009-10-25T16:10:00.002-04:00

Books cost too much? Or do they cost too little?

By Walter Haan, www.war-books.com, www.southfarmpress.com

I was traveling recently and stopped into an airport book shop to look around while waiting for a connecting flight. The selection at airport book shops doesn’t approach the volume of offerings at independent book shops on the strasse or chain stores in the malls or big box book stores. But even while looking at a limited selection of books, I came to the conclusion that books cost too much at the retail level.
And, don’t forget, I have published both hardcover and trade paperback books for 25 years.

I decided that even I can’t afford hardcover books at $30+ or trade paperback books at $15+. Yet I publish $30 hardcovers (Janey: A Little Plane in a Big War and The Grasshopper That Roared, are examples) and trade paperbacks that cost $15 or more (Abe Lincoln and the Frontier Folk of New Salem and Flying Low, are examples). We always knew we couldn’t charge more than $30 for a hardcover book. But a lot of big publishers do.

Of course the books I publish at Southfarm Press are basically niche books for limited audiences, books that larger publishers would not publish for just that reason. They figured they couldn’t make enough money on them. Smaller publishers such as Southfarm have a better chance.

How is a hardcover book priced? If the retail price is $30, the book’s distributor normally takes $12 (Amazon.com demands, $16.50). That leaves $18 to pay a royalty to the author, to pay the printer, to pay the book cover designer and to pay for advertising and promotion. The printer could easily be due $8, leaving $10 for the rest of those I listed above. And I haven’t even mentioned a profit for the publisher, in this case, namely me.

Meanwhile in the book publishing world, Wal-Mart, Target and Amazon.com are busy competing with one another by selling ten new hardcover titles as low as $8.98. In a letter to the antitrust division of the Department of Justice this past Tuesday, the American Booksellers Association asked for the government to begin an investigation into what the ABA believes is illegal predatory pricing by Wal-Mart, Target and Amazon.com. The ABA charges in its letter that the predatory, below cost, pricing practices used by these three retailers (who all sell a lot more than books) are devaluing the very concept of the book and that their fight could result in the entire book industry becoming collateral damage.

It will be interesting to see how the Department of Justice responds to the ABA letter.

Yes, I think $30 for a hardback is too much to charge but as you can see with my figures above, publishers have no choice, especially smaller publishers. But $8.98 is way too little to charge. If that were the average retail price for hardcovers across the board, I’d have to go out of business.

I came to another conclusion when I was in that airport bookshop: As far as fiction is concerned, the consumer would be better off to wait for the movie and DVD to come out than pay $30 for the hardcover book. After all, DVDs can cost less than half that amount.

The argument for reading just took another hit.

Copyright © 2009 by Walter Haan. (www.war-books.com and www.southfarmpress.com)

9-11 instrumental in censorship by US government agencies

2009-09-11T13:02:00.004-04:00

9-11 instrumental in censorship by US government agencies

By Walter Haan, www.war-books.com

Today is the eighth anniversary of that terrible day on September 11, 2001 when Muslim terrorists high jacked four American passenger planes and steered three of them into famous buildings, the Twin Towers in New York City and the Pentagon in Washington, DC. Three thousand lives were lost, others were injured, downtown Manhattan in New York City was enveloped in an atmosphere of poisonous clouds.

Little known is that the 9-11 attacks combined with the Anthrax mailing attacks soon thereafter led to censorship in the American marketplace. To limit incoming mail that might be sent by terrorists, the US Government stopped buying from smaller vendors, including smaller publishers, as if smaller firms might be terrorists too.

The government after 9-11 would only buy from larger firms and wholesalers that would combine shipments from various sources into larger packages or crates.

Southfarm Press got a taste of that with Smithsonian Institution Stores. The Smithsonian Stores had been buying from Southfarm since the late 1980s. Southfarm titles purchased by the Smithsonian Shops included Ghost Ship: The Confederate Raider Alabama (1989), one other Civil War title, World War II title Janey: A Little Plane in a Big War (1998), and our World War II and Vietnam War Trivia Books.

But suddenly after 9-11, it all changed. We had published four history books in 2001 and that fall sent samples to the Smithsonian buyer we had been dealing with for years. After I was sure he had time to receive the books and examine them, I called to get his opinion about the books and how they might do in the Smithsonian Shops in the Air & Space Museum and the American History Museum. I was in for a surprise.

The buyer became cagey over the phone. Yes, he had received the books. Yes, he liked them and thought they should be in the shops, especially our American Revolutionary War book, Times of Brother Jonathan (2001) by Dudley C. Gould. But he was no longer able to buy Southfarm Press books. No, he could or would not give a reason other than to refer to the times.

I interpreted that to mean the US government had instituted a new policy: To limit exposure to potential attacks through the US Mail and other shipping services, an economic boycott of books published and sold by smaller publishers was put in place. Its byproduct was censorship imposed by the US government. I am certain books from larger publishers such as Simon & Schuster or from the large wholesalers such as Baker & Taylor weren’t eliminated from the mix of offerings at Smithsonian Shops.

We never did get our history or aviation history books on the shelves of the Smithsonian Institution shops again. We experienced similar difficulties with other US government book buyers.

In comparison to the destruction and loss of lives on 9-11, you might be excused for thinking that what I’m writing about is a small thing. But any action by the US government that leads to censorship is no small thing in my opinion. Copyright © 2009 by Walter Haan; www.war-books.com

Are Veterans like brackish puddles to be stepped over by America's privileged?

2009-08-29T21:52:00.005-04:00

By Walter Haan, www.war-books.com

I was at the VA on Friday to see my doctor. She prescribed medicine and I had to wait 30 minutes for it. I've waited longer at CVS for prescriptions that were called in hours ago.

When I went to the window to receive the medicines, the pharmacist asked my address just to be certain the medicines were going to the right person. So I gave her my address, including my town.

As I waited at the elevator to go down to the ground floor, another veteran in the waiting room, 10 to 15 years younger than me, asked for a ride to my downtown. I agreed to drop him off.

We talked while I drove. We both had been at Fort Gordon for training. We both have had the same illness recently, and the VA is treating him. He's had Hep C, doesn't have a car or job. His first wife died of Hep C. He had liked being in the military because it gave him direction and had grown up on the streets of the Bronx.

I felt very sad after dropping him off. He was in the military after the Vietnam War ended in the mid 70s and I would guess that nothing has gone right for him since the military.

It made me think of the current crop of American servicemen now in Iraq and Afghanistan. I wondered what their lives will be like 15, 20 years from now without education, without association or connections with men and women from other sections of society. Probably not that good.

But this is what happens when we don't have a draft and the privileged of this country allow, even encourage, men and women with limited futures to enlist for death, injury or even more questionable futures after they serve. And of course we've lost 40+ men in Afghanistan this month, making August 2009 the deadliest month for American troops in that country in years.

I've seen headlines recently that ask whether Afghanistan will be Obama's Vietnam. That's the wrong question. It should be: Will America be even more divided, the haves versus the have nots, 20 years from now, with ill, homeless veterans from Afghanistan and Iraq roaming our streets. And will privileged Americans continue to step over our veterans in inner cities as if they were brackish puddles? My bet is they will. --Copyright 2009 by Walter Haan; www.war-books .com

Teddy Kennedy and Bobby Kennedy against "Clean Gene" McCarthy

2009-08-26T21:37:00.003-04:00

Teddy Kennedy and Bobby Kennedy against “Clean Gene” McCarthy

By Walter Haan, www.war-books.com

The media is full of the death of Senator Edward Kennedy today. Not only that, memories of his brothers, President John Kennedy and Bobby Kennedy, are laced into the Teddy stories.

I went to my desk to pull out a file I hadn’t looked at since 2006: my collection of articles about Senator Eugene McCarthy of Minnesota. McCarthy was the man who stood in the way of Bobby obtaining the Democratic nomination for president in 1968. McCarthy challenged President Lyndon Johnson in the 1968 New Hampshire primary over the Vietnam War. Bobby stood back, too afraid of challenging Johnson over Vietnam, worried that challenging Johnson at that time would hurt his chances of running for president later when it was safer.

McCarthy took 42% of the vote in that New Hampshire primary, only 7% shy of Johnson’s total. But it was viewed as a McCarthy victory because of the closeness: an unknown Minnesota senator and poet had almost beaten Johnson, a sitting president. By doing that, he had defeated Johnson.

Suddenly, Johnson bowed out of the race and Bobby announced his intention to run for president in the remaining Democratic primaries. The problem for the Kennedys now was to get rid of McCarthy. Part of that effort included sending Edward Teddy Kennedy to meet with Eugene McCarthy and his wife Abigail to convince McCarthy to bow out and the hope was that McCarthy might say something damaging to himself during their talk. Ted Kennedy was wired to catch any misstep McCarthy might make. Abigail threw Teddy out of the room.

The crux of the disagreement between McCarthy and Bobby Kennedy has echoed through the years: Kennedy’s followers considered him courageous. McCarthy’s supporters saw Bobby Kennedy as opportunistic. And Bobby wasn’t above using Teddy to get dirt on “Clean Gene,” as he was known. And Teddy wasn’t above participating in a McCarthy smear.

This is what I remember about Teddy Kennedy and Bobby.

McCarthy said the following about the Vietnam War on December 2, 1967: “…a war of questionable legality and questionable constitutionality, a war which is diplomatically indefensible…a war which cannot be defended in the context of the judgment of history…a war which is not defensible even in military terms…Finally it is a war which is morally wrong.”

Over 58,000 Americans died in the Vietnam War.

We needed a Republican McCarthy clone during the Presidency of George W. Bush and the Iraqi War. But there were no Republicans in the Federal government with the balls of Eugene McCarthy.

Nearly 5,000 Americans have died in the Iraqi War.

For the next few days the lionizing of Teddy Kennedy will continue. I hope I don’t throw up. –Copyright © 2009 by Walter Haan; www.war-books.com

"The world is shitting Dutchmen!"

2009-08-19T08:38:00.003-04:00

“The world is shitting Dutchmen!”

By Walter Haan, www.war-books.com

Yesterday, August 18, 2009, was the 345 year anniversary of an English fleet sailing into New Amsterdam’s harbor and demanding the surrender of New Netherland in 1664. The Dutch governor-general, Peter Stuyvesant stomped around on his wooden leg and at first refused to surrender. Convinced by towns people that New Amsterdam’s fort was too weak to resist and that they didn’t want to see the town destroyed in a bombardment, Stuyvesant did surrender under very generous terms. The English didn’t want the town and colony destroyed either because it was valuable real estate and a very successful trading colony: New Amsterdam became New York City and New Netherland became the English colony of New York.

2009 is also the 400th anniversary year of Henry Hudson, under contract to the Dutch, sailing up the Hudson River looking for a passageway through North America to the riches of the Orient. Next month there will be events in New York City and up the Hudson River as far as Albany to mark Hudson’s voyage and the beginning of almost 60 years of Dutch rule in the area. Among the happenings, a Dutch frigate will sail up the Hudson to Albany, which they called Fort Orange.

Throughout the 17th Century, the English and Dutch fought wars for naval supremacy. Not generally known, but in 1672 a Dutch fleet, after looting and bombarding Virginia, sailed into New York harbor and demanded the English surrender. The Brits promptly surrendered and one reason was that the Dutch fleet was the largest armada ever seen along the eastern coast. New York City became New Orange for a year until another peace treaty returned New York to English control.

During one of the Anglo-Dutch wars, the Dutch had the audacity to sail into London’s harbor to tow away the largest English warship and set the harbor and London in flames. Samuel Pepys, English politician, declared, “The world is shitting Dutchmen!”

I happened to see figures recently that show the Netherlands is still very important today in world trade. It is the fifth largest export nation in the world, after the usual suspects such as China, Japan and the United States. Now my question is how could a nation of 16 million people, just double the population of New York City, be the FIFTH largest export nation, up there with us? We are a nation of 300+ million people. What are we doing wrong or not well enough to allow a runt of a nation to compete with us so effectively?

Perhaps we need the world to shit some Dutchmen in America to help us be more competitive in world trade.—Copyright © 2009 by Walter Haan, www.war-books.com

McNamara, American war criminal dies

2009-07-07T13:00:00.004-04:00

McNamara, American war criminal dies
By Walter Haan, www.war-books.com

Robert McNamara, Secretary of Defense during the Vietnam War, has died at 93. He knew in the sixties that we could not win that war and that we should not be sending troops to Vietnam. But he kept his mouth shut. He didn't admit his silence until decades later.

Want to know what it was like for the teenagers McNamara sent to Vietnam? Read Monk's War in Vietnam by Frank M. Beyea (shown above right) published this year (ISBN: 978-0-913337-70-7). Here's a small section from the book, one of Beyea's experiences as an 18-year-old:

“I was having a hard time getting my breath back and all hell had broken loose since the explosion. Three NVA were coming at us down the trail with guns blazing, and as I tried to get off my back and into a firing position, I discovered that the entire stock of my M-14 had been blown off at the narrow part of the grip just behind the trigger. Nevertheless, I did manage to fire off a short burst that got one of the NVA and that’s when a round grazed my shoulder and knocked me down once more."

Monk's War in Vietnam is available from Amazon.com and bn.com.

Beyea, now in his sixties, has Prostate Cancer from his exposure to Agent Orange. McNamara's war just keeps on giving. --Copyright 2009 by Walter Haan, www.war-books.com

Ordinary people with extraordinary spirit who energized us

2009-07-05T15:50:00.003-04:00

Ordinary people with extraordinary spirit who energized us
By Walter Haan, www.war-books.com

Over this July 4th weekend I found a handwritten note written by my late wife, Wanda, on which she had expressed her views about Southfarm Press military history and memoir authors. I think this weekend is an appropriate time to share with you what she wrote about these people:

“Our authors are ordinary people with extraordinary spirit, all over 75, who wrote about their lives serving freedom, sometimes as part of our military. Not jet setters, not golfers, not cruisers on luxury liners, not rich in money, but rich in spirit. They all have a point of view, a tenacity and spirit that brought them to their publisher. Us.

“They had something to say and said it. They told us about the past. Their past, and history.

“Through reading their books, we can enrich our spiritual lives even though their books are not literary masterpieces and they will never be classics.

“But their books will always be around in the future as a reminder of them and their sacrifices for freedom. Southfarm Press is energized by their enthusiasm."—Wanda Haan

Wanda, of course, was editor, managing editor and executive editor of Southfarm Press all rolled into one attractive, intelligent woman. At the bottom of her paragraphs reprinted above, she listed the last names of whom she was talking about: Bogart, Heide, Vance, Schultz, Knox, Gordon, Unsworth and Gould. To those names I add Chase and Beyea, whom she didn’t live long enough to know.

Frank and Mary Bogart, Till War Do Us Part (1995), ISBN: 978-0-913337-24-0
Sigrid Heide, In the Hands of My Enemy (1996), ISBN: 978-0-913337-29-5
Heidi Scriba Vance, Shadows Over My Berlin (1996), ISBN: 978-0-913337-30-1
Alfred W. Schultz, Janey: A Little Plane in a Big War (1998), 978-0-913337-31-8
Ralph Knox, The Emperor’s Angry Guest (1999)
Joseph Furbee Gordon, Flying Low: And shot down twice during World War II in a spotter plane (2001), ISBN: 978-0-913337-43-1
Thomas P. Reep and Constance Reep Unsworth, Abe Lincoln and the Frontier Folks of New Salem (2002), ISBN: 978-0-913337-36-3
Dudley C. Gould, Follow Me Up Fools Mountain (2002), ISBN: 978-0-913337-47-9;
Good Night Love (2006), ISBN: 978-0-913337-56-1
Jean L. Chase, The Grasshopper That Roared (2005), ISBN: 978-0-913337-54-7
Frank M. Beyea, Monk’s War in Vietnam (2009), ISBN: 978-0-913337-70-7

Frank M. Beyea, I must note, has not yet reached 75.

We WERE energized by their enthusiasm. And I still am. They all found us, we did not find them. I once asked one of our authors how he found us and was told that the mayor of Jaspar, Indiana recommended us! As we did not know the mayor, we were very surprised.

Read their books and be enveloped with their energy and spirit for freedom.—Copyright ©2009 by Walter Haan, www.war-books.com

All of the books listed above are still in print, still available as new books from our Web Site, www.war-books.com except for our hardcover edition of The Emperor’s Angry Guest. (now available in a paperback edition from Trafford Press) and Monk’s War in Vietnam which must be purchased online from Amazon.com and bn.com while our Web Site is being enlarged.

Tales from Book Industry Exhibiting

2009-06-01T07:48:00.003-04:00

Tales from Book Industry Exhibiting

By Walter Haan, www.war-books.com

The BookExpo America (BEA) annual book show just ended yesterday. A three day show used by book publishers to showcase upcoming titles, attendance was down 14% from the last time the show was held in New York City a few years ago. Major publishers such as Random House reduced their visibility at the show and bookstores cut the number of staff members they sent. Not for the first time, Southfarm Press didn't attend.

Why? I know you needn't ask. The economy, new technologies, new opportunities to sell on the Internet, even wholesale using electronic catalogues and new opportunities to network on the Internet. In addition, many stores that now sell books are not bookstores and I don't just mean the big box stores such as Walmart and Target. A wild bird feed store that carries children's books just recently expressed interest in our children's title, The Macaroon Moon (www.wandahaan.com).

There used to be a Military Book Show held in conjunction with BookExpo America and Southfarm Press would attend that show instead of the BEA. I think the last show was in either 2001 or 2002, again in New York City, on the Intrepid, the World War II aircraft carrier museum. We found the Military Book Show to be useful for sales and networking. Author Erhard Konerding (Vietnam Air War: 25 Rarely Told Stories) worked that last show with me.

Other years when the BEA was held in New York City, Southfarm Press would exhibit in the Small Press section which was cheaper than in the sections where the larger publishers held court. One year the Small Press section was on an aisle that led to celebrity book signings. I'll never forget the stampedes I witnessed down that aisle by booksellers (bookstore owners and their staffs) when one of these signings were announced. Hard to do business in a cattle stampede.

At one book trade show I was exhibiting at in Atlantic City, I was hit in the ribs by a woman behind me swinging her purse at me. I thought it was an accident so didn't say anything. But whammo, I was hit again. I turned to confront her.

"I'm hitting you," she said. Turned out she wanted me to give her the book samples I was exhibiting as it was the last day of the show and she figured I didn't want to go to the trouble of packing them up. As I valued my life, I let her take what she wanted.

One year at a BEA, I sat down to eat my box lunch, and at the same table was a young man. We struck up a conversation. It turned out he was a billboard advertising executive in the Midwest and was there hawking a religious book/gimmick that God had told him to bring to the BEA.

My wife, Wanda, caught a distinquished looking gentlemen stealing one of our books on display at a small press show, again in New York City. She made him pay up.

What it all means is that book publishers, especially small book publishers such as Southfarm Press, have to continue to be creative especially now in this challenging economic environment. The government is not going to bail us out.

Now that we all own a piece of General Motors, I mean Government Motors, shouldn't we all be receiving company cars?--Copyright 2009 by Walter Haan, www.war-books.com

Is Memorial Day Inconvenient?

2009-05-21T07:53:00.005-04:00

Is Memorial Day Inconvenient?

By Walter Haan, www.war-books.com

I received the following email earlier this month after I complained to my credit union about them apologizing for being closed on Memorial Day in a sign posted in their branches:

Good Morning Mr. Haan,

I’d like to first apologize for the offense our Memorial Day sign has caused you. Unfortunately, many of our members do not share your reverence for Memorial Day,and consider any closing of a branch an inconvenience. Still, I think you raise a good point. I will remove the line apologizing for inconvenience, and replace it with 24 hour account access info.

Again I apologize for any offense that was caused, I assure you I share your sentiments for men and women who have served, and the offense was not intentional.

Really? Are there many Americans out there who find Memorial Day an inconvenient holiday? That would be sad, very sad.

We already know that Americans will race to the Malls in droves to take advantage of "Sales" that hypocritical stores will be holding "in honor of our veterans." Yah, right.

But do Americans feel the holiday is otherwise inconvenient, closing banks, schools and some businesses.

If you are one of those out there who feel that Memorial Day is inconvenient (for example, because you can't cash in your winning lottery tickets on Memorial Day), Let me remind you of who really have the right to feel inconvenienced: Those soldiers, sailors, Marines and Air Force personnel who were killed serving this country.

An example would be those five servicemen allegedly killed in Iraq the other week by a Sergeant in a fit of unstable fury. THEY have been inconvenienced. They're dead and can no longer enjoy life, their families and successful futures. THAT IS INCONVENIENCE. And don't tell me they're in heaven now enjoying all the benefits that heaven allows. That is myth and folklore.

War is cruelty

2009-04-05T15:45:00.002-04:00

War is cruelty

By Walter Haan, www.war-books.com

General William T. Sherman, famous for Sherman's March through the old south during the American Civil War, defined war as he saw it: "War is cruelty, and you cannot refine it." That's a great quote by someone who knew what he was talking about.

And now that our economy is in free fall, with everyone suffering including the families of our servicemen and women across the country, it is heartening to see First Lady Michele Obama offering comfort to those families through her visits to military bases. No one can blame our armed forces' soldiers, sailors and airmen for what is happening to our economy. But they, along with their families, are suffering from it just as well. Imagine dodging bullets in Afghanistan after reading a letter from your wife back home that she is using food stamps to help feed their children.

And it will get no better for those soldiers, sailors and airmen when they get back to the USA and out of the military. The unemployment rate for veterans is 30% higher than for those who never served.

Even the rich are experiencing economic difficulty, and they are the ones that probably have contributed to our economic mess through their greedy actions. Pat Buttram, Gene Autry's sidekick in films and on Gene's television show in the fifities, talked about the depression of the thirties on one of the last Arthur Godfrey radio shows in 1972:

"I was in poverty during the depression before it became popular and the rich folks became part of it. Back then the high priced spread was lard."

War is cruelty. Not having a draft to include the sons and daughters of all classes in our military is cruelty too. It means that it is only our poor who serve in the military and wind up in Afghanistan or Iraq or both. Not only unfair, it is cruel to a targeted segment of our population.
--Copyright 2009 by Walter Haan, www.war-books.com

Don't let anything you do undo what they died for

2009-03-19T08:57:00.002-04:00

Don't let anything you do undo what they died for

By Walter Haan, www.war-books.com

During World War II singer Bing Crosby said on his radio show, the Kraft Music Hall, "Don't let anything you do undo what they died for."

Today, March 19, 2009, is the sixth anniversary of the beginning of the American offensive against Iraq. March 19, 2003 was the start of our Iraqi War, and the war is still with us. Almost 5,000 American men and women have died in this illegal war where the United States attacked another nation without provocation. Our government stated there were reasons for us to do this, but they all turned out to be lies.

So I quote Bing Crosby again in referring to our forces, "Don't let anything you do undo what they died for." Especially because the United States wasted these almost 5,000 American lives by being dishonest. It also disrupted the lives of thousands of National Guardsmen and put about 150,000 men and women of our armed forces in harms way for lies.

And for what purpose? Wait until we pull out of Iraq and we'll see. For nothing. I searched this morning for some mention in the media of this anniversary and didn't find anything. Eventually the US will sweep this war and those approximately 4,000 to 5,000 lost American lives under the rug of American history. It's very sad.

Meanwhile, in the last few days there have been some indications that we will finally put an end to some of our bad decisions. Like ending Stop-Loss, where soldiers and National Guardsmen were forced against their will to extend their stays fighting in Iraq. Secretary of Defense Gates says the practice will be stopped by 2011. By 2011? How about now?

Under withering criticism from veterans and Congress, President Obama yesterday abandoned a proposal that would have required veterans to use their private health insurance to pay for the treatment of combat-related injuries. I can't even imagine how this idea was ever even conceived. Some HMO making decisions about whether bullet wounds received in Iraq are covered under their plan?

But then there is some bad news. As widely expected, former President George W. Bush is writing a book. Mr. Bush plans to write about 12 difficult personal and political decisions he has made in his life.

Tentatively titled Decision Points, the book is scheduled to be published in 2010. According to an agent for Bush, the book will cover his decisions relating to September 11, the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq and the government’s response to Hurricane Katrina. In other words, the book will be fiction. Who knew he could read let alone write?

Another book publisher is planning to publish another work of fiction by former Vice President Cheney. I think of him as "Henny Cheney" (The sky is falling! Iraq has weapons of mass destruction!).

How may trees are now going to die for these works of fiction?--Copyright 2009 by Walter Haan, www.war-books.com

Hidden servicemen and women in shipping containers

2009-02-25T11:11:00.001-05:00

Hidden servicemen and women in shipping containers
By Walter Haan, www.war-books.com

Government officials reconsidering the ban on American news coverage of coffins arriving at Dover Air Force Base from Iraq and Afghanistan are studying the media policies of other countries such as Britain and Canada. These two important allies in our war in Afghanistan allow far more news media access to the return of a fallen soldier to his or her country than does the United States.

In a recent HBO movie, (more a docudrama) actor Kevin Bacon, playing the part of Lieutenant Colonel Michael Strobl, escorts the body of Chance Phelps, 19, a fellow Marine killed in Iraq, home to his parents in Wyoming. There’s no real plot to the movie other than following Colonel Strobl through his solemn rituals as he watched over Private Phelps. Phelps’ body was moved in a shipping container through various airports and from cargo hold to cargo hold as it wended its way to his family and friends.

Almost 5,000 American servicemen and women have died in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2001. But the photographic record documents only a small fraction of those who have given their lives for their country, meaning us.

Propaganda is part of waging every war, but the Bush (43) administration went to extraordinary lengths to cover up the human cost of these conflicts. It aggressively enforced the ban on photographic coverage of the coffins of our military casualties.

It looks as if this dishonest policy, which I believe dishonors the war dead, may be changing. And it’s about time. At a news conference recently, President Obama promised to review the ban, first imposed during the 1991 Persian Gulf war.

Let us hope that Obama follows through and reverses the ban. A lot of these men and women who served in Iraq and Afghanistan were National Guard caught up in a hidden draft. Our news media have stopped covering the war in Iraq, again making our servicemen hidden from us but in plain sight over there and in danger. Then if they lose their lives, they come home in shipping containers hidden from the American people, the very people who should want to know what is happening to those who serve our country and make the ultimate sacrifices.

It may be distressing to Americans to see flag draped coffins coming home every week. But more distressing and dishonest is to ignore these men and women in shipping cartons. It was dishonest of previous presidents (Bush 41, Clinton and Bush 43) to enforce the hiding of the shipping cartons to further their military adventures and deceive the American people. I hope we don’t have to add President Obama’s name to the list of the other three presidential deceivers. Copyright © 2009 by Walter Haan, www.war-books.com

Barack Obama's Story: If you think you can grasp me...

2009-01-21T19:52:00.002-05:00

Barack Obama’s Story: If you think you can grasp me, think again

By Walter Haan, www.war-books.com

On this first day of Barack Obama’s presidency, I thought I’d reflect on some quotes, one from poetry, that fit the man and what he has accomplished.

In her poem, Delta, by Adrienne Rich, the poet wrote:

“If you think you can grasp me, think again.
“My story flows in more than one direction.”

Margaret Mead wrote:

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful,
committed citizens can change the world; indeed,
it’s the only thing that ever has.”

Archibald MacLeish, poet, future speechwriter for Franklin Delano Roosevelt, future Librarian of Congress, wrote the following in 1919 in a letter to Dean Acheson, a future and arguably one of the best of our 20th century Secretaries of State (born in Middletown, Connecticut, my hometown):

It is man’s “purpose to act upon the world, not to wait to see what the world will do to him.”

The following is attributed to Eugene Debs, consistent Socialist Party candidate for president in the early 20th century:

“While there is a lower class, I am in it. While there is a criminal element, I am of it. While there is a soul in prison, I am not free.”

And Ralph Nader said in Middletown, Connecticut, during a small rally on June 7, 2008 for his presidential candidacy (I was there):

“The voter of conscience stands for the future of country. If people do not mobilize they will be run into the ground.”

Enough voters mobilized to give America the perception of a new beginning and saved themselves and all of us from being run into the ground. Let us hope. —Copyright © 2009 by Walter Haan, www.war-books.com

Throw the book at President Bush, not shoes

2008-12-15T07:44:00.002-05:00

Throw the book at President Bush, not shoes

By Walter Haan, www.war-books.com

We were treated yesterday, December 14th, to the news that a 28-year-old Iraqi journalist threw his shoes, both of them, at President George W. Bush at a news conference in Baghdad. The Iraqi journalist, Muntader al-Zaidi, 28, a correspondent for an independent Iraqi television station, stood up about 12 feet from Mr. Bush and shouted in Arabic: “This is a gift from the Iraqis; this is the farewell kiss, you dog!” He then threw his first shoe at Mr. Bush. It was all part of the fourth and final Bush surprise visit to Iraq. Accompanying the news is a photo of Bush with his face all screwed up as he dodges the second shoe while the Prime Minister of Iraq attempts to deflect the shoe. Showing the bottom of shoes, let alone throwing them, is an insult in the Muslim world. Priceless.

Priceless?

No, unfortunately that moment wasn't priceless. It came at the cost of over 4,100 American servicemen and service women's lives in Iraq since our invasion of that country in 2003. You remember, the war Bush started based on his fake Intel about Saddam having Weapons of Mass Destruction. As many as one million Iraqis may have been killed in this illegal debacle. One of the many other results, besides flying shoes, is the wholesale forced relocation of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis from their homes.

President Bush and Vice President Cheney deserve to have the book thrown at them for their lies and illegal actions. They should be arrested and tried.

Instead of shoes, American journalists should be throwing heavy, hardback books about the war at Bush. Books like Cradle of Conflict: Iraq and the Birth of the Modern U.S. Military by Michael Knights. At 462 pages including the index, this book could inflict some damage.

Oh, also a note to Brian Cashman, General Manager of The New York Yankees who is desperately looking for pitchers. Mr. Zaidi threw his other shoe, shouting in Arabic, “This is from the widows, the orphans and those who were killed in Iraq!” That shoe also narrowly missed Mr. Bush as the Iraqi Prime Minister stuck a hand in front of the president’s face to help shield him. Mr. Cashman, you should consider Mr. Zaidi. He's only 28 and has shown he's got an arm. --Copyright 2008 by Walter Haan, www.war-books.com

Shame on Pearl Harbor Day 2008

2008-12-07T09:33:00.003-05:00

Shame on Pearl Harbor Day 2008

By Walter Haan, www.war-books.com

The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor 67 years ago led to the shame of the US Government in its treatment of POWs of the early days of the Pacific War. The Japanese attacked the Philippines the day after their attack on Pearl Harbor and that resulted in our loss of the Philippines, then a US dependency, the surrender of all US troops in the Philippines by May 12, 1942, the Bataan Death March and Japanese treatment of US captives as slaves working in Japanese steel mills and other war plants.

Leaders of the ADBC, the American Defenders of Bataan and Corregidor, traveled to Washington, DC in September to make a last ditch plea to senators to cosponsor or support Senate Amendment 5303 to S. 3001 (Defense Authorization Act). It authorized $20,000 compensation for the remaining survivors or their widows of those who were interned in Japanese POW camps during World War II. They contacted Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) who agreed to cosponsor Senate Amendment 5303. They also contacted Senators Bunning (KY), Menedez (NJ), Byrd (WV) Senate President Reid (NV) and Rockefeller (WV), all of whom expressed interest in righting this injustice. However, their final effort appears to be dead, just as all of the efforts to obtain compensation for our POW veterans of World War II have been killed.

Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC) objected to the bill because it included earmarks he did not support and the bill ultimately passed with only three amendments to an authorization measure that typically has dozens of them. The amendment supporting the $20,000 payments to our POWs of the Japanese was among those removed and the appropriations bill passed 88 to 8.

Every other Allied nation of World War II has compensated its POWs of the Japanese. That includes Great Britain, the Netherlands, Australia and Canada. They did it because the Japanese wouldn’t. But the USA is quietly waiting for all of its POWs of the Japanese to die which will make the matter to go away. Those POWs are now in their 80s and 90s. It won’t be long now. Shame on us.

The movie poster shown here with this posting was advertising the very first movie to use the Japanese attack as promotion for a film. The movie was released by Republic Pictures in May 1942. Copyright 2008 by Walter Haan, www.war-books.com

Veterans' Day Personal Report: Is the VA denying adequate medical care to older veterans?

2008-11-11T09:28:00.002-05:00

Veterans Day Personal Report: Is the VA denying adequate medical care to older veterans?

By Walter Haan, www.war-books.com

I’ve had some interesting experiences this year at my VA Medical Center regarding its diagnosis of me being a diabetic. The VA has been my primary care provider for the last few years and eventually my VA doctor informed me that blood work had shown that I was a diabetic. I was advised to eliminate sugar from my diet, to exercise more and to lose weight. My VA examinations were increased to four a year from two and I was offered VA eye care as diabetes effects eyesight.

My changes in diet and exercise resulted in weight loss and the lowering of my A1C from 7.2 to 6.0. The A1C number (produced from blood work) is a barometer of whether you are a diabetic or not. The guidelines keep changing. Some say 5.8 is normal, others 6.0. So I asked my VA doctor in late 2007 when my A1C went down to 6.0 whether I was still classified as a diabetic. He responded that I would always be a diabetic.

At this point I should mention that my mother and grandmother died from diabetes.

In March 2008 the VA changed my VA doctor, or primary care provider. You can imagine how startled I was to hear him declare that my earlier VA diagnosis of diabetes was a “fluke.” That was the actual word he used. And because it was a fluke, I no longer warranted four exams a year and was reduced to two again. He also refused to mail me copies of my blood work.

“You want to see your numbers?” he said, “Come here. Just look at them on my computer screen. That is good enough.”

It is against the law, as I understand it, to deny a patient a copy of his medical records.

Before I left the VA building that March day, I filed a request for a change in my VA physician and signed a paper to receive a copy of my blood work. My first VA physician had sent my medical reports to me routinely.

Within two weeks, the head physician of the VA Center called to say that, according to 1988 guidelines, doctor fluke was correct. 1988 guidelines! That’s twenty years ago!

Between late March and my most recent appointment on November 4th with a third VA doctor, I developed other problems resulting in hospitalizations and operations. All of my physicians at both hospitals said I was a diabetic and treated me for it along with everything else.

I wanted to discuss the fluke diagnosis with my third VA physician on November 4th, but every time I attempted to bring it up, the doctor started screaming and yelling over my voice to stop me from talking. “That is in the past and I’m not interested in that. I’m only concerned with your future treatment.”

And there it is. My confidence in the VA Medical System has been seriously compromised.

There are a lot of veterans like me who served in the sixties. Aside from the officers, because of a very flawed draft system, there were almost no college graduates among the enlisted men. These enlisted men fought in Vietnam, stood guard in Korea and in Germany. These high schoolers were screwed over by the system that allowed people like Bill Clinton and George W. Bush to escape active service. I see them now in the hallways of the VA. Gray hair, balding, some bent over, some walking with difficulty, some in wheelchairs, but always cheerful and friendly.

Are we being screwed over again? Are those in charge at the VA in Washington, DC deliberately ordering VA Medical Centers to deny adequate medical care to older veterans by reducing that care and using outdated medical standards as excuses for denying adequate care? —Copyright © 2008 by Walter Haan, www.war-books.com

Military Book Club goofs again

2008-10-27T13:38:00.002-04:00

By Walter Haan, www.war-books.com

On page 23 of The Military Book Club sales magazine Warfare, November 2008 edition, there is a headline that makes military history enthusiasts like me cringe.

The headline reads: "An intriguing biography of the famed battleship"

The book being promoted on this page is Intrepid, referring to the 36,000 ton Essex-class aircraft carrier of World War II. Whoops. The actual Intrepid is now moored at a pier on the west side of Manhattan Island in the Hudson River as a floating museum.

Authors of the book are Bill White, president of the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum and Robert Gandt, a former US Navy fighter pilot. The foreword for the book is by presidential candidate John McCain!

I'm sure White and Gandt aren't thrilled by the headline goof. McCain seems to be losing on many fronts at this time so he probably hasn't noticed that the Intrepid was turned from an aircraft carrier into a battleship by some young copywriter who knows nothing about history.

As I've said before, too many Americans know nothing about American history.

It also makes me wonder if McCain was paid to write the foreword. Doesn't he and his wife Cindy have enough homes and automobiles?--Copyright 2008 by Walter Haan, www.war-books.com

All My Sons

2008-10-20T18:52:00.002-04:00

By Walter Haan, www.war-books.com

Do you ever feel that all the men and women fighting for us in Iraq and Afghanistan are our own sons and daughters? I do. Even though none of my own children are fighting in those wars, I do feel that those who are doing the fighting are my own children. Perhaps that's because I was in the military myself.

And I don't like the idea that our troops doing the fighting have been cheated.

NBC News with Brian Williams showed Viper Company (150 men) fighting in Afghanistan on tonight's broadcast. Twenty of those men are fighting to hold a mountaintop camp against daily Taliban assaults. The footage showed the weapons of the 20 men jamming and not firing during the heat of the action. A lot of that could result in them being overrun.

Last week on Broadway in New York City, Arthur Miller's first Broadway play was revived in a new production. Titled All My Sons, the plot concerns a family man who owned an airplane parts company with a partner. They made defective airplane parts during World War II that resulted in some of our own men being killed. The family man lets his partner go to jail for this crime while managing to avoid any blame for himself. But he deserved blame and jail time too.

It's a powerful play that eventually exposes the family man's crime to his family, his partner's family and the world. The last 20 minutes of the play are devastating.

But as you know, since 2003 in Iraq and Afghanistan, our forces have been deprived of proper flak jackets, proper Humvee protection and many other things needed for their safety while they fight for us. Viper Company's jamming, misfiring weapons are probably part of that problem.

But no one goes to jail these days for denying our forces what they need or for supplying defective or inadequate protection. Not anyone in the Defense Department who buys inadequate or defective supplies for our troops. Not anyone who works for the manufacturers of inadequate or defective supplies for our troops.

And so those who profit from our wars are not prosecuted when they sacrifice all of our sons and daughters for more quick bucks. Nothing seems to change. President Bush and his henchmen will be out of office three months from today. But none of them will ever be held accountable for starting the Iraq War based on lies and shortchanging our troops they forced to fight there.

Business as usual.--Copyright 2008 by Walter Haan, www.war-books.com

Humvee, jeep, jeep, jeep

2008-09-09T14:57:00.002-04:00

Contributed by Dudley C. Gould, author of Follow Me Up Fools Mountain

Anytime you see a current Army vehicle on television now, it's usually a Humvee. Its predecessor was the jeep, used in World War II and Korea.

The first Army jeep was designed by Willys-Overland President, Joseph Frazer and chief engineer Delamar G. Roos as the Army's first general purpose vehicle. Qualifications for the vehicle were listed by Army Major Robert Howie at Fort Benning. Frazer later remarked that he thought Howie's brain child looked like a cross between a scooter and a diving board on wheels.

Dubbed the Bellyflopper, Howie's car mounted a machine gun and carried two soldiers lying down on their bellies.

Weighing 1300 pounds, Willy's pilot model arrived at Fort Holabird in November 1940 for Army tests. When other vehicles were tested based on Howie's basic idea, Willys was found to be best in the field.

Some have attempted to trace the jeep name back to GP, General Purpose, but those of us who rode in them at the beginning will remember the strange character Eugene the Jeep in the Popeye comics that went around uttering nothing but "jeep, jeep, jeep." An amphibeous jeep, made by Ford Motor Company, was called the Quack.

Incidently, Joseph Frazer joined with industrialist Henry J. Kaiser to form Kaiser-Frazer Motors after World War II. The Kaisers and Frazers were the first slab side cars with front and back fenders joined in the middle. The last new Frazers were made in 1951, but in reality, were 1950 cars with new rear fenders and new grills to make them seem new.

Later, Kaiser bought up Willys-Overland Motors and it became known as Kaiser-Willys Motors. 1955 was the last year for Kaiser and Willys passenger cars and the jeep was made by Kaiser for years after that. Copyright 2008 by Walter Haan, www.war-books.com

Movie Stop-Loss is weak

2008-09-04T07:49:00.002-04:00

Movie Stop-Loss has a weak ending, abandons characters to another tour of Iraq

by Walter Haan, www.war-books.com

Just saw Ryan Phillippe and Joseph Gordon-Levitt in the Stop-Loss DVD yesterday. This movie is further proof that the American media is in bed with President Bush and his cronies.

Until its end, the film is powerful. About a soldier, Brandon King (Phillippe), who is involuntarily signed up for a third tour in Iraq, King declares he's not going again. He fights his buddies on the subject, flees halfway across the country from Texas to New York City, endures the suicide of a buddy from his unit (Gordon-Levitt), and appears to be ready to relocate to Canada with a new identity.

Suddenly he's back home, looking at the Mexican border and hugging his family. Just as suddenly, he's on the bus with his buddies being taken to the plane that will return them all to Iraq. The end.

The movie does not have the courage of its convictions. It's like the producers, writers and director signed on a government dotted line to not let this film go to it's natural ending (King in Canada starting a new life where he no longer has to kill people). I guess there was a fear that the movie would appear to be "unpatriotic."

Far more unpatriotic and undemocratic is the film's hidden endorsement of using our troops in an involuntary draft so the rest of American youth will not have to go. You know who, the teenage children of government officials and corporate despots who are making a financial killing in the Iraqi War.

Stop-Loss is well produced and directed...and morally bankrupt.--Copyright 2008 by Walter Haan, www.war-books.com

News headlines in 2030

2008-08-02T11:13:00.002-04:00

By Walter Haan, www.war-books.com

Isastine named best country to live in; former Israeli and Palestine peoples learn to live together in harmony after Israel declared by UN to be a terrorist state 20 years ago

Tibetans declared endangered species; the last 100 purebreds are in New Delhi Zoo

Dutch homeless as rising North Sea tops dikes; no other countries will take them

Americans in red states suffer economic collapse; Americans in Blue states say they deserve it

Yugo takes over GM; auto manufacturer's headquarters moved from Detroit to Belgrade

Ford Motors changes its name to Fjord Motors to reflect new Norwegian ownership

US imports grain and corn in record amounts since the collapse of American agriculture

Dick Clark wins special Emmy for hosting New Years Eve Gala on TV and for producing 80 years of quality programming

UN moves George W. Bush from Dutch prison as North Sea waters reach Utrecht; no other country will take him

Paris Hilton changes her name to Nicky Hilton to reflect her sex change operation

Comedian Joan Rivers convicted; heavy piece of her falling makeup kills child

Regis Philbin was replaced behind desk by lifesize puppet 10 years ago, reveals Kelli Ripa

Senator Hillary Clinton dies suddenly after one too many shots at Pittsburgh blue collar bar

Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky finally marry; Bill gives groomsmen cigars as wedding gifts

New York Governor Patterson impeached; says he didn't see that coming

Jenna Bush publishes 10th children's book, "What to do when daddy's in prison"

Prince Charles finally become British King; British crowds cheer, "Up Chuck, Up Chuck"

Al Gore seriously injured by wife Tipper's swinging long blonde hair at nature preserve

Belgium finally breaks up into two countries to reflect Flemish and French speaking peoples;
King of Belgium becomes new King of Phlegm

Iraq War Memorial unveiled in Washington, DC; shaped like an oil well tower with names of lost on large dipstick

John McCain's Presidential Museum design finally unveiled; designed to look like Hanoi Hilton prison

US cedes Florida to Cuba; the sound of millions of metal walkers in the hands of American elderly heading north fills air

--Copyright 2008 by Walter Haan, www.war-books.com

Never ending atrocity from World War II

2008-07-25T16:52:00.003-04:00

By Walter Haan, www.war-books.com

The internment of Japanese Americans during World War II was a blot on America's record. One result of it was that the Japanese occupying forces in the Philippines and the Netherlands East Indies (now Indonesia) referred to the internments as "American atrocities." The Japanese used those American internments as an excuse for their poor treatment of Allied POWs and civilians in the Pacific territories they captured early in the war.

A larger blot on America's record was US abandonment of its military forces in the Philippines. Twenty-two thousand American soldiers, airmen and sailors were made POWs by the Japanese in the Philippines. Another 1,555 of our forces were captured on Wake Island, and another 890 on Java--the list goes on. The Japanese used our men as slave laborers in coal mines, steel mills, and for building railways and bridges. About 41 percent of American military men captured in the Philippines died as POWs. This is the highest death rate among POWs in all of World War II, in both the European and Pacific wars.

President Reagan signed Public Law 100-383 in 1988. The law stipulated that surviving Japanese Americans who were relocated to our internment camps receive reparations of $20,000 each. Japanese Americans of Central and South American ancestry eventually were accorded $5,000 for being rounded up south of our borders and interned in US camps.

But the American survivors of Japanese brutality in Japanese POW and work camps have still today received no compensation for their slave labor. The US government does not assist these elderly veterans in receiving compensation from Japan and the large Japanese companies, such as Mitsubishi, that used Americans as slave laborers.

There is a small selection of books written by the American survivors of Japanese prison camp abuse. You can find a list of the books at www.west-point.org/family/adbc/books_files/membk.htm
The adbc in the URL stands for American Defenders of Bataan and Corregidor. On the list is The Emperor's Angry Guest by Ralph M. Knox which we published as a hardback in 1999. A paperback edition is still available from Trafford Publishing.

Oh, by the way, the British, Dutch and Canadian governments compensated their POWs of the Japanese when it was apparent the Japanese would not. The US has always refused to do so.--Copyright 2008 by Walter Haan, www.war-books.com

Injured British war veterans to receive free public transportation in London

2008-06-30T07:05:00.002-04:00

Injured British War veterans to get free public transportation in London

By Walter Haan, www.war-books.com

All injured British war veterans are to get free bus and subway travel in London.

The plan, which will start in November, will be open to all British veterans and their widows, widowers and dependents, whether London residents or visitors to the city.

The new plan will particularly benefit about 2,600 war veterans and war widows aged under 60 living in London who are not already eligible for free travel on public transportation such as buses, Tube (subways) and tram (trolleys). It is expected that British veterans and their family members could save about 200 British pounds per year.

The plan is being instituted to recognize the sacrifices of injured veterans, their families and dependents, because of the veterans' service in places like Afghanistan and Iraq.

It’s a great idea and I think we should copy this plan in every city and town in the United States. Of course, one of the impediments to the plan here is that American mass transport is nonexistent in most of the United States. Which is particularly unfortunate now that gasoline prices for our cars are going through the roof. And that is effecting everyone, not just veterans.

By the way, you’re probably seeing articles in newspapers and online about “poor General Motors” losing market share and its inability to sell cars in this high gas price environment. Don’t feel any sympathy for its shareholders. In the 1930s, General Motors instituted a scheme to buy up public transportation, particularly trolley lines, to dismantle them. This was a marketing plan to force more Americans to buy cars to get around. We’re all paying for that scheme now. Oil is over $143 a barrel this morning. Copyright 2008 by Walter Haan, www.war-books.com

Tim Russert

2008-06-22T11:46:00.002-04:00

By Walter Haan, www.war-books.com

Just saw another television tribute to Tim Russert at 11:25 this morning. It was the usual about how wonderful he was in his preparation and asking the big questions on Meet the Press. I watch several Sunday morning news, talking heads shows every week and I'm struck by several things.

First I want to emphasize that Russert's death at 58 of a heart attack is a massive loss, not for the nation, but for thinking Americans and of course for his family. As those who have been reading me know, my wife Wanda died at 59 from an unexpected heart attack on January 30, 2003. I know what that loss feels like. I remember waking up about two weeks after she died and thinking to myself that I felt good. Then I looked over at the other side of the bed and experienced real, physical pain as that empty side of the bed reminded me of my loss. I imagine that Tim's wife must be experiencing unexpected physical pain like that too. It's horrible.

Second, in general, the Sunday talking head shows ignore all presidential candidates except for the Republican and Democratic Party candidates. Tim Russert was an exception to that, at least once in 2004 and in 2008 when he had Ralph Nader as a guest on Meet the Press to announce his candidacy for president as an independent. As a supporter of third party and independent presidential candidates, I thank Tim for that.

Third, other than those two notable exceptions, the talking heads ignore Ralph Nader, Bob Barr and other independent candidates. On one of the shows this morning they showed the results of a poll that had Barack Obama defeating John McCain. Together they had 87% of the votes in that poll. That means there were 13% who supported other candidates or were undecided. No details were provided for that 13% as usual.

I have voted for independent candidates for president since 1992 when I voted for Ross Perot.
In 1996 I voted again for Perot and I voted in 2000 and 2004 for Nader. I will vote for Nader in 2008 because he wants to end the war in Iraq, now. Why you might ask, particularly since I publish war books and a continuation of war would be good for business.

I have read hundreds, if not thousands, of war memoirs by former soldiers who fought during World War II, and the wars in Korea and Vietnam. And that is why I'm voting for Nader. We had no choice but to battle to save the free world during World War II. In Vietnam we learned that we should not have fought that war because it really was a war of our choosing. The war and occupation of Iraq is the same. Our men and women soldiers are dying and being wounded for an unnecessary war of choice! We didn't need to do that. Bin Laden and Al Quaida and weapons of mass destruction were not in Iraq in 2002. But thanks to us, Al Quaida is in Iraq now.

One of my sons-in-laws says I shouldn't be saying things like this because it will turn potential customers away from buying Southfarm Press military books. That may be true. But I have a five month old grandson now and I'm thinking of him and his future when I support Ralph Nader and his anti-corporate, anti-war platforms. Because it's only the future we can shape now and I don't want my grandson to be cannon fodder for someone like George Bush who dishonestly rushes to war.--Copyright 2008 by Walter Haan, www.war-books.com

American general orders an RAF pilot to trim his mustache

2008-06-13T12:29:00.002-04:00

American general orders an RAF pilot to trim his mustache

By Walter Haan, www.war-books.com

One of our generals with obviously way too much time on his hands in Afghanistan recently ordered a young RAF pilot with a handlebar mustache to trim it. Mustaches are a proud tradition in the RAF so the British airman refused to comply.

Flight Lieutenant Ball was told to trim his facial hair while being posted with American Air Force 366 Fighter Squadron in Afghanistan. Lieutenant Ball flies an F-15 fighter-bomber. The airman pointed out that his mustache was in line with RAF regulations.

American pilots are only allowed to grow small mustaches in Afghanistan evidently.

But this is just another incident that proves we simply don’t recognize the importance of adapting to local customs around the world. In 2007, the RAF relaxed its restrictions on facial hair for British forces serving in Afghanistan because the Afghans believe beards are a sign of status.

The American general was last seen checking spit shined boots in the Afghani desert. Good luck with that. No wonder we can’t defeat the Taliban and find Bin Laden.--Copyright 2008 by Walter Haan, www.war-books.com

Abuse of our military

2008-06-11T08:28:00.002-04:00

By Walter Haan, www.war-books.com

As I mentioned in my last post, I have read many manuscripts by veterans about their experiences. One that stands out was written by a young Puerto Rican veteran where he describes what happened to him when he first landed in Vietnam for the first time during the Vietnam War.

Having gotten off the airplane in South Vietnam, this young man was standing outside the terminal wearing his combat fatigues and carrying his rifle, probably an M-16. He was suddenly confronted by an officer who ordered him to go around to the side of the terminal building where other new arrivals were lined up facing a tall, long wall made of hedge. Ordered to get in line with the rest of the troops, he did so. All of the soldiers had their weapons and they could not see over the thick hedge or through it.

The line of soldiers was suddenly ordered to face the hedge, raise their rifles as if to fire at the hedge and then ordered to fire at the hedge until ordered to stop. All opened fire.

By this time he realized that there were Viet Cong lined up on the other side of the hedge and they were being mowed down. Upon being ordered to stop firing, our soldiers were marched away.

And this was the author's introduction to the Vietnam War.

I didn't publish the young man's memoir because it was poorly written and would have required a complete rewrite to make it publishable. But I have never forgotten this scene. I have been haunted by it ever since. The author was certainly haunted by it.

Now that we're mired in Iraq and Afghanistan and have been flooded with stories of abuse against innocent Iraqis and Afghanis by members of our Armed Forces, I can't help but be angry that our young men and women have been put in such positions. They receive no cultural education about the peoples and countries they find themselves thrust into. And so they consider everyone around them in the foreign country as a potential enemy, a Raghead, instead of being thought of as humans like us with the same concerns, likes and worries that we have back in our civilian worlds.

Two days ago, Congressman Dennis Kucinich introduced 35 articles of Impeachment in the House. When he started to speak, there was audibly noticeable conversations and shuffling nearby. Kucinich had to point out to the Speaker that the house was not brought to order. Speaker Pulosi pound her gavel again and finally quiet was achieved. This is a symbolic moment that speaks volumes about Americans not paying attention, not attempting to bring President Bush to the dock for his crimes that have put our young people in peril based on lies.

On Saturday night, June 7th, I attended a rally for Ralph Nader in Middletown, Connecticut. There were only about 50 people in the audience but Nader gave a rousing one hour speech and took questions afterwards. He quoted Cicero: "Freedom is participation in power."

But we seem powerless to stop our participation in the armed conflicts in Iraq. The Bush government right now is attempting to force Iraq to accept 57 permanent American bases in Iraq. And so, our government will continue to expose our military young men and women to unnecessary danger for who knows how long. This is a further abuse of our military and its members. --Copyright 2008 by Walter Haan, www.war-books.com

We need a draft

2008-05-29T08:22:00.002-04:00

We need a draft

By Walter Haan, www.war-books.com

Considering the public’s almost total lack of respect as usual on Memorial Day Weekend, the very best way to rebuild the links between the battlefront and the homefront does require reinstating the draft. Ever since the Vietnam War era, those with less opportunities have served as our enlisted personnel, with barely a college guy in sight. In my Army Signal Corps company in 1965-66, there was only one college graduate out of 150 enlisted men. Me. Since the repeal of the draft, the situation has gotten worse, with military and economic systems that literally force poorer young people to join the regular forces and the National Guard. The Angrist-Krueger analysis of World War II veterans suggests that they earned five percent less over the decades than those who did not serve. Joshua Angrist’s study of the Vietnam experience calculates that military service during Vietnam reduced average overall earnings for white males by 15 percent. Skills acquired in the military do not make up for lost civilian work experience. Today, our poorer youth are still penalized for military service, not only in the workplace, but by the Veteran's Administration's poor health care and the administration's non support of the latest Veteran's education bill promoted by Senator Jim Webb of Virginia.

I have published military history and memoirs for 25 years, having read hundreds of manuscripts by anguished veterans. It is arrogance on our part to maintain a two tier system where the disadvantaged that do serve are economically punished for the rest of their lives.

This is abuse of our servicemen and women by the Bush-Cheney administration. The maintenance of military and economic systems that literally force young men and women of limited means to join the regular forces and the National Guard is criminal. These young people then find themselves in Iraq or Afghanistan. Meanwhile, the sons and daughters of the political and commercial elite avoid any risk from the military actions their fathers created and support for their own selfish economic benefit. Copyright 2008 by Walter Haan, www.war-books.com

Thoughts as we approach Memorial Day

2008-05-17T08:54:00.002-04:00

By Walter Haan, www.war-books.com

Next weekend is Memorial Day weekend. I've written before about things we shouldn't do on Memorial Day, such as racing to the stores for sale events. I think the holiday and weekend should be more respectful than that.

People disrespect the holiday, and by doing that, disrespect our fallen servicemen and women, all living veterans and current members of our military. Perhaps it shouldn't be called a holiday. That just sounds too festive.

Over Memorial Day weekend we'll see national leaders such as President Bush and Vice President Cheney, men who refused to serve in the active military alongside other Americans, disrespect the very people they're pretending to honor by laying wreathes at memorials around the country. Bush was a member of the reserves but his poor behavior and lack of responsibility are well documented.

I think it would make a lot more sense to have ordinary veterans and current service members laying those wreathes at the Tomb of the Unknowns, for example. These would be people who know what it is really like to serve their country.

I saw a picture on the BBC Web Site last month that illustrates the disrespect of service men and women that I'm talking about. The photo also illustrates that we don't have a monopoly in this matter. The photo was of the new Spanish Defense Minister, Carme Chacon, Spain's first woman in the post, reviewing troops in Madrid. She was seven months pregnant in the photo and wore slacks, a casual maternity top and an open casual jacket. The troops were standing at attention in dress uniforms while this woman who looked as if she just stepped out of the supermarket reviewed them. It would be like Cheney reviewing American troops in a golf jacket and sweat pants, which I think he is capable of. My first reaction when I saw the photo of Chacon was, "Put on a dress, for God's sake. Or a tailored, maternity suit."

But she went casual, which I think really illustrates what most citizens around the world really think those who serve in the military really rate: casual, careless, offhand recognition.

Taking the sacrifices of our American military members, past and present, casually, is just poor citizenship on the part of the American public.--Copyright 2008 by Walter Haan, www.war-books.com

Let terrorists into the system?

2008-05-08T15:37:00.003-04:00

By Walter Haan, www.war-books.com

I've been thinking about terrorists lately. Nation states have been fighting terrorists forever. Great Britain fought what it thought were terrorists in the 18th century in North America. That fight became known as the American Revolutionary War. The terrorists, also known as the rabble, or the American patriots, won.

There's an interesting experiment in Nepal right now. The Maoists, labeled terrorists by the US, fought for ten years throughout Nepal...until the government promised to fulfill some of their demands if the Maoists would put down their weapons and join the system. One of the Maoists' demands was to overthrow the monarchy, which had acted like a terrorist organization itself in 2006 and 2007. In December the Nepalese government agreed to provisionally marginalize the monarchy. Then elections were held in April which included the mainstream Nepalese political parties and the Maoists. The big surprise of the elections was that the Maoists won it. Now they're part of the system and have to perform to make peoples' lives better. The US still labels the Maoists as terrorists. Never mind the election results and that the lives of ordinary Nepalese are better. So much better that tourists are returning.

A former prince of the Afghan Royal Family has recently suggested that the best way to end the conflict in Afghanistan against the Taliban is to let them be part of the governing system. Make the Taliban part of the government and let them run in elections and let's see what happens. That is the prince's idea. He is part of the current Afghani government.

Based on Nepal, I think the idea has merit. I don't like the Taliban but there seem to be enough Afghans that like them, that support them, to keep the war going. Maybe it doesn't matter whether I like the Taliban or George Bush doesn't like the Taliban.

The US is free with its labeling of people as terrorists. During the Vietnam War, the US called the Viet Cong terrorists. North Vietnam and the Viet Cong used terrorism, according to President Johnson. North Vietnam was also considered a Communist state and the US was afraid that the Communist terrorists would win, setting off a domino effect of Southeast Asian nations falling to Communist terrorists across the region. But the truth was that those Vietnamese Communist terrorists were actually just nationalists. They just wanted their nation back from France and then the US. We lost over 58,000 of our best and brightest because we misunderstood.

Now in Iraq, Al Quaida, Sunni, Shia and Kurdish terrorists oppose our efforts there. We've lost over 4,000 of our best and brightest again trying to keep the artificial nation-state of Iraq together. Iraq's artificial border was drawn in 1920 by the British and French.

Of course all of these terrorist wars are really about economics. The US wants to control the Iraqi oil. In Vietnam the US wanted to prevent Vietnam from being a springboard for Communist terrorists into Thailand. Afghani territory could be used for oil pipelines by US oil companies so the US must "hold" Afghanistan.

And in Nepal, the US and India recognize that Nepal is a buffer nation-state between China and India. Conservative Indians don't want Maoist terrorists controlling Nepal. And neither does the US which wants to limit Communists farther south than China. India and the US would probably prefer the Nepalese royalist terrorists because they would be "our" terrorists.

What is that old statement? "They may be bastards, but they are our bastards." There it is in a nutshell. The US only supports its own terrorists, the ones it knows and controls. Like Papa Doc Duvalier of Haiti and Trujillo of the Dominican Republic in the sixties. Or Saddam Hussein in the eighties when we armed him to fight Iran.

Terrorists who don't do our bidding must be eliminated according to US policy. Think of the lost lives and treasure we've lost because of that failed US policy. The US, the largest democratic nation in the world, does not support other democratic movements if they get in our way. We overthrew the Iranian democracy in 1953 because it was going to nationalize Iranian oil. So we overthrew that democracy and put the Shah back in power. Another of "our" bastards.--Copyright 2008 by Walter Haan, www.war-books.com

A Popemobile in every garage?

2008-04-20T12:09:00.002-04:00

By Walter Haan, www.war-books.com

There's been a lot of media coverage about the Pope's visit to the United States this past week. Being honest, I didn't pay that close attention to it all until I noticed what the Pope was using to travel our streets: the Popemobile. I think we all need to buy a Popemobile because of all the benefits it would provide to the average driver and his family.

From my own perspective, as a book publisher known to haul books from printing plants and truckers' terminals or to air shows and exhibitions, look at the room in a Popemobile! I could cram carton after carton of books in that baby.

But there are other benefits we could all take advantage of if we drove a Popemobile:

1. Great visibility and height. We could see over those pesky SUVs on the road or when we're attempting to back out of a parking place.

2. No tinted glass to block visibility. The Pope wants to be seen and to see people. And this would be useful for us today because so many vehicles have tinted glass that prevents us from seeing into, let's say, a speeding car that has just illegally cut us off. No tinted glass means we would be able to see the errant driver's reaction when we gave him or her the finger. Or whether the driver is illegally using a cell phone while driving to KFC to get a bucket of chicken, for example.

3. Out in California in some circles, cars are called buckets "Hey, dude, nice bucket," referring to your car has been heard. The Popemobile would make a great bucket with room for everyone. A family of four could be seated around a table in the large glassed in area to play cards and eat that bucket of chicken. It would be a great way for a family to eat breakfast or dinner together while getting to or coming back from school or the office. Talk about multitasking.

I'm sure if we thought about it, there would be other advantages of the Popemobile for the average man. But I wonder what kind of gas mileage it gets. Because of its height, does the wind slow it down at high speeds? There's a thought. A highway full of Popemobiles doing 70 mph on the highways.

I'm sure a manufacturer could offer the Popemobile at a reasonable cost too. They could eliminate using expensive bullet proof glass, for example, because most of us are not in danger of being shot at. That is assuming you don't live in a war zone such as Iraq.

I wish President Bush and Vice President Cheney used a Popemobile. That way we could get a much closer look at the men whose policies have brought our economy to its knees and resulted in the deaths of over 4,000 Americans and a million Iraqis. I'd really like to be able to look such men in their eyes while they drove past. Of course their Popemobiles should have bullet proof glass. --Copyright 2008 by Walter Haan, www.war-books.com

Iraqi War Veterans: Write a book about your experiences

2008-04-09T11:31:00.002-04:00

By Walter Haan, www.war-books.com

My book publishing company is actively searching for manuscripts about the current Iraq War and occupation by enlisted men and women who have served there between 2003 and now. We are looking for that special man or woman who fits the mold as an original author about that subject.

"The most original authors are so, not because they produce what is new, but only because they are able to say things the like of which seems never to have been said before." That is the kind of author we're looking for. It is not necessary to have been published before, nor is it necessary to have an agent. We would especially like to receive manuscripts from American enlisted personnel, not officers. Authors' feelings about the war and its success or failure can be conservative or liberal.

There is no timetable for receipt of manuscripts. But we want to see many so we can find the next Jarhead or Follow Me Up Fools Mountain. So spread the word among those Iraq War veterans you know who work with words. If anyone has any questions about this search, email me at southfar@ix.netcom.com.

In my next posting I'll put out a call for manuscripts from veterans of the current Afghanistan War. But that will be a different call. We're looking for manuscripts about Afghanistan from European NATO soldiers only.--Walter Haan, www.war-books.com

What makes an original author?

2008-04-04T11:26:00.002-04:00

By Walter Haan, www.war-books.com

"The most original authors are so, not because they produce what is new, but only because they are able to say things the like of which seems never to have been said before. The best sign of originality lies in taking up a subject and developing it so fully as to make everyone confess that he would hardly have found so much in it."

This definition of an original author was written by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, German poet, dramatist, novelist and scientist. He lived from 1749 to 1832. Food for thought, don't you think?--Walter Haan, www.war-books.com

Hill and Bill try the Dutch approach of WWII

2008-03-28T15:28:00.002-04:00

By Walter Haan, www.war-books.com

I love History. I was just reading about Hill and Bill now floating the idea that Obama can't win in the fall without Hill as his VP candidate. A few weeks ago, the Hill and Bill mob floated a similar proposal, but that time with Obama as her VP candidate. Polls today show that Hillary is eight percent behind Obama in popularity polls. In other words, she's losing.

Reminds me of March 1942 when the Japanese brought the Dutch to their knees on the island of Java. The Dutch with their limited resources (compared to the USA and Britain) had arguably put up the best resistance to the Japanese of the three Allies in the early days of the Pacific War after Pearl Harbor. They sunk 56 Japanese ships in the first 56 days after Pearl Harbor and lost their entire fleet and air force forcefully fighting the Japanese. So in early March 1942 the Japanese and Dutch met at a meeting in Bandung where the Japanese thought the Dutch would surrender. But the Dutch Governor General and General of the Dutch Army had another proposal: How about we divide the island? They pushed this until the exasperated Japanese yelled they had had enough.

"You have lost. Surrender!" And the Dutch surrendered. Their ploy didn't work.

Hill and Bill are using the same ploy. Let's divide the ticket. I'll be on top. Then, you'll be on top. Anything to get on the ticket even though Hill is losing the battle.

Time for someone in the Democratic Party to meet with Hill and Bill Clinton and tell them they have lost.

"Surrender, for God's sake!"--Copyright 2008 by Walter Haan, www.war-books.com

4,000

2008-03-25T08:51:00.002-04:00

By Walter Haan, www.war-books.com

The number 4,000 is all around us.

You can get Minnesota caucus news and election results from Channel 4000, the Twin Cities politics news source. That is if you live in Minnesota.

Microsoft offers the Natural Ergonomic Keyboard 4000.

Acer offers the PCI ExpressT -powered Acer ezDock with a complete range of 24 ports and connectors and makes the Ferrari 4000 a superlative (their word) desktop replacement option.

The NVIDIA® GoForce® 4000 mobile graphics processing unit (GPU) delivers megapixel digital photo resolution, full motion video playback and capture, according to the manufacturer.

The Cisco Catalyst® 4000 Series of modular switches include the Cisco Catalyst 4003 and Catalyst 4006 chassis. According to the manufacturer, this is a key component of Cisco AVVID.

Alien Skin Software, LLC, developed Eye Candy 4000 and Xenofex. Filters are compatible with Photoshop, ImageReady, Paint Shop Pro, Photo-Paint, Fireworks, and Canvas.

According to BBC News in February, 4,000 more midwives are to be employed by the British government. It plans to recruit the 4,000 midwives in England to relieve pressure on maternity services.

The Four Thousand Footer Club was formed in 1957 to introduce hikers to some of the less well-known sections of the White Mountains of New Hampshire The club celebrated its 50 year anniversary in 2007.

Oh, and another unofficial club was formed this past Sunday, Easter Sunday, March 23rd: a total of 4,000 American lives have now been lost in the five years since the US attacked and occupied Iraq. The members of this club don’t get to see their parents, wives, brothers, sisters and children ever again. They don’t get the pleasures of playing ball with their children, teaching them how to fish or wrestling with them on the living room floor any more. And they won’t have the opportunity to hide Easter eggs for their children next Easter. Or the Easter after that.

But Jenna and Barbara Bush just go on with their privileged, inconsequential lives. Jenna has a children’s book coming out (good news for the orphans of the 4,000 killed in Iraq) and is getting married this year. The news services no longer report that Barbara is hanging around bars.--Copyright 2008 by Walter Haan, www.war-books.com

The dishonest war at five

2008-03-19T09:57:00.002-04:00

After five years, what will happen in Iraq now?

By Walter Haan, www.war-books.com

History will tell us what is going to happen in Iraq after our first five years of disastrous war and occupation there. It will be the Philippines and Yugoslavia all over again.

It will be as during our war on Filipinos in the Philippines in 1899-1902. After we liberated the islands from Spain and the natives thought they were really liberated, we stayed for 40 years after defeating the Filipino “rebels” until the Japanese drove us out in 1942. We will beat the three groups of Iraqis into submission to form the type of administration most advantageous to us and our thirst for Iraqi oil. I had a grandfather who fought against the Filipinos at the start of the 20th century with our army of “liberation.” I’ve often wondered if I have Filipino relatives because of my grandfather’s time there. By the way, US troops used water torture on Filipinos. It’s documented.

One man kept Yugoslavia together for decades: Tito. Just as Saddam Hussein kept the lid on Iraq for decades until we decided to overthrow him for reasons that were lies. Once Tito was gone, Yugoslavia broke up into six (or is it seven) independent republics. That process involved us, the European Union and NATO in military action to keep the Croats, Serbs and Bosnians from killing each other.

Now in Iraq, after Saddam was hung for his crimes, Iraq is dividing into three main sections, one each for the Kurds, Shia and Sunnis. In Washington, those liars Bush and Cheney pound their chests about our “success” in Iraq and how the Surge has worked to lower violence. Bullshit. We just enabled the three groups to cleanse their neighborhoods of each other, confining their enemies in distinct areas resulting in less contact with one another. It won’t be long until the Federal Iraq of the three regions breaks up into three different nations, just like in Yugoslavia. After all, Iraq was just cobbled together by the British in 1920, nominally under a branch of the Hashemite family, but really controlled by the British. It will now uncobble. This will happen. It may take a while, but it will happen.

But until that happens, we’ll keep our forces in Iraq. That will raise our numbers of dead, now almost 4,000, to even higher numbers. More Iraqis will die too. But maybe we’ll get 40 years in Iraq, stripping it of natural resources (oil) until someone throws us out. Like the Japanese did in the Philippines.--Copyright 2008 by Walter Haan, www.war-books.com

Bookstore sales in the scheme of things

2008-03-14T14:55:00.003-04:00

This report is just in today from Publishers Weekly, the weekly magazine of the book publishing industry:

"Despite some soft sales reports from the chains (meaning Barnes & Noble, Borders Books and Music), bookstore sales got off to a solid start in 2008, posting a 4.7% increase, to $2.28 billion, in January, according to preliminary estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau. The increase was nearly the same as gains for the entire retail segment, which had a 4.8% increase in January."

Of course this report is really only about bookstore sales which represents only about 40% of the books sold. The Census Bureau has a hard time tracking the other 60% of the books sold in any given month. So many are sold now in supermarkets, hardware stores, Coscos, gift shops, museum book and gift shops, or by catalogs and of course, online.

I keep my finger up in the wind about book sales and I don't think March's sales will equal that January solid start, as they call it. We are in a recession and the only person who doesn't know it is President Bush. I have a friend who has predicted that in a year we will have riots in this country over gasoline, food and other basics. With corn taking more acreage for fuel and less wheat being grown and the middle classes in third world nations such as India and China now competing with us for that same corn, wheat, oil and gasoline available in the world, things don't look good for book sales in the next year.

And books are part of our educational system. Textbooks are getting old in schools. Years ago when I worked for Oxford Books in New York City, we received a huge supplementary text book order from the White Plains, New York school system. Turned out the city's high school burned down overnight. So we started joking about replacing some salesmen with pyromania squads.

But the truth of the matter in more ways than one is as Jonathan Kozol wrote in his The Human Cost of an Illiterate Society: "This is a society that most of us did not create but which our president and other leaders have been willing to sustain by virtue of malign neglect. Do we possess the character and courage to address a problem...."

There's more than one problem in our society and sales of books are way down on the priority list when you consider such things as the recession and that half the population of New Orleans has been driven away from their city, permanently.

Except that solid growth in the publishing industry would help fight both illiteracy and the recession. But I'm not optimistic. Today on the ABC Radio News it was reported that now that gold is selling for more than $1,000 an ounce, people are gathering together their gold jewelry to sell. They need to do it to help make ends meet.

It doesn't look good.--Copyright 2008 by Walter Haan, www.war-books.com

National Poetry Month Contest: Calling all elementary school teachers...

2008-03-06T10:13:00.007-05:00

...and parents, Cub Scout leaders and Brownie Troop leaders

Though this
is a war
book blog,
I want to
call your
attention
to an annual
contest I
run each
year for
National
Poetry
Month in
April
in honor
of my late wife, Wanda Haan.It's the 2008
Children’s Poetry and Book Illustration Contest.
We've had entries from Puerto Rico to California
in the last two years and received great
feedback from parents and teachers about the
contest.

There's nothing to buy to enter, requires children
writing poetry and then illustrating their poems
using cut paper to create art as in Wanda's book, 
The Macaroon Moon. Which means the contest is easy
to run. All the children need is colored paper,
scissors, a glue stick and creativity to enter.
The cut paper art in the book was created by Donald
Christensen. Both Wanda and Donald had over 40 years
combined creating stories and art for Weekly Reader.

Here are the Rules and Regulations which were updated
on March 5, 2008. The contest is open to all children
residing in the USA and its territories in kindergarten,
first, second and third grades, ages 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9.
Contest rules require each entrant to submit an original
poem and a cut paper illustration for that poem.

Up to ten prizes will be awarded by the book’s publisher,
Southfarm Press of Middletown,Connecticut. Winning entries
will be selected by Southfarm Press based on the literary
quality of the poems and creativity of the cut paper art
submitted to illustrate the poems:

                First Prize: $100
                Second Prize: $75
                Third Prize: $50
                Fourth through Tenth Prizes: $25

In addition, copies of the children’s poetry book The
Macaroon Moon (ISBN:978-0-913337-51-6) will be provided to
every child in each winner’s main school classroom, such
as his or her's homeroom. Or to every member of a winner's
scout troop.

It is not necessary to buy anything to enter, but in
analyzing the entries from the 2006 and 2007 contests,
having a copy of The Macaroon Moon to refer to would
probably aid children in competing in the contest,
especially for the book illustration part of their entries.

The size of the completed art submitted should be in the
8 1/2" x 11" to 9" x 12" size range. Submitting larger art
will not make it more likely that a child will win.

The poem submitted by the student must be original and the
art created by that student should illustrate his or her poem.
The poem does not need to be long. Four lines would be fine.
A longer poem is not more likely to win. We will be looking
at the creative package, that is, each child's poem and art
together, to decide the winners.

The illustration should be cut paper art made with colored
paper and glue, suchas the art in The Macaroon Moon. Some
pencil shading is okay because the illustrator of The
Macaroon Moon did that. No paints, charcoals, ink or anything
else are allowed to be used. If in doubt as to what is acceptable,
look at the samples of the art in the the book, The Macaroon Moon.
The artist used colored paper, glue, scissors, and a dark pencil
for light shading.

Each child is permitted to enter the contest only once each year
and that entry must include both his or her poem and his or her
cut paper art for that poem. Entries that do not include both the
poem and art will be disqualified.

All poetry and book illustration contest entries must be post-
marked no later than April 19, 2008 during National Poetry Month
and received by the publisher no later than April 26, 2008 to be
eligible for the 2008 National Poetry Month contest.
             
Winners will be announced April 30, 2008 on Poetry for Children 
by Wanda Haan, followed by letters to the winners' parents or
guardians. Entries are welcomed anytime in the year. Online entries
are not allowed and all entries become the property of Southfarm
Press, Publisher and will not be returned.

                Entries should be mailed to:
                Macaroon Moon Poetry and Book Illustration Contest
                Southfarm Press, Publisher
                P.O. Box 1296
                Middletown, CT 06457

All entries should include the name of the child entering, the name
of his or her parent or guardian, the child's grade and age, home
address, phone number and an email address if available. Upon
notification of winning a prize in the contest, the child's parent
or guardian grants Southfarm Press permission to publish his or her
child's name, poem and illustration on our children's poetry Web Site
and in news releases and other promotional material by the endorsement
and cashing of the child's monetary prize check.

Children related to author Wanda Haan, illustrator Donald Christensen,
owners and employees of Southfarm Press and Haan Graphic Publishing
Services, Ltd. are not eligible to enter the contest.

That's it. I hope to see a ton of entries this year so spread the word.
-- Copyright 2008 by Walter Haan, www.war-books.com and
Poetry for Children by Wanda Haan

Opposite example set by British soldiers in Norway

2008-03-05T10:32:00.004-05:00

Soldiers should use their weapons on the enemy.

By Walter Haan

In my last blog posting I talked about Britain's Prince Harry setting a good example that American leaders' families could follow. Then this comes in: "Eight British soldiers have been ordered home from Arctic training exercises in Norway after they reportedly stripped naked and urinated on each other in a bar."

I thought soldiers were supposed to use their weapons on the enemy.

The eight British soldiers had reportedly been ordered home from Arctic training exercises in Norway after the incident. They were arrested by Norwegian police following what the authorities declared was inappropriate behavior. The eight soldiers were engineers from a commando regiment.

A Norwegian police spokesman in the town of Harstad, Norway, the nearest town to military bases, said they were accustomed to this kind of behavior by British soldiers.

Ouch.--Copyright 2008 by Walter Haan, www.war-books.com

The example set by Prince Harry

2008-03-02T20:22:00.002-05:00

By Walter Haan

This past week we learned that Prince Harry, third in line to the British throne, has spent the last 10 weeks in Afghanistan serving with other British troops. The British establishment and media had an agreement not to blow Prince Harry's cover while he was there so no reports appeared in Britain or elsewhere about the prince's service for those 10 weeks. The idea was to protect him and the men he served with, as he would obviously be a high profile target. Then an Australian magazine followed by the Drudge Report exposed the Prince and where he was. I say was because he has since been pulled out of Afghanistan. Harry's secret service is a huge publicity coup for Buckingham Palace.

Back home in the United States, no one from the families that run this country and got us into Iraq and Afghanistan serve in those countries. The Bush twins, Jenna and Barbara, could have made trips to our troops in those countries for morale purposes, for example, but they didn't do it. Actually the Bush girls have been under the radar for most of the Bush presidency. So no one from the President's, Vice President's, leaders of Congress families have done anything remotely like what Prince Harry did aside from Virginia Senator Jim Webb's son who did serve in Iraq.

There is such a gap in this country between the rulers and the ruled. President Bush and his government order men and women into war zones, sometimes based on actual lies as to why our troops are needed there. But our American rulers do not walk the walk, they just talk the talk. They send your family members to Iraq and Afghanistan but make damned sure none of their family members go. What a country.

That is what makes Prince Harry so remarkable. He wanted to go. He wanted to serve alongside the ordinary soldiers of Great Britain and share their hardships.

I will give Jenna Bush some credit though. She is getting married later this year and insisted on a smaller wedding at the Bush ranch in Texas, as opposed to the White House wedding her mother wanted for Jenna. I guess that Jenna decided it would be unseemly to have a glitzy White House wedding as 130,000 American troops were risking their lives overseas. Her mother was visibly disappointed about that.

But then most Americans are now visibly disappointed in both President and Mrs. Bush for their initiating and supporting a war based on lies that has resulted in almost 4,000 American deaths and, perhaps, a million Iraqi deaths. They are just so out of touch with the common American family and its problems. Bush said last week that he didn't see a recession coming. He may be the only person in the USA that doesn't see that.

On Friday I had my six month physical exam at the VA. On line at the pharmacy I was talking with the vets around me and heard what a hard time some of them were having. The vet in front of me talked about working at the post office as a freelancer. He can only work so many hours and the reason that there are so many like him at the post office is so the post office doesn't have to pay them benefits. He is a Vietnam veteran and talked also about age discrimination and the idea out there that all Vietnam vets are on drugs, thus preventing them from being hired. The vet behind me piped up that he had faced all of that and was ready to give it all up, including life, to get away from the pain of it all.

The leaders of this country would never get together with veterans or other common folk like that to really listen to what is bothering them. But across the pond the Brits know that Prince Harry understands from experience what British troops face in Afghanistan because he volunteered to be with them. There has got to be comfort in that.--Copyright 2008 by Walter Haan, www.war-books.com

World War II 'Spy in the Sky' dies

2008-02-25T14:38:00.003-05:00

World War II 'Spy in the Sky' dies

By Walter Haan

Jean L. Chase, author of The Grasshopper That Roared, published by Southfarm Press in 2005, died on February 11, 2008 at age 86. He was born June 16, 1921 in McMinnville, Oregon. He served in the Army for 20 years and saw service in the Pacific as an L-4 Piper Cub artillery spotter pilot during World War II. He served in Korea after that.

I was going through papers involved with the publication of his book looking for material about Jean that I could share with you about him. We had talked many times on the phone in 2005 before our publication of his book that November. I came across his suggested epilogue for his book, most of which we didn’t use. Now that he is gone, it seems like his own words are the fitting epilogue for him personally.

“The Army was good to me. It taught me self discipline, how to approach a problem in a logical sequence and that there is no job you cannot accomplish. But most of all it taught me how to think.

“I can’t say that I enjoyed every minute of my service, but there were many exciting and beautiful things that I experienced. After retirement I observed many young men working in banks and business that would be stuck in that position for the rest of their lives. The same old thing every day. I pondered how much of life would they really miss?

“I was afforded the opportunity to see a large part of the world. My education, from a flying standpoint, operating in the mountains, desert, jungle and the flat land of Mid-America, was invaluable to me as a pilot. I learned the hazards of the thunderstorms in the south, the heat and cold of the desert and the high humidity of the jungle that could produce a quart of water in a half filled gas tank overnight.

“These were things we learned that helped keep us alive, and sometimes we learned them the hard way.

“I was just an ordinary guy that got up in the morning, went out to my little old Piper Cub and then took off on a combat mission, like hundreds of other pilots in those horrible days of war. The mission was primary in mind at all times. I was just going to work.

“I have awakened in the morning at home since my retirement, sat on the edge of the bed and thought, ‘What if today, I had to go out and climb into a plane and take off, knowing full well that I would be shot at that morning.’

“A chill would go up my spine.

“Whenever I would get a little skittish about flying a combat mission, I would think about that poor infantry guy on the ground who was depending on me to keep the enemy artillery from firing by just flying around overhead. That was pretty easy to do, compared to what the soldier faced on the ground.

“The advancement in Army Aviation has been tremendous since World War II. But Army pilots should never lose sight of the fact that their only reason for being is for the guy on the ground that takes the real estate.

“I knew deep down, when I retired, that I would probably not ever fly again. I love it, but my experience in Mississippi where I had a number of close associations with civilian pilots, taught me that flying now and then on weekends was not for me. I knew how much you lost when you only flew occasionally and I knew how sharp you could be when you flew almost every day.

“The things I prized most, that I received from my short 18 years as a Liaison Pilot and Army Aviator, is not the decorations or the satisfaction of fighting for my country. It is the friendships I have made and the comradeship I received during those wonderful years. You always knew that you were never alone.

“My comrades and I will meet again at that great Cub Strip in the sky that is open both ends, wide, with no pot holes to dodge or ditches along the sides, where the wind is never gusty, it is always straight down the runway and the sun never stops shining.

“When my granddaughter Heather was seven years old, she asked me if I would drive her and a friend to a birthday party. As we were waiting outside the friend’s house, a civilian model of the L-17 flew across the sky in front of us. I commented that I had flown that type of aircraft in the Army.

“When the little friend came out to the car, we started for the birthday party. Out of a clear blue sky my granddaughter suddenly spoke.

“'You know my granddad was a good pilot when he was flying in the Army.’

“'How would you know? You weren’t even around when he was flying,’ the friend replied, looking down her nose at Heather.

“Heather looked her straight in the eye when she answered.

“'He’s alive isn’t he?’”

Thank heaven Jean L. Chase and other Army Aviation pilots like him, our spies in the skies during World War II, were alive when we needed them. Read The Grasshopper That Roared, www.war-books.com/grasshopper.htm. You won’t be bored or disappointed. There are so many good stories such as the time Chase was almost run over by his own Cub. Or the time he rode in a Cub’s back seat raking a Japanese campsite with his machine gun stuck out the window. Or the time he fulfilled his spotter duties in a torpedo plane off the escort carrier USS Fanshaw Bay. He was a remarkable man.—Copyright 2008 by Walter Haan, www.war-books.com

Perils of operating a publishing company at home

2008-02-20T19:41:00.004-05:00

There have been a number of "Homes Using Wood Stoves" articles
in February 2008, and the drawbacks to burning wood for heat
were prominently mentioned in the articles. For example, pollution
from wood stoves and wood boilers. There is another drawback to
burning wood not mentioned in any articles.

I've operated Southfarm Press from our home since about 1987.
We had maintained a separate office before that in downtown
Middletown, Connecticut. My wife and I burned four cords a year
in a Vermont Casting stove for 11 years until my shoulders gave out
from all of that splitting wood.

One day, my wife and I, both being in publishing, had this happen.
At her Weekly Reader office, in a meeting, somebody entered the
room while the meeting was in progress and exclaimed, "I smell
Hickory Farms." My wife said that the smell was coming from her.

Across town I was in another meeting with printers. Someone
entered the room and exclaimed, "Wait a minute. I smell fire."
And I replied no, that was me. We laughed about it that night.
When you burn constantly inside your house, it gets into your
clothes, drapes etc. But it was worth it. Our oil furnace was off for
those 11 years, we got lots of exercise and the kids loved the
warmth and stacking the four cords outside each year.

Another peril in operating our publishing business at home was
our cat, Kitty. Note the creative name. It seemed every time I
was on the phone on a business call, the cat would start to throw
up, noisily. I would then begin praying they couldn't hear it on
the other side of the line. One publishing customer wound up
publishing a picture of me and Kitty in their journal. Maybe
they did hear her. --Copyright 2008 by Walter Haan,
www.war-books.com

Abraham Lincoln's character-building years

2008-02-12T20:19:00.000-05:00

As it is Abe Lincoln's birthday today, I thought I'd mention a book about his character-building years in the 1830s.

The book, Abe Lincoln and the Frontier Folk of New Salem (ISBN: 978-0-913337-36-6, 2002) by Thomas P. Reep and Constance Reep Unsworth, details Abraham Lincoln’s life, loves, friendships, fist fights, and work on the Illinois frontier. It is the only book currently in print that shows photographs of the actual individuals who influenced Lincoln’s character in the 1830s.

The village of New Salem, Illinois, rose up out of the wilderness, tarried for a while, then disappeared. It was a small village, never housing very many people, and of little account socially and economically. It was like hundreds of frontier towns save for one thing: it may have been the most important influence on the character development of one of the greatest men the United States of America ever produced—Abraham Lincoln.

Constance Reep Unsworth’s grandfather, Thomas P. Reep, 1870-1960, was a noted Lincoln scholar. At age 20 he began researching Abraham Lincoln’s life by interviewing people who had actually known Lincoln in the 1830s. Among those he interviewed was Lincoln’s close friend, William G. Greene, who had clerked at a country store with the future president.

Unsworth, an editor of the children’s newspaper Weekly Reader for over 30 years, found copies of her grandfather’s books about Abraham Lincoln’s life in Illinois, including Lincoln and New Salem from 1918. Realizing the importance of her grandfather’s research, Unsworth had rewritten that book for today’s audiences and added an introduction about her grandfather. Abe Lincoln and the Frontier Folk of New Salem is available online at www.war-books.com/abe.htm for $14.95 and amazon.com for $24.00. The book is not only a valuable original source for Lincoln research it is also good reading.

Other Lincoln historians, including Carl Sandburg, used Reep’s research as a basis for their writings about Lincoln’s life in the 1830s.

Believe it or not, both authors have a personal connection with Lincoln. Both the Reep family and Unsworth’s grandmother’s family, the Shipps, had ties to that period of Lincoln’s life. Parthena Jane Shipp, whose name was given to her by Lincoln, was Reep’s mother-in-law and Unsworth’s great-grandmother. --Copyright 2008 by Walter Haan, www.war-books.com

Barnes & Noble and other booksellers in the economic doghouse?

2008-02-11T08:36:00.000-05:00

Explaining in Publishers Weekly that it is possible Barnes & Noble could report negative same-store sales figures in 2008, a JP Morgan analyst downgraded its stock to “neutral” from “overweight” last week. The analyst explained that a poor economy, the presidential election and increased discounting from Borders could have a negative impact on sales and earnings in the year.

Also according to Publishers Weekly, B&N has not issued its own forecast for 2008. For the 48-week period ended January 5, B&N reported that same store sales were up 2.0%, although holiday sales were below expectations, due largely, B&N said, to poor music sales.

No retailer is immune from today’s doghouse recessionary trends, but it appears that bookstores will have a bumpier ride in 2008. Time will tell. Only about 40% of books sold in this country are sold through bookstores, both chain and independent. So it is up to publishers, especially small publishers such as Southfarm Press, to vigorously develop other markets for their books. I love it when I see a book for sale in a hardware store. Besides bookstores, Southfarm Books have been sold in museum gift shops, online at www.war-books.com and other online sites such as Amazon.com and through book clubs.

Going back to Barnes & Noble, in 2006 it purchased retail rights to two Southfarm Books through a packager. We received $3,500 for the rights. However, back in 1987, we received a letter from a B&N buyer saying they would never, I emphasize never, buy any Southfarm Books because we didn't have any bestsellers and many of our books were paperbacks. If B&N had stocked their stores with the two books they later bought the rights for in 2006, Southfarm's income would have been $31,275. So we received only 10% of the income from B&N of what we would have if they had stocked our books, not theirs. Just another example of what a small publisher like Southfarm has to contend with.--Copyright 2008 by Walter Haan, www.war-books.com

The Marines versus Berkeley, California

2008-02-06T09:37:00.000-05:00

Grow Some Balls in Berkeley

Hey, here's a good one. The city of Berkeley, California wants to kick the Marine recruiting station out of the city. So it recently designated a parking space directly in front of the Marine's recruiting station in the city to an antiwar group. The hope is to run the Marines out of town.

Good luck with that. Marines are men and women whose experiences are like those of Frank M. Beyea's as he described in Monk's War, Volume 2: Crossfire--A Marine Grunt in Vietnam (ISBN: 978-0-913337-66-0; 2007):

“I was having a hard time getting my breath back and all
hell had broken loose since the explosion. Three NVA
were coming at us down the trail with guns blazing, and
as I tried to get off my back and into a firing position, I
discovered that the entire stock of my M-14 had been
blown off at the narrow part of the grip just behind
the trigger. Nevertheless, I did manage to fire off a
short burst that got one of the NVA and that’s
when a round grazed my shoulder and knocked
me down once more.

“By this time the rest of the squad had caught up to the
fire fight and gave us some blistering cover fire that put
the other two NVA down in a hail of bullets.”

The city's mayor said the vote by the city council represented his constituents longstanding, vocal distaste for current military activity. Well, many of us (not enough in my mind) are upset about our lying leaders getting us into Iraq illegally, but that is not the fault of individual Marines or soldiers. It is the fault of the American public for not forcing the House of Representatives to impeach Bush and Cheney for their crimes. It is the fault of the American people for not forcing our government to pull out of Iraq...now. We have had plenty of opportunities to initiate the impeachments, the last being Representative Dennis Kucinich's bill in November 2007 to impeach the vice president. It was thrown into the House judiciary committee to rot.

Meanwhile, the city of Berkeley blames the Marines for current military activity! Come on! Grow some balls in Berkeley. Lead all Americans to put the blame where it belongs: on Bush and Cheney. Not on our fighting men and women.

I'll bet if Berkeley were under attack by a foreign invader, the people of Berkeley would be singing a different tune: The Marine Hymn.

I find this whole episode in Berkeley upsetting. It reminds me of my experience in December 1966 when, upon my discharge from the military, I was boarding a train at Grand Central Station in New York City and looking for a seat when a suit challenged me by asking how many babies I had killed. ---Copyright 2008 by Walter Haan, www.war-books.com

Top 15 Selling Books in 2007

2008-02-01T14:23:00.000-05:00

The top 15 Books sold in 2007 are (drum roll please):

1.  Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows-- by J. K. Rowling

2.  The Secret-- by Rhonda Byrne

3.  Eat, Pray, Love-- by Elizabeth Gilbert

4.  A Thousand Splendid Suns-- by Khaled Hosseini

5.  The Memory Keeper’s Daughter-- by Kim Edwards

6.  The Kite Runner-- by Khaled Hosseini

7.  Water For Elephants-- by Sara Gruen

8.  The Dangerous Book for Boys-- by Conn Iggulden, Hal Iggulden

9.  I Am America (And So Can You!)-- by Stephen Colbert

10. You: Staying Young-- by Michael F. Roizen, Mehmet C. Oz

11. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince-- by J. K. Rowling

12. You: On a Diet-- by Michael F. Roizen, Mehmet C. Oz

13. The Innocent Man: Murder and Injustice in a Small Town--
by John Grisham

14. The Road-- by Cormac McCarthy

15. The Glass Castle: A Memoir-- by Jeannette Walls

Note that there are two novels by Khaled Hosseini on the list along
with two Harry Potter books by J. K. Rowling. The two novels by
Hosseini are the closest to anything on the list of books about war
and revolution and the results of both. Both books take place
in Afghanistan, both in the seventies and eighties. Both novels
are highly recommended by reviewers across the board, as is the
movie, adapted from the book, The Kite Runner, now playing in
theaters.

This list of the top 15 selling books sold in the USA in 2007 came
from a list by USA Today this week of the top 100 books sold in
2007.

Again, I am sorry that there isn't a real military history nonfiction
book in the top 15, but there just seems to be less interest in
military history these days. That seems to be accompanied by
less interest and respect for our military. The Iraqi and Afghanistani
Wars are off the front pages, replaced by the bad economic news,
such as the loss of 17,000 jobs in a report issued today.

The wars may be off the front pages, and people may have less
interest in them, but that still doesn't change facts such as we've 
lost 3,900+ men and women in the Iraq War so far.

Other items of news this past week are the loss of five American
service people in one single attack in Iraq and that a report
has concluded that the U.S. does not have the forces in its own
country to respond adequately to an attack on our own soil.

I guess people console themselves with fluff. Entertainment that
doesn't mention all this bad news. Books like Eat, Pray, Love
(number 3 on the list) and You: Staying Young (number 10 on
the list).

I'll bet books such as You: Staying Young weren't very popular
during the depression in the thirties or in 1944-45 Europe when
people were eating tulip bulbs in The Netherlands, for example,
during World War II.--Copyright 2008 by Walter Haan,
www.war-books.com

Recession

2008-01-23T16:31:00.000-05:00

Like a parched man in the desert crawling towards anticipated
water in the oasis on the horizon, Americans have been crawling,
no running, towards the oasis of a perceived good life, stopping
at the bank to mortgage their futures, without examining
the consequences down the road. The consequences are downturn
and recession, even in the book business.

I believe we are in a recession now. Seventy percent of our economy
is fueled by consumer spending. Consumers have already slowed down
in their spending for plastic products such as toys made in China.
Housing starts have tumbled meaning there is less of a market for
pressboard walls and plastic molding made in China. Auto sales
are tumbling, Ford is now the number three car seller in this
country behind GM and Toyota. So there is less of a demand for
plastic dashboards and bumpers made in China.

Plastic products on their own have contributed to our recession
because they're so inexpensive. They have driven manufacturers out
of business that use wood (toys),real metal (cars, appliances), etc.
And the plastic credit card enabled Americans to run toward that
mirage of the good life on the horizon.

Americans feel "entitled" to that good life, even young people
in their twenties. They will not wait and build for that life like
their parents and grandparents did.

Americans did not foresee that rising prosperity in Asia would
create Asian consumers that now compete for that good life and
the oil, gasoline and plastic back scratchers that that good life
needs. We didn't foresee that because we know nothing about the rest
of the world. But we do know that Heath Ledger died yesterday and
a promising young actor's life has been snuffed out. Or that Britany
Spears showed up, actually showed up, in family court today to take
part in the proceedings concerning custody of her children. She
actually didn't stay for the proceeding but we know that she was
wearing bright, red lipstick and a very short skirt. That is all
we care about.

We don't care that electric power in Allahabad, India, a city of
a million people,is shut off every day, every day, from 10 am to
2 pm. All we care about is getting ours and we mortgaged our futures
to get it, the elusive, plastic it. Unless we change our ways,
the millions in Allahabad and all Asia will become more prosperous
than us and have that good life that we aren't willing to work for.

I just pulled a 1970 hardback book off my shelves. Titled How
You Can Profit from the Coming Devaluation, it's by Harry Browne.
Of course it's too late. The dollar has been losing value for a
long time. But maybe,just maybe, it might offer some suggestions
about what to do. I'll let you know. Meanwhile, since American goods
are so cheap overseas, maybe I should be looking at foreign markets
for Southfarm Press books.
--Copyright 2008 by Walter Haan,www.war-books.com

What has happened to the Military Book Club?

2008-01-21T11:30:00.000-05:00

Jay Franco, the last identifiable editor of The Military Book Club, wrote the following copy to describe the club a few years ago:

"Dear Military Reader,

More than a thousand books cross my desk every year. They span every front, in every war with every weapon. Yet they all have something in common. They want to tell what it was like when a warrior stares into the eyes of another and knows that only one will walk away.

That warrior can be a Roman legionary with a bronze-tipped spear in his hand waiting for a Visogoth to step out of the morning mist....or a Delta Force commando trusting his training and his night vision to take out a terrorist before innocents are lost.

Our authors have been there. There are leaders and scholars. Soldiers and specialists. When they write about weapons, you can smell the cordite. When they talk tactics, you see the big picture. And when they recount tales of courage, you will want to stand up and say, 'Thank-you.'"

Then in late 2007 he signed off from the club: "I'll be moving along to new things. I'll miss sifting through all the gritty tales of blood and battle....War is ugly, but if history has taught us anything, it's that it is important to learn from it."

And the Military Book Club changed drastically. In its last 24 pages of book selections in December 2007, it only offered seven pages of books about military history. The rest of the pages offered a cook book gift basket, a travel book about China, books about Presidents, Pompeii, ancient Rome, Mary Lincoln being bi-polar, Sigmund Freud, Alexandre Dumas and Marco Polo. You get the drift.

Does this mean that Doubleday and its German owners have decided that military books don't sell enough any longer? Do they think that those interested in military history will buy cook books?

As Franco said in his sign-off, it IS important to learn from history. Particularly military history. For example, if our last secretary of defense, Donald Rumsfeld knew from military history that we were invading Iraq with too few troops in 2003, rectified the situation before invading, we might not be stuck there in 2008.

Jay Franco used to sign off his letters in the Military Book Club newsletters with the statement, "Holding down the fort, Jay Franco." Who is holding down the fort at the Military Book Club now? Is it someone as incompetent as Rumsfeld who thinks MBC members are going to buy cook books?--Copyright 2008 by Walter Haan, www.war-books.com

McDonald's brilliant ad campaign on children's report cards

2008-01-18T14:14:00.000-05:00

This is brilliant! Advertising on little children's report cards is inspirational. Sometimes I think I'm good at promoting the war books and children's books I publish at Southfarm Press and then I am humbled by something like this.

Why didn't I think of advertising our books on children's report cards? Why? After all, it is important to grab children's minds and preferences while they are really young. Those preferences will likely stay with them their whole lives. Like me. My father worked 49 years for the firm that marketed Karo syrups, pure corn syrups. My baby formula was 50% milk, 50% red label Karo. So I consumed Karo as a kid up the kazoo.

Now that I've been diagnosed as being diabetic, I look wistfully at the bottles of green label Karo (tastes like maple) on my shelves. I've thrown away everything else with sugar in it except those Karo bottles calling me from the dark shadows of the top kitchen shelf.

The McDonald's Happy Meals “food prize” program for students of the Seminole County Public Schools in kindergarten through fifth grade was sponsored by the owners of the McDonald’s restaurants in Seminole County, in central Florida near DisneyWorld. You know they know what kids like.

Quotes by teachers on report cards about individual children, such as, " Linda is a very good student. Anyone can tell she has been trained at home. She is in the A class," can be supplemented for parents with statements like this: "Linda, by her girth and waist, obviously enjoys many happy hours with Happy Meals. You should be so proud Linda 'Made the Grade.'" 'Made the Grade' is the name of the McDonald's reward program for children.

“Check your grades,” McDonald's advised. “Reward yourself with a Happy Meal from McDonald’s.”

I have copyrighters working overtime right now to create copy to put on children's report cards for our book, Abe Lincoln and the Frontier Folk of New Salem:

"A must for all honest little children seriously interested in honest Abe's early life." This is my favorite so far.

The decision to end the McDonald's promotions appearing on children’s report card jackets came from executives at the national McDonald’s Corporation. They must be kicking themselves in their Happy Meals over at the McDonald's advertising department about parents' complaints that put an end to this brilliant, subliminal ad campaign. --Copyright 2008 by Walter Haan, www.war-books.com

Martha Raye in Vietnam

2008-01-11T07:57:00.000-05:00

The late funny lady and jazz singer, Martha Raye, used to appear in Vietnam to entertain our troops. But she did it differently than Bob Hope and his organized shows or Jane Fonda who just insulted our forces by showing up.

Raye had training as a nurse so she put on a uniform and would go from foxhole to foxhole administering aid to wounded soldiers. One soldier in a foxhole asked her whether she was sterile and she replied that at her age, she certainly hoped so. This exchange was reported by a news magazine.

I know that there is organized entertainment for our troops in Iraq, but I wonder if any of today's entertainers follow Raye's example and offer encouragement and comfort on the front lines. Raye's appearance always surprised our troops and they appreciated it.

I listen to a nostalgia radio station and they played clips this morning of Raye singing and clowning around. It reminded me of her courage. God bless her for her thoughtfulness.

Do any Vietnam War veterans out there personally remember Martha Raye showing up on their frontlines out of the blue?--Copyright 2008 by Walter Haan, www.war-books.com

Soldiers and veterans are victimized by American society

2007-12-15T15:30:00.000-05:00

By Walter Haan, www.war-books.com

This has been an interesting week. Today is the day for paying tribute to veterans past and present with the laying of wreaths on veterans’ graves as part of the national Wreaths Across America program. Earlier in the week we learned that charities designed specifically to help veterans and our troops give as little as one percent of what they collect to help those veterans and soldiers.

So a lot of people are making themselves feel good by tramping through veterans' cemeteries, laying wreathes and thinking they've made a difference. And those crooks at the charities skimming their collections to build themselves lives of luxury at the expense of our servicemen and women are reprehensible.

Most Americans aren't good enough to stand in the shadow of a soldier or sailor or Marine or veteran. They stay safe, make certain their children are safe from having to serve by being against the draft. Most Americans are hypocrites about our armed force members.

I remember some years ago I congratulated a woman, mother to one of my daughter's friends, for her son joining the Marines after high school. She looked really annoyed and replied, "We're not that kind of people."

In other words, she and her family, except for her son, thought they were above the rest of us who are or were proud to serve. Hypocrites. People like them will fly American flags on their cars, raise the flag on holidays and support charities that purport to help our soldiers and veterans, but won't give of their own time and skills. They will decry the attacks on 9/11 but won't participate in helping correct the situation.

As Vice President Cheney is on record as saying that it was inconvenient for him to serve in the military, they are willing to sacrifice someone else because they deem themselves as too important to do it. Mitt Romney, running for president as a Republican, has five sons and not one of them is or was in the military. Asked about it, Romney replied that they chose other directions for their lives.

Now ask yourself whether you want someone like Romney or Cheney in charge of other peoples' sons and daughters in the military when they and their children have refused to serve. In early November, Congressman Dennis Kucinich submitted a proposal to the House to impeach Cheney. His effort was thrown into the House Judiciary Committee where the hope was it would lanquish and die. But, surprise, surprise, three members of that committee backed the idea of impeaching Cheney this week. There is hope yet to bring down someone like him who finds it inconvenient to do his duty but very convenient to send others' children off to a war based on lies.

You won't see this kind of post in mainstream media because its members are part of the hypocrites that will only sacrifice other peoples' children. Copyright 2007 by Walter Haan, www.war-books.com

Three for Pearl Harbor Day

2007-12-07T08:16:00.000-05:00

By Walter Haan, www.war-books.com

Today, December 7th is Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day. How many Americans will actually remember what happened on this day in 1941 is probably minuscule. As the years go by, those who will remember what happened on 9/11 in 2001 will decline too.

It is too bad because we learn from history, but if we don't remember history, we are doomed to repeat mistakes made in the past. Like not heeding warnings about the Pearl Harbor disaster from our Allies, such as the Dutch in Indonesia and a Korean spy by the name of Haan. I kind of like that a man with my name attempted to thwart the Japanese attack. Or like attacking a nation our leaders swore were responsible for the attacks on 9/11. Whoops, turned out that wasn't true. Our President and Vice President lied to us.

If you are interested in history, I'd like to recommend two books and one DVD related to Pearl Harbor Day. One of the books is from Turner Publishing Company: Historic Photos of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Text and captions by Matthew Gilmore, published in 2007 (ISBN: 978-1-59652-400-2). The second book is from Southfarm Press: Till War Do Us Part, by Frank and Mary Bogart, published in 1995 (ISBN: 978-0-913337-24-0). The DVD is the Dutch documentary, The Battle of The Java Sea, An Epic of WWII, 1996.

Franklin Roosevelt was one of our greatest presidents, one of our greatest wartime presidents. He probably knew that the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor was coming and kept quiet about it to provide an excuse for the US to join the Allies in World War II. Putting that aside, his leadership during the war, his surrounding himself with extremely able aides such as General George Marshall and his putting his health at risk to do his job are admirable. That is why Historic Photos of Franklin Roosevelt is an important book. Through hundreds of large, one page photos, it illustrates Roosevelt from a child until his death and shows us visually how this great leader grew in American soil. This is a coffee table book that you can't help picking up off that table and would make a great Christmas gift. $39.95, www.turnerpublishing.com.

I had the pleasure of knowing Mary Bogart. My wife and I stayed at her home in Erwin, Tennessee in the summer of 2000 and we had published her book, written with her husband, Frank, in 1995. Frank and Mary both endured the Pearl Harbor attack. Mary was expecting Frank home that December 7th but as the Japanese planes swooped above, the first thought that popped into her head was that he probably wouldn't make it home for lunch. She didn't see him for a month. Frank was a junior officer aboard the USS Gamble, an old four-stack destroyer minelayer berthed at Pearl Harbor. His account of his little ship's battling the Japanese planes above is riveting, not only because his captain went mad during the attack and had to be removed from the ship during the attack. Mary's tale of being evacuated from Hawaii after the attack is noteworthy too: pregnant women such as Mary were assigned lower bunks on ships, for example. Till War Do Us Part is a different take on World War II in the Pacific. $17.00, www.war-books.com.

The Battle of the Java Sea on February 28, 1942 was a direct result of the Pearl Harbor attack. The Japanese had succeeded in their objective of disabling our Pearl Harbor fleet, preventing it from going to the rescue of the Americans in the Philippines, the British in Malaya and the Dutch in Indonesia. The Java Sea battle was the first naval engagement of the Pacific War. The Allied fleet was cobbled together with warships from four navies: American, British, Dutch and Australian. The Dutch two disc DVD, The Battle of the Java Sea, in Dutch, English and Japanese, with English subtitles, illustrates graphically the loss of the Allied fleet, and through interviews with veterans of the battle, we see the action enfold as ship after ship is lost. And we still see the fear on these veterans faces, in their body movements and voices, 54 years after the event. Again, this is a different take on World War II in the Pacific. $19.95, www.buzzcreek.com.

Take a moment today and imagine you are on an ancient destroyer that has lost its steering as Japanese planes rake the ship at Pearl Harbor.--Walter Haan, www.war-books.com

Remember Pearl Harbor

2007-11-28T13:59:00.000-05:00

By Walter Haan, www.war-books.com

In nine days, on December 7th, Pearl Harbor Day will be remembered. The infamous attack that took America by surprise (except perhaps for those in the White House) stunned and rallied the nation. Within 3 days, we were officially at war with Japan, Germany and Italy.

Hollywood's reaction to the equally surprising attacks on September 11, 2001 in New York City and Washington, DC by Muslim extremists and the 1941 Pearl Harbor attack by the Japanese were quite different. Hollywood treaded carefully after 9/11 and didn't release any dramatizations about the attacks right away.

The Pearl Harbor attack was handled quite differently by movie studios. They were stumbling over themselves to get movies made about Pearl Harbor. Republic Studios won the race for the first film about the attack because it already had a film in production about Japanese agents doing dastardly deeds in the Philippines. After Pearl Harbor, the studio simply rewrote portions of the script and renamed the picture, Remember Pearl Harbor. The film was released on May 18, 1942. The final plot was that on the eve of Pearl Harbor, an American soldier/airman in the Philippines gets mixed up with a group of Japanese agents. When he learns of the attack, he changes his behavior and exposes the espionage ring, and then gives his life for his country by crashing his plane into a Japanese troopship. The Philippines was an American territory at that time.

The film starred Donald Barry who later became known as Don "Red" Barry because of his starring in Red Ryder westerns. The picture, in black and white, naturally, was 75 minutes long and directed by Joseph Santley. The poster for the film is shown here. --Copyright 2007 by Walter Haan, www.war-books.com

Museums failing as educators

2007-11-16T11:58:00.000-05:00

By Walter Haan, www.war-books.com

Museums, along with publishers, schools and colleges are on the front lines as educators. But I think that museums are failing in their role in educating the public.

I was visiting the Autry National Center in Los Angeles a couple of months ago. It is currently running an exhibit entitled "Gene Autry and the Twentieth-Century West: The Centennial Exhibition, 1907-2007." As a western movie buff, particularly of B -westerns, I was looking forward to seeing the exhibit, which runs through to January 13, 2008.

I wasn't into the portion about Gene's movie career for long when I realized I was angry about what I was seeing on the walls. There is a generous amount of movie posters from Gene's movies, both from Republic Pictures and Columbia, on display. But none of them, although framed, were restored. Looking fragile, they were obviously going to look more fragile as time goes by. The generally accepted method to restore movie posters is to mount them on linen and restore them by painting over scratches and piecing together patches of paper to seamlessly fill in holes and rips. None of this was done.

But what bothered me the most was the actual mistakes in the text mounted on the walls that explained the exhibits. One of the exhibits was a large painting of Herbert J. Yates, the president of Republic Pictures from 1935 to 1959. Yates and Autry and their first wives knew each other well, had sailed across the Atlantic at least once in the late thirties together, and Yates had made Autry the movie cowboy star he was. But the text explaining the painting was incomplete about the production of Republic Pictures and the four types of productions produced by the studio. But what really got me hopping was the declaration at another exhibit that Monte Hale was the last singing cowboy.

Rex Allen was the last singing cowboy. His Republic Pictures were released from 1950 to 1954. Looking into this error, I discovered the Hale had been a very good friend of Autry's and had assisted his widow in establishing and running the Autry National Center. So I guess the next step was to make Monte Hale look better than he was by making him the last singing cowboy on film. Didn't seem to matter to get the facts straight.

A couple of years ago I took my young nephew to the Museum of Natural History in New York City. I thought a little culture and educational exhibits would be a nice way to spend the time of day.

Until, as part of some exhibits in the basement, I found a large life size display of Peter Stuyvesant in a full-length window with colonial New Amsterdam behind him. The explanation on the wall identified Stuyvesant as a Governor of colonial New York.

Stuyvesant must have been turning over in his grave in The Bowery. He was the Dutch governor-general that had been forced in 1664 to surrender New Amsterdam and New Netherland to an English fleet aiming their guns at New Amsterdam. The city and colony were subsequently renamed New York.

In the incidents I described above, I complained about the inaccuracies found, but the museums didn't seem to care. I wrote down the inaccuracies for the Autry National Center and talked by phone to writers for the exhibits at the Museum of Natural History. Nothing happened.

Nothing that is, except misinformation continued to be spread by museums disguised as educational institutions. Copyright 2007 by Walter Haan, www.war-books.com

Bibles printed in China not allowed back in China for 2008 Olympics

2007-11-08T10:44:00.000-05:00

By Walter Haan, www-war-books.com

Organizers of the Beijing Olympics are attempting to explain news reports that Bibles would be prohibited at the Games in 2008, saying today that personal religious texts are welcome.

Reports in the Catholic News Agency and European media touched off an outcry prompting calls to Chinese embassies for explanations. Christian athletes protested vigorously both here and abroad.

The Beijing Olympics committee has explained that the published reports are incomplete.

"There is no such thing. This kind of report is an intentional distortion of truth," said the director of the Beijing Olympics media organization. He said texts and items from major religious groups that are brought for personal use by athletes and visitors are permitted, with one exception.

"We just don't want athletes to bring with them Bibles and other religious texts that are printed in China. We worry that there may be contaminates, such as lead, in the inks and bindings that may harm the participants' performances." Plastic Jesus and Buddha figures made in China for export are also prohibited back in China because these were made to sicken overseas populations only, not citizens of China. Lead in the paints used on the figures is the issue here again.

The official Beijing Olympics website explained the entry procedures for Bibles into the country as "each traveler is recommended to take no more than one Bible into China." Preferably not printed in China, and leave little Jesus and Buddha home too. Copyright by Walter Haan--www.war-books.com

WW II soldiers running in waves through the waves on the beaches

2007-11-03T14:24:00.000-04:00

By Walter Haan -- www.war-books.com

As next weekend is Veteran's Day Weekend, I've been reflecting on a number of things about veterans. One of the more obvious things is the courage that our veterans of the armed forces have exhibited on the job. Right now we're privileged to have veterans from World War II, Korea, Vietnam, Grenada, Panama, Desert Storm and the current operations in Iraq and Afghanistan among us.

Regarding veterans from World War II, I came across a great book that illustrates profusely their courage, sacrifices and can do attitude: Historic Photos of World War II--North Africa to Germany (ISBN: 978-1-59652-398-2). Text and captions for the 2007 book are written by Bob Duncan and the book is published by Turner Publishing Company. The 10 1/4" x 10 1/4", 216 page coffee table hardcover book is filled with full page photos from World War II. Most of the photos are of our troops on the job, firing their weapons, marching forward, leaping across ditches, seeking protection behind tanks in fire fights, airborne troops getting ready to jump and soldiers in prayer.

Photos of our Army Air Force in action, of the Navy delivering the goods, whether it be jeeps driving through watery, rocky shores from LSTs or soldiers running in waves through the waves from the LSTs that delivered them to in harm's way, the composition of the photos takes my breath away. There's a wonderful shot of a sole American soldier holding his rifle on captured German soldiers with their arms up and clasped behind their heads. An unusual shot from the top turret of an A20 Havoc medium bomber that is operating as a flight leader and escort for a wave of C-47 transports loaded with paratroopers is wonderful for its perspective.

My one disappointment with the book is that most of the photos, all black and white, have not been enhanced to highlight contrast, leaving many of them very gray. But that still doesn't take away from, for example, the photo of two American paratroopers rushing forward amidst a German artillery barrage, with the ground exploding into pieces all around them.

A wonderful book, a perfect gift for World War II buffs this coming holiday season. Retail price is $39.95 and worth it. I didn't publish this book but wish I had. Another thing I like is that this picture book, which are so often printed in China these days, is printed in the USA.--www.war-books.com

From ABDA to Desert Storm and the lesson missed by Bush/Cheney

2007-10-30T10:39:00.000-04:00

By Walter Haan, www.war-books.com

During the Desert Shield buildup in the fall of 1990, two World War II names came together again for the first time in close to 49 years: Admiral Thomas C. Hart and Witte de With. American Admiral Hart was the first naval commander of ABDA, the American, British, Dutch and Australian unified command set up on the island of Java in January 1942. The Witte de With was a Dutch destroyer in his command. Their job was to stop the Japanese advance on the Netherlands East Indies, now Indonesia.

As part of the Desert Shield almost 49 years later, the American Navy sent the frigate USS Thomas C. Hart with the USS Saratoga battle group. The Dutch stationed two frigates in the Middle East at the same time, one of which was a new HNMS Witte de With.

The frigates Thomas C. Hart and Witte de With became part of a far more successful military operation than their namesakes of 1942.

Admiral Hart attempted to instantaneously weld the four World War II navies into an ABDA Unified Naval Command. But Japanese forces sank most of the Allied ships in their path. The destroyer Witte de With, after escorting the wounded heavy cruiser HMS Exeter from the Battle of the Java Sea, was bombed by the Japanese at Surabaya on March 1, 1942. She was scuttled and abandoned the following day.

ABDA was the first attempt at a multi-national, unified command in the 20th century. Hastily assembled after the Pearl Harbor disaster, ABDA faced the full weight of the Japanese assault in the far east. It failed to stop them at sea, on land and in the air.

Desert Storm was fought by an international, unified military command. But this time it was a resounding success, capable of capturing far more than it was authorized to subdue.

ABDA involved just four nations in 1942. Those four nations squabbled over tactics and who should be in charge. Their communication systems, training and ships didn't mesh into cohesive fighting units. They hadn't planned and trained together to fight a common enemy. They weren't prepared.

As a result, in 1942 the British surrendered Singapore and 70,000 troops in Malaya to the Japanese. The Dutch lost their East Indies Empire, two cruisers and all seven destroyers in their far eastern fleet. Australia lost fighting men and the HMAS Perth, a modern light cruiser. And the United States lost the Philippines, thousands of fighting men, the USS Pope, a World War I vintage destroyer and the USS Houston, a modern, heavy cruiser, one of President Franklin Roosevelt's favorite warships.

ABDA's inability to stop the Japanese in 1942 wasn't due to any deficiencies in the fighting men from the four Allied nations. Chris Droste, a harbor pilot at Tjilatjap on the southern coast of Java in 1942, wrote in his book, Till Better Days, that the American and Allied sailors were far from demoralized before the battles. Knowing that the odds were stacked against them, "...they went as hounds to a hunt, agitated only that they might miss the opening clash."

Desert Storm's success as a unified command in 1991 is a testimonial to the heroism and sacrifice of ABDA soldiers, airmen and sailors. It was in the waters around Java, on Javanese beaches and in the air over Java in the first three months of 1942 that the Allies learned that cooperation in training, that standard equipment and communications were required to defeat a powerful and determined enemy.

That knowledge enabled 28 nations, led by the US under the UN banner, to defeat Iraqi aggression in Kuwait. President George W. Bush and Vice President Cheney ignored this valuable lesson when they launched the US attack on Iraq in 2003. The attack wasn't authorized by the UN, wasn't really authorized by the American people because of the lies they were fed, wasn't supported by enough armed forces and wasn't supported by most of our Allies.
It has been a disaster, launched by men who have never served in the active armed forces (and did everything they could to be certain of that), have never studied military history and have never failed to use deception to get their way.--Copyright 2007 by Walter Haan. www.war-books.com

40 Years and nothing has changed in book printing

2007-10-24T16:55:00.000-04:00

I just sent our current book printer the following message, rejecting the book proof we just received from them:

"Our instructions clearly called for the cover hard copy to be scanned same size. Instead, the cover text has been reduced on the back cover and on the front cover from the book title down. The gold bars that connect the front cover to the back cover are missing on the spine. In your reduction of the text copy on the back cover, you turned the word 'meet' to 'mee' by lopping off the 't' and you eliminated the hyphen after 'Vietnam' in the same copy on the right. Re scan the cover same size and send another proof."

Technically, the world has changed enormously in the production of the printed word in the last 40 years. But the one thing that has not changed is printers not following publishers' instructions. When I was composing the message above to send to the printer, I started reflecting on this problem.

I have been employed to produce periodicals and books since 1964, minus two years in the US Army, for Dow Jones Books, Oxford Books (now Sadlier-Oxford), RCA Records, Weekly Reader Books and Southfarm Press for the past 25 years. And I still have to send rejections to printers because they don't follow publisher instructions. It's getting a little old.

The worst case I ever experienced was in 1995 after I received several samples for a hardcover book with a sewn binding for my approval. The bindings on the books were so bad, so loose, that I could not imagine what the printer was thinking when they were sent. When I requested a second set of books for approval, the ones then sent were just as bad. I decided that the only thing to do was to actually travel to Benton Harbor, Michigan, where the printer was located, from my office in Connecticut.

So, on a hot August 1995 day in Benton Harbor in a warehouse not air conditioned, I sorted through every carton of books, throwing the unacceptable ones on the floor. The pile amounted to over 10% of the books being bad.

The technology has improved. When is customer service and quality control in the printing/publishing industry going to improve?--Walter Haan, www.war-books.com

Facing extinction

2007-10-09T16:33:00.000-04:00

What do Belgium, daily newspapers, one-color book printers and book readers all have in common?

Extinction.

For the last decade, Belgium has been periodically threatened with extinction. Here is a nation that figured prominently in both World War I and II that just might unravel, just as Czechoslovakia did in the nineties. A hundred years from now when students read about the World Wars and the battles Belgium endured, the students will wonder where the hell it was. Why? Because Belgium is divided into the Flemish, Dutch speaking, north and the Walloon, French speaking, south. There is supposedly only one Belgian in the whole world, the king. The Flemish north is now more prosperous than the Walloon south and the Flems are tired of picking up the deficits of the south. Stay tuned.

Daily newspapers have been under assault by radio and television news for decades, and survived. Now Internet news is driving newspapers out of business. Or driving them into the Internet news business themselves. You're probably like me. I read the New York Times Web Site daily, but almost never actually buy the paper. Why should I? Why should you? Remember in the old days if you found an article that interested you, you'd get the scissors to cut it out. A laborious process compared to highlighting the article and copying it onto your computer for printing later at your convenience. Newspaper circulations dropped 2.1 and 2.8 percent in the last two six-month periods. Trees are very happy about this development, however.

I had a phone call last Friday from a book printer salesman looking for business. I had previously used them three times: once to print a book jacket at their plant A; once to print a full color, hardcover children's book at their plant B; and once for them to print a hardcover black and white book with a color jacket at their plant C. Plant C is gone. I used a competitor of plant C to print 10 black and white hardcover books with color jackets between 1999 and 2004. It's now a parking lot for a hospital. There simply wasn't the business to sustain them. Too much capacity as one executive explained to me.

How could there be too much unused capacity in book printers? Besides the fact that even one- color books are increasingly being printed overseas, in Canada for example (yes, that is overseas), Americans are reading less and less books. Book readers may become extinct! In 2006, one in four American adults had read no books at all. The typical American claimed on the average to have read four books in 2006. If you eliminate the 25% who read no books, the usual number read was seven. Now seven may be a lucky number for many of us, but in this case it does not bode well for the American book industry and the American public at large. Southfarm Press, my book publishing firm, is located in Middletown, Connecticut. We noticed something right away back in the eighties. People in New England read less than people in the south, midwest and far west. We had a sign up in our office for years claiming we sold more books in Guam than Connecticut! Do you know where Guam is? It's north of New Guinea.--Walter Haan, www.war-books.com

The Crimes of AARP

2007-09-26T12:13:00.000-04:00

The Crimes of AARP

The following four paragraphs are adapted from a letter by
Dennis Kucinich:

On September 21st, the American Association of Retired Persons
(AARP) sponsored a Presidential forum in Iowa focused on health
care reform. Congressman/presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich 
was left out of the debate. 

He is the only candidate in this race proposing a national
not-for-profit, single-payer health insurance plan. His
plan would eliminate the obscene profit of 4.4 billion dollars
AARP alone stands to gain over the next 7 years at the expense
of the senior citizens they claim to represent.

AARP's strategic partnership with health care giants United
Health Care and Aetna are embraced by Senators Clinton, Obama,
and former Senator Edwards who are pushing plans to keep the
for-profit private insurers in business and in control of our
lives.

It is clear that AARP doesn't want to upset its multi-billion
dollar windfall. The health care plans of the invited candidates
preserve and promote the interests of for-profit insurance and
pharmaceutical companies at the expense of tens of millions of
everyday Americans while the corporate media keeps America
drugged with misinformation so we can't make an informed
decision.

There is nothing new here. In 2004, Ralph Nader had a well
thought out plan to eliminate for-profit insurers and HMOs
from our health care. His blueprint even included plans to
dismantle HMOs and train and find new employment for HMO
employees.

Last I heard, there were 47 million uninsured Americans.
What do we have to do here? The top five nations to live
in are The Netherlands, United Kingdom, Norway,
Denmark and Sweden, in no order. The US is way down
that list.

Why?

Because the United States does not take care of its people.
Those five nations have the best records in the world for
caring for their populations. Isn't that what nations are
supposed to do? Isn't that what our troops are fighting
for in Iraq and Afghanistan?

The Bush Administration right now is in the process of
fighting a proposal for paid health care for children.
What do we as average citizens have to do to make the
USA one of the better nations for its population to
reside in?

Are we going to have to follow the example of Samuel
Gompers and the American labor movement in the
late 1800s and take to the streets. Like the monks are
doing right now in Myanmar? Are we?--Walter Haan,
www.war-books.com

The Crime of Monsieur Lange

2007-09-07T15:02:00.000-04:00

The Crime of Monsieur Lange

This 1936 film, directed by Jean Renoir, is a droll comedy/mystery about the unscrupulous boss of a book and magazine publishing company in France who abuses his employees and seduces the women who work there. It reminds me of Southfarm Press, my book publishing company.

Just kidding.

In the film, when the publisher disappears and is presumed dead, the employees of the firm take it over and run it as a collective. At the same time, the company finds publishing success with one of its employees (Lange), a writer of a successful series of pulp-westerns for the firm. Then the boss shows up again after he learns of the firm's publishing success and expects to reassume his dictatorial powers.

The publisher turns up dead for real this time and Lange, now wanted for murder, hotfoots it to the Belgian border with his girl friend. The end.

Southfarm Press has now been in business for almost 25 years. Our 25th anniversary is in March 2008. While its publisher hasn't been murdered (I'm still alive) and all employees over the years can be accounted for, we have had our battles.

We've fought distributors, authors, reviewers and a lot of people who make their living off small publishers as advisors. One time a reviewer asked us if we had administered a lie detector test to one of our authors. General laughter in the office. Oh yeah, Random House does that, right? Another time, when an author's book wasn't selling well, he accused us of secretly reprinting it so we could sell those copies on the quiet and deny him his royalties. As soon as the first print run was sold out, we put the book out-of-print, gave him back his rights, and told him to get lost.

Another time, way back in the eighties, we were considering working with an author to publish his cookbook. Things were going swimmingly until we discovered an anti-Jewish tirade in the middle of the book. It was a cook book, for God's sake! We dropped him like a hot potato.

Also, back in the eighties, our distributor at the time was bragging about this huge order for a Vietnam War book he had sold for another publisher. I asked him if he had showed our Vietnam War book at the same time to that buyer. It got very quiet. We got the hell out of there.

In the early nineties, a prominent history professor, reviewing one of our titles by a veteran of World War II for a respected journal, told me on the phone that all veterans were liars! I responded by giving him a list of academics who had been caught telling untruths, like Joseph Ellis. That shut him up.

So it has been an interesting 25 years. It's about time I watched The Crime of Monsieur Lange again. It really is funny and the actors in it are appealing. It's only 77 minutes long and always entertains me. --Walter Haan, www.war-books.com

Don't let your kids lick their books

2007-08-29T08:57:00.000-04:00

Don't let your kids lick their books.
Or even touch them if the books are printed in China.

Among the huge Mattel toy recalls recently are the SpongeBob Square Pants journals. These may be the ones I saw mentioned on television that had spiral bindings coated with lead paint.

But what about all children's books printed in China? If the Chinese contractors and subcontractors are using lead in paint products to save money, are Chinese printers using cheaper printing inks with lead in them to print the huge amount of children's books printed in China for household name American book publishers?

I've been thinking more about this lately as I'm due to be a first-time grandfather in March 2008. When at a bookstore to buy books for children, parents and grandparents should examine each book's copyright page or back cover. If you read "Printed in China," put it back. Especially if it has a spiral binding. Then wash your hands.

Many years ago, for an American book to be eligible to be copyrighted in this country, it had to be printed in the USA. It costs publishers more to print their books, especially full color children's books, in this country than overseas. That is why American book publishers outsource to China. When we published The Macaroon Moon: A Book of Poems and Rhymes for Children in 2004 (ISBN: 978-0-913337-51-6), competing bids from a printer with plants in both New Jersey and China showed that we could print the book in China for $3,700 less than in New Jersey. We still chose the New Jersey plant.

The following statement appears on The Macaroon Moon's copyright page:

"Printed in the United States of America by American Printing craftsmen and craftswomen, as per the policy of Southfarm Press, Publisher to support American vendors and workers."

Considering the risks of outsourcing the manufacture of toys and books overseas, especially China, don't you wish that statement appeared in all children's books manufactured for American children?--Walter Haan, www.war-books.com

O. J. Simpson, Laura Bush and Patty Rowland

2007-08-22T16:13:00.000-04:00

You're probably wondering what O. J. Simpson, Laura Bush and Patty Rowland could have in common. First, for all of you who don't live in Connecticut, let me explain that Patty Rowland is the former first lady of Connecticut. Her husband was forced to resign some years ago as Governor of Connecticut and he spent a year in prison on corruption charges.

What they have in common is that the first two have written books to be published and Rowland has already had her book published. All three are celebrities and are horning their way into or have already horned their way into book publishing. Rowland's book is a children's book as is the proposed book by Laura Bush and her soon to be married daughter, Jenna. O. J. Simpson's book, If I Did It is not for children. It may not be for anyone.

Beaufort Books picked up the O. J. Simpson book after it was rejected by Regan Books and its owner, Rupert Murdoch. Murdoch also owns the Fox Television Network, The New York Post and a bunch of other media properties. Murdoch thought the book to be unsuitable for publication as some believe the book is Simpson's confession of the murder of his wife and Ron Goldman. You remember all of this.

Now Barnes & Noble says they won't stock the Beaufort edition in its traditional stores if published. Borders stores, bn.com and Amazon.com will carry the book. However you will be able to special order the Simpson book at a Barnes & Noble traditional store. Good luck, Beaufort Books, in marketing what many consider offensive and trashy.

When Patty Rowland was first lady of Connecticut, she published a children's book. But in the scandals that ended her husband John's administration and put him behind bars, it came out that one of the Governor's supporters had paid Patty over $40,000 to have her book published. The book sank like a stone. And by the way, it doesn't cost that much to publish a children's book. It can be done for $20,000, including paying the illustrator and paying for full color printing. I know because I've published a hardcover children's book.

Then we come to the Bush family. On August 9th, Harper Collins said that it had acquired the rights to a children's book, untitled as of this writing, by First Lady Laura Bush and her daughter Jenna.

The Bush book is supposedly set in a school and depicts a mischievous boy who likes to do anything except read. The story is supposedly based on Laura's and Jenna's experiences as teachers.

On the same day of the HC announcement of the Bush book, Truthout published a report titled, "New Orleans Children Fighting for the Right to Learn." The article is by Bill Quigley. It seems that about half of the nearly 30,000 children enrolling in New Orleans schools this fall have been enrolled in special public schools. Most are called Charter Schools. These schools have been given tens of millions of our dollars by the Federal government in extra money, over and above state and city money, to set up and operate.

These special public charter schools are not open to all students and are very selective about who they let in. Laura's husband may have been slow to react to Hurricane Katrina and the suffering of New Orleans, but he moved like Katrina's winds after Katrina to convert New Orleans public schools to public charter schools that have the power to discriminate in selecting their students.

So what has happened to the other half of the New Orleans student population? Over 10,000 children have been assigned to a one-year-experiment in public education by Louisiana called the "Recovery School District" (RSD) program. This program is way underfunded resulting in not enough teachers and books. One RSD school has more guards signed up for the children than teachers!

So, on the same day, August 9th, we learned the Bush administration has set up a two tier discriminatory educational system in New Orleans and that Laura Bush, so concerned about education, is publishing a children's book! The hypocracy of the Bush Family is on display.

As I reported in an earlier blog posting, less books are being published in this country. And it seems that a greater proportion of those books being published are being authored by celebrities, such as O. J., Patty, and Laura.

Now all we need is for Barbara Bush (the President's white haired, empty-headed mom) to show up at an RSD school in New Orleans and declare, "See. They're better off now." Like she did in Houston talking about the Katrina refugees.

Everyone should read Bill Quigley's August 9th Truthout Report. I've barely broken the surface here. And no one should buy Laura and Jenna's book. It'll probably be printed in China anyway, helping to put American book printers out of business.--Walter Haan, www.war-books.com

Bull from President Bush supports more sales of Red Bull to our troops

2007-08-15T10:27:00.000-04:00

The past eight days have been bad for our armed forces and veterans. It also brought more bad news for the publishing industry.

General David Petraeus told a congressional delegation visiting the Middle East that success in Iraq will require an American military presence there for about ten years. Ten years!

The Observer newspaper in Britain ran an article some days ago about how fatique is crippling the US Army in Iraq: "Exhaustion and combat stress are besieging US troops in Iraq as they battle with a new type of warfare. Some even rely on Red Bull to get through the day. As desertions and absences increase, the military is struggling to cope with the crisis."

Meanwhile the US Army has reported that it made its recruitment goal for June. But then on August 10th a Bush war advisor says the draft is worth a look. In other words, though they met a recent recruitment goal, they still want more cannon fodder from the American Heartland to keep the Iraq War going.

Reports indicate that the war in Afghanistan is going badly because we diverted our military resources from that country to Iraq. The British have complained that our bully tactics in Afghanistan are making it difficult to win the minds of the people there. And don't forget that Afghanistan is where Bin Laden, the mass murderer of 9/11 is headquartered. Not in Iraq, never in Iraq.

And then our beloved President's administration fights a democratic party plan led by Senator Jim Webb of Virginia to boost school aid for our veterans. Those who used Red Bull to get through the day in Baghdad need shovels to get through more "Bush Shit" when discharged from active duty.

During World War II the historic 1944 G.I. Bill was devised and it put eight million US soldiers through college after the war. Historians now credit the bill as fueling the expansion of America's middle class in the post-war era. World War II and Korean veterans benefited from having the government pay every penny of veterans' educational costs, from tuition at a public university to books, housing and a monthly stipend.

Under current law, veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan can expect to receive only enough to pay 75 percent of their tuition costs. To pay our veterans more, the proposal to increase benefits would make "administration of this program cumbersome," according to Keith Wilson, the VA official who is in charge of VA education benefits. Funny, we did it in the forties and fifties and it wasn't too cumbersome.

Regarding news in the publishing industry, book sales fell over 6% in June, continuing a downward spiral in overall book sales. And Laura Bush and her daughter Jenna are going to publish a children's book!!! This absurb fact requires a separate blog posting devoted to it alone. Look for it shortly here.--Walter Haan, www.war-books.com

Pretend soldiers

2007-08-07T17:25:00.000-04:00

I get a lot of things military in the mail. In a military magazine that was sent me recently I saw an ad for "Custom Engraved Dog Tags." The ad also offered stainless or anodized aluminum military license plates. A catalog from Medals of America boasts, "Your Catalog for All U.S. Military Awards." Gee, I thought dog tags and medals earned were only issued by the branches of our military. But it seems anyone can purchase these things, and as the military awards catalog says, "W Haan: You are Pre-Approved for a Medals of America 3 months to pay. See page 31 to learn more." I turned to page 31 and noticed that anyone can buy any medal he wants, whether earned or not.

In my own case, though I made Sergeant E-5 in less than two years in the US Army, 1965-66, I don't remember receiving any medals. But the catalog says I can award myself any medal I want. I didn't do anything really extraordinary to earn any. I was a terrible shot with my M-14 so no sharpshooter medal for me. I was commended for choking and strangling enemy soldiers however, which was useful because I obviously couldn't stop them with my rifle while they were charging me. I don't believe the US Army issues a choking and strangling medal. But maybe the catalog does?

Should just anybody be allowed to buy military medals without documentation showing they earned the medals? Should anybody be allowed to buy military type dog tags whether they were in the military or not? I still have my original dog tags and am proud of how I earned them. I served. Should just anyone be allowed to buy a stainless steel license plate for his car or truck that indicates the occupant was a soldier? Did anyone check for the buyer's Department of Defense records first? There are a lot of people out there that buy this stuff so they can pretend they were soldiers or are veterans.

We've always had a wonderful military because of the men and women that were and are members of it. Do soldiers and veterans really want to see what they earned hawked in the marketplace for any jerk to buy? This veteran doesn't like it.

A note about my post from last week that mentioned book store sales lagging. Not only that, but US publishers are publishing fewer books. The last statistic I saw indicated that we (all US book publishers, big and small) published 190,078 books in 2004 and 172,000 books in 2005. That's a decrease of almost 10%. Southfarm Press (www.war-books.com) published two books in 2004 and one in 2005. However, we published seven titles in 2006 and will publish a total of five in 2007.--Walter Haan, www.war-books.com

Military Publishing and Musing

2007-07-31T16:52:00.000-04:00

The summer is almost halfway over and the war in Iraq continues. Supposedly a decision will be made in September about the recent "Surge" and what it has accomplished for the security of Bagdad and Iraq. We'll see what happens. I'm not optimistic that our young men and women will be spared further service in Iraq. Meanwhile its parliament takes the month of August off. I wonder where the members of parliament go for vacation. I'll bet it's not in Iraq.

Bookstore sales are down for the eleventh straight month. As a book publisher, that piece of news is of interest to me. Actually less than half the books sold at the retail level are sold in bookstores. You can now buy books online, in drug stores, gift shops, at large newstands, in supermarkets and warehouse stores. The square footage of today's bookstores has quadrupled in 15 years. But the market has remained flat in those stores. Go into a Borders or Barnes & Noble Superstore and you'll see for yourself. Customers are few and far between. Thankfully, Military books are available online at Amazon.com and www.war-books.com.

There hasn't been a Military Book Show associated with the national book expo, BEA, since 2001. Southfarm and I exhibited at that last show and miss it.

I was reading a military book, a hardcover from Bantam, recently and discovered a mistake not far into it. As I've asked before, when you discover a factual mistake in a book, doesn't it begin to make you doubt the facts of the rest of the book? Does me. The book, about WWII in the Far East, is Ship of Ghosts: The Story of the USS Houston, FDR's Legendary Lost Cruiser and the Epic Saga of Her Survivors. The book is by James D. Hornfischer and copyright in 2006. On the top line of page 56 it states that Surabaya was the capital city of the island of Java in The Netherlands East Indies, now Indonesia. Batavia (now Jakarta) was the capital of Java and The NEI.

There's a new rift about lowering the flag for our war's dead in this country, if you can believe that. People who do nothing for their country, don't fight, won't let their children fight, can't decide whether to lower the flag for our war dead. The result is confusion. An example was in Michigan in June. In Iron Mountain, Michigan, the flag was at half-staff for 24 hours (on the governor's orders) at a VFW Lodge to honor a Michigan soldier killed in Iraq. Just blocks away though, at the Veteran's hospital run by the Federal government, the flag flew at full staff. Federal officials said they do not answer to orders by a state governor. The dead soldier is all but forgotten in this turf war.--Walter Haan, www.war-books.com

Summer reading suggestions about the Vietnam Air War

2007-06-02T22:18:00.000-04:00

The number of books published about the Vietnam air war is enormous.
For example, Southfarm Press (www.war-books.com) recently published a
second edition of its popular Vietnam War Facts Quiz (ISBN: 978-
0913337585) because of increased interest in the war. The
book has man questions and illustrations concerning the air war.

Personal accounts of Vietnam service in the air abound. One of the best of the
airwar is Colonel Jack Broughton’s classic Thud Ridge: F-105 Thunderchief
missions over Vietnam, originally published in 1969 (ISBN: 978-
0859791168; 2006 ed.). Colonel Broughton carried a tape recorder in his
cockpit on missions over North Vietnam, and the dialogue in his book is
dramatic and real.


The flying stories are riveting in Marshall Harrison’s 1989 book, A Lonely
Kind of War: Forward Air Controller Vietnam (ISBN: 978-
0891416388; 1997 ed.). He describes  what he faced as one of the “Bringers
of Death,” a special cadre of air force pilots responsible for directing jet
fighter-bomber strikes against the enemy.

Masters of the Art: A Fighting Marine’s Memoir of Vietnam
(ISBN: 978-0891418795; 2005 ed.) is written by Ronald E. Winter, a highly
decorated helicopter door gunner who flew over 300 missions in Vietnam.
It’s a thrilling account of US Marines aggressively counter-punching off the
Tet offensive and the siege of Khe Sanh.

Naked in Da Nang (ISBN: 978-0760320761; 2004), by Mike Jackson and
Tara Dixon-Engel is stories of Jackson’s days in Vietnam as a forward air
controller directing air strikes, observing troop movements and
choreographing search-and-rescue missions. The stories are told with pride
and a dash of irreverence.

Kregg P. J. Jorgenson has written Acceptable Loss: Point Man Vietnam
(ISBN: 0-8041-0792-0), published in 1991. As part of a Ranger/LRRP team
patrolling the jungles of Vietnam, Jorgenson had seen more combat in four
months than most soldiers see in a decade. His wounds and his Silver Star
guaranteed him safety at the LRRP base camp. Not interested in that, he joined
the Air Cavalry and as part of the Air Cav’s fast reaction team, answered alarms
that would send him scrambling into choppers for nerve-racking flights to
reach surrounded comrades.

Squadron/Signal Publishers have many “In Action Books” richly illustrated with
photos and drawings of aircraft, ships, armored vehicles and weapons used in
Vietnam. In 1982-84 they published Lou Drendel’s 3-volume set in one book,
Air War Over Southeast Asia: A Pictorial Record, 1962-1975—Three
Volumes in One.

The “Men-At-Arms” and “Elite” series published by British publisher Osprey
portray the equipment and uniforms used during the Vietnam War. An anthology
of impressions of Vietnam service by many authors appears in Touring Nam:
The Vietnam War Reader. Originally published in 1985, the book is edited
by Martin Greenberg and Augustus Norton. A reprint paperback edition
(ISBN: 978-0553279177) was published in 1989.

Chopper Pilot Frank Anton took off to fly another routine mission over Vietnam
on January 5, 1968. Shot down and taken captive, he was marched into hell for
a five-year journey. He tells his story (with Tommy Denton) in Why Didn’t You
Get Me Out? A POW’s Nightmare in Vietnam (ISBN: 978-0312974886;
2000 ed.).

In Ronald J. Glasser M.D.’s honored book, 365 Days (1971), the doctor tells
how as a pediatrician, he was sent to Japan to serve the dependent children
in the military population there. He soon realized that the troopers they were
pulling off those med evac choppers in Vietnam were only children themselves.
Of special interest to those interested in the Vietnam Air War, is chapter 13 in
365 Days, “Choppers” (ISBN: 978-0807615270; 2003 Reissue ed.).

Check with your local booksellers (preferably independent bookstores) ,
online booksellers and local libraries for copies of these books.
--Walter Haan, www.war-books.com

Stay out of Wal-Mart this Memorial Day Weekend

2007-05-26T08:32:00.000-04:00

Praise the dead on Memorial Day

The following two paragraphs speak volumes about what we should be remembering on Memorial Day. They are from an essay published for Memorial Day, 2006, by Southfarm Press. The book is Good Night Love, Copyright 2006 by Dudley C. Gould (ISBN: 978-0-913337-56-1).

"I praised the dead I knew personally and as my admiration grew, it dawned on me that the earth is full of soldiers in such numbers as stars in all galaxies; young soldiers gone under the earth to uphold the living, losing their lives that others might prosper unthreatened; quitting life far from home, slipping unknown, unhonored into the deep river of time flowing darkly along.

"The surface of the earth, except where snows lie year-round, is strewn below with the bones of exhausted soldiers savaged and bled. Gettysburg is the mass grave of my great-grandfather’s beloved drummer-boy son, who, as they used to say, died in the Glory of the Lord, and it’s well-known how the Western Front in the first world war turns poppy red each spring from blood of soldiers in the ground—ne funestentur, defiled by death. It did anyway back when people cared. Once there was a day set aside for remembrance, limping veterans selling red paper poppies on Armistice Day. There is no more Armistice Day and poppy vendors hobbled away long ago."

Reconsider how you spend the day before you drive off merrily to a Memorial Day sale at Wal-Mart.---Walter Haan, www.war-books.com

The war against terror on '24'

2007-05-23T11:10:00.000-04:00

Well, the war against terror on '24' is all over until next season in
January. We won't know where Jack Bauer is for months. He could be
on line in front of me at ShopRite, but I probably wouldn't recognize him.
I might get a clue when he tells the bagger to "Just do it!" though.

I think they need to rename this season's shows. They're not worthy of
being called 24. It should be named 23 1/2. What was with the last half
hour? All touchy and feely, nobody knocked off in a surprise burst of
violence. Like in the first season when Jack's wife was killed in the last
minutes with Jack crying over her body.

Learning Chloe is pregnant means we can kiss her goodbye. Nice work,
Morris. Deprive us of one of our favorite characters in a lustful encounter
the day before. You remember, the day before you were busy arming
suitcase nukes.

I suppose Ricky Schroder will be back next year with a white cane and a
seeing-eye dog. Not!

And why did Milo's brother leave before Nadia got a chance to return to
the room where he was cleaning out Milo's locker? Was it just too painful?
Andpoor Nadia. Both men that expressed an interest in her had bad things
happen to them. Dead. Blind (not the same person or in the same order).

Bill Buchanan and his wife Karen are forced to retire. Doesn't matter that
they both had more light bulbs lit in their heads than the Vice President.
He was stupid enough to think that a hot blond with a great body was really
interestedin him. That would be like if Vice President Cheney thought Paris
Hilton wanted to get in his pants. Actually, not a bad idea. Have voluptuous
blondes get Cheney in the sack on a regular basis. How long do you think
his ticker would last? Then Congress could impeach the Shrub.

Josh Bauer had an interesting day. Lost his father, shot his grandfather,
then watched his grandfather turned into ashes courtesy of the Air Force.
And now Uncle Jack has disappeared. Too bad this didn't all happen for Josh
during the summer to write up when high school reopens in September and
he has to write about what he did over the summer. Now he'll just have to
write about his Burger King job and how he watched burgers being flame
broiled instead of his grandfather.

Poor Marilyn. She probably won't have a period for months.

When will Bill Buchanan get his computers back? Will the porn he
downloaded when Karen was away in Washington still be in the machines?
More likely to have been transferred to the VP's laptop by a suckup
secret service guy.

And the poor ex Secretary of Defense. His daughter Audrey is a vegetable.
The actress played her part well; her eyes didn't move at all and I was
watching closely. Caring for his daughter is going to eat into his time on the
links.

Do you think Jack still likes Chinese food?

President Wayne Palmer, just a shadow of his brother the dead president
who's come back to life and got a good gig now. Instead of working for 50
states, he's pushing Allstate. Wayne probably has it best. He's in bed,
recuperating and he didn't have to make any of the tough decisions. His
sister is wringing her hands bedside and thinking, "Why the hell did I listen
to  Karen?" If I were him, I'd stay there and just keep collecting the
$400,000 annual salary.

It's a long time until January and the next season. Guess I'm going to have
to pay attention to the Shrub's efforts to whittle down mideast terrorists.
And we all know how that's going.

Just heard on the news while writing this that Bin Laden ordered Iraq to be
used as a base for terrorism in 2005! Not 2001. The Shrub is such a liar.
There was a lot of deception on 24, part of the story. I guess the scriptwriters
used reality as their inspiration--Walter Haan, www.war-books.com

A free anti-war bumper sticker from a military history publisher?

2007-05-10T06:39:00.000-04:00

"Why would a publisher of military history and memoirs offer a free anti-war bumper sticker?"

What's up with that? Last month we did exactly that and I'm sure a lot of you asked that question. Our Web Site www.war-books.com is dedicated to the well-being of the members of our Armed Forces. We're in our 25th year of publishing military history and memoirs.

I personally have read hundreds of manuscripts by veterans about their experiences. It can be overpowering. Like the manuscript by a young man from Puerto Rico. He gets off the plane in Vietnam and is immediately ordered to go behind a building at the airport. There he finds other soldiers lined up facing a tall hedge. Ordered to join the line, he is then ordered with the rest of the men in the line to fire at the hedge until ordered to stop.

Realizing that there must be Vietnamese on the other side of the hedge, his introduction to Vietnam is the beginning of nightmares for the rest of his life.

Then there is the manuscript I read about two Coast Guard Cutters during World War II. A German submarine torpedos an oil tanker off the coast of North Carolina in a storm. The oiler doesn't sink and the sub hangs around to torpedo the rescuers it knows the oiler called. The two little Cutters are sent out but this is in the days without sophisticated weather information being available. A hurricane is bearing down on the oiler and sub in wait.

The two 20+ year old Cutters, manned by 18 to 21 year olds (the captains were 21), sink in the storm, overturned by the hurricane. All hands lost on both Cutters. The oiler then manages to reach a port on its own.

What I'm trying to say is that we lose a lot of young men and women in war, both psychologically and physically. They are the cream of our youth, our future. The last thing we want to do is to launch needless attacks that we can't win but result in more losses amongst the best of our youth.

That is why www.war-books.com is offering a free bumper sticker in support of stopping our involvement in Iraq.

President Bush evidently never read Horace (65-8 BC): "Force without wisdom falls of its own weight." We are in a freefall in Iraq.--Walter Haan, www.war-books.com

Free Bumper Sticker

2007-04-20T15:49:00.000-04:00

I'm offering a free bumper sticker to the first 100 people who request one. It looks like this and you can easily read what it says. If you're like me, you're tired of the killing and maiming of American servicemen and women in Iraq because of the lies of President Bush and Vice President Cheney and their henchmen. Not to mention the killing and maiming of hundreds of thousands of civilian Iraqis. Show how you feel. Slap one of these babies on your vehicle so the whole country knows where you stand.

The bumper sticker AND the media mail shipping are both free, courtesy of www.war-books.com and Southfarm Press, Publisher of Middletown, Connecticut. We purchased 100 of them from MoveOn.org. The bumper stickers are 8 1/2" x 3 1/2". Not only that, we are also including a free hardcover copy of a www.war-books.com book, Follow Me Up Fools Mountain by Dudley C. Gould (ISBN: 978-0-913337-47-9). Published in 2002, and a 2003 Military Book Club Alternate Selection, Gould writes what it's like to be a part of war as a ground pounder. Gould's war was the Korean War. But his experiences are the same as in any modern war.

As it says on the back of the book, grunts or dogfaces or ground pounders in any military action are the guys who walk, run, sprint, crouch and crawl to take ground from the enemy and then hold it. Tank crews ride to their death, but grunts, dogfaces and ground pounders trudge along to their death or to face death the next day. Or the next.

Be among the first 100 Americans who email us and ask for the free bumper sticker and book. read what war is really like and slap the bumper sticker on your car to show you've had enough.

Email southfar@ix.netcom.com. Type in "Free Bumper Sticker" in the Subject area. In the text portion of the email, give us your name, street address, city, state and zip code. Two things then will happen:

1. We will reply to the email to be certain you are the person who actually asked for the bumper sticker and book and that the address is correct.

2. We will then ship the free bumper sticker and book to you by Media Mail. Depending on where you live, it will take one to two weeks for the bumper sticker and book to arrive in your mailbox.

Small Print (in a size you can read): www.war-books.com and Southfarm Press, Publisher, will never sell or give your email address and snail mail address to any other person or organization. No one, including MoveOn.org. This offer is only open to residents of the United States. One bumper sticker and one book only to the first 100 who ask for them.

Reply soon because only the authors of the first 100 emails received will receive the free bumper sticker and free book.--Walter Haan, www.war-books.com

I'm back!

2007-03-23T14:43:00.000-04:00

I'm sorry that there has been a big gap between this post and my last in early February. If you have been reading this blog regularly, you know that I am one of a very small group of people in this country: someone who has served in the US Army AND the American Peace Corps. I was one of the first Peace Corps Volunteers. I served in India in 1962-1964 and was in the US Army in 1965-1966.

With my family, I went back to India for the first time in 43 years to visit where I had served as a Peace Corps Volunteer: Allahabad, Uttar Pradesh. We were in India from February 16th to March 3rd. To everyones' surprise, I was remembered in Allahabad at the printing college I taught at 43 years ago. I met with two of my teaching colleagues from the sixties and three of my former students from that time. One of them took my job at the college after I left.

The changes in India are huge and what has not changed is just as huge. What hasn't changed is the friendliness of the Indian people and their generosity. Indians came up to us wherever we went and asked what country we were from. When we replied U.S.A., they'd always say: "USA, good country!"

We actually ran across only one or two Americans the whole two weeks. Most tourists we saw were European.

I'll have further reports about this trip if Google allows it. Google is encouraging bloggers like me to sign up for their new blogger system. Results of this campaign have been frequent denials to me to post comments on my old system blog and at the same time, when I attempt to sign up for the new system, denial to complete that. Go figure.--Walter Haan, www.war-books.com

A history book for Black History and Women's History months

2007-02-02T23:36:00.000-05:00

For Black History and Women's History Months, Book Highlights Black's and Women's Importance on American Revolutionary War Battlefields

As we celebrate Black History Month in February and Women's History Month in March, remember that early American historians rarely mentioned the achievements of Blacks and women. For example, while reading about the American Revolutionary War as reported by 18th century New England historians, you won't find many references to Black soldiers or noteworthy women on its battlefields, according to Walter J. Haan, book publisher at Southfarm Press in Middletown, Connecticut.

Haan points out that the pages of the new trade paperback book, Blacks, Indians & Women in America's War for Independence (ISBN: 978-0-913337-57-8) by Dudley C. Gould tell a different story. "This inexpensive, 64 page book at $9.95 does a lot to redress the record of Blacks and women on our Revolutionary War battlefields. And the book makes a great supplementary text for high school, junior college and college American history courses," Haan adds. The book is available from most bookstores and on the Internet at www.war-books.com/BlacksIndiansWomen.htm.

Regarding Blacks, the book points out that from the moment on April 20, 1775, when the call for civilians to volunteer to become soldiers went out, Black men showed up. Some were slaves with written permission from their owners. Massachusetts allowed free Negroes to serve in the American camp at Cambridge and they were very involved in the battle on Breed's (Bunker) Hill in June 1775.

One man, Salem Poor, "behaved like an experienced officer as well as an excellent soldier," according to Colonel William Prescott, as quoted in Gould's book. Prescott added that Blacks "... were obedient soldiers, of a less mutinous spirit than some of their white brothers."

Blacks continued to serve in the Continental Army despite legislative efforts of Southern representatives to exclude them. Black soldiers met with approval in most states. Their gallant record at Breed's Hill was spread widely by word of mouth. Rhode Island, the first state to offer religious freedom to all, bought up slaves who volunteered to fight for everyone's liberty and enrolled them as soldiers, many going to the all Black regiment of Colonel Christopher Greene. Records of Washington's immediate command, the Main Army, showed that several brigades each had an average of 54 blacks. One German officer noted in 1777 --

"One sees no regiment in which there are not Negroes in abundance, and among them are able-bodied, sturdy fellows."

An estimated 8,000 Blacks, free and enslaved, fought in the rebel infantry during the eight years of war against the British, which, considering their background of misery, is remarkable, according to author Gould. On just one day, August 24, 1778, 755 blacks were recorded on active duty, not counting many hundred hangers-on and laborers not enlisted. This is a fact seldom mentioned by white historians before the mid-1960s and the advent of national civil rights, Gould adds in his book.

Those Blacks were, however, recognized by most foreign observers at the time. A French officer wrote in July 1781 from the rebel camp at White Plains, New York --

"I had a chance to see the American Army, man for man.…A quarter of them are Negroes, merry, confident and sturdy. It is incredible that soldiers composed of men of every age, even children of fifteen, of whites and blacks, unpaid and rather poorly fed, can march so fast and withstand fire so steadfastedly."

Returning for a visit to America in 1824, Marquis de Lafayette was struck by the increase in racial prejudice in the United States. He recalled the days when Black and White soldiers ate together, fraternized, marched, died side-by-side and were then rolled naked together into mass graves. He was upset by the fact that in 1824, Whites were rarely seen with Blacks unless the Blacks were slaves.

Regarding women's participation on our Revolutionary War battlefields, women, just as they are doing today in Iraq and Afghanistan, died beside or in support of male soldiers in the Revolutionary War. But until recent times, they were seldom given their due, according to Haan.

Women performed a number of dangerous duties during our War of Independence. At the furious, no-quarter battle of Saratoga, the wife of a British soldier made repeated trips for water for the wounded. Several soldiers had been killed at the zeroed-in spring, and though American riflemen withheld fire on her first trip, there was no guarantee all would continue to do so. After it was over, grateful soldiers "threw whole handfuls of coins into this brave woman's lap."

Molly Pitcher Hays was Sergeant Molly to the admiring soldiers whom she inspired in the heat of combat. Her sergeant's warrant was signed by none other than General George Washington.

Popular though she was with the men beside whom she fought, the battlefield deed she performed, carrying water in a pitcher repeatedly to cool over-heated cannon barrels at Monmouth, New Jersey, went unrecognized by Congress. Not until 1822, at age 68, did Mrs. Pitcher Hays receive the first payment of a $40-a-year pension voted by Pennsylvania many years earlier.

Another Molly was just as famous, according to author Gould. Those who survived the furious battle at Fort Washington along the Hudson River praised the accomplishments of war volunteer Margaret "Molly" Corbin. Molly was no stranger to combat, having survived an Indian raid on the Pennsylvania frontier in which she lost her mother, father and brothers.

She followed her husband, a cannon gunner's assistant in the 1st Company of Pennsylvania artillery, to New York. When he was killed in heavy fire, she took up his rammer staff and went on sponging and ramming until she was badly wounded.

Hessians found her nearly dead, abandoned on the battlefield beside her cannon. A fixture at the Invalid Corps at West Point for many years, Captain Molly, as young cadets called her respectfully (and behind her back, Dirty Kate because she wore her husband's tattered old artillery coat), would good-naturedly return the salutes of untested boys. In 1799, Congress granted her a pension equal to half her husband's pay and a new suit of clothes every year.

That was a promise Congress never kept. Molly lies with other heroes in the soldier's cemetery at the West Point Military Academy.

Prior to 1788, no medical examination was given to military recruits, which made it much easier for disguised women to join the ranks of soldiers

Blacks, Indians & Women in America's War for Independence by Dudley C. Gould is available from most bookstores and can be ordered on the Internet at www.war-books.com/BlacksIndiansWomen.htm.

Gould's other Revolutionary War books are Times of Brother Jonathan, ISBN: 978-0-913337-40-0 (2001), Benedict Arnold, ISBN: 978-0-913337-61-5 (2006) and soon to be published, Forgotten Army: The Abandonment of American Revolutionary War Soldiers, ISBN: 978-0-913337-64-6 (2007). Information about the books is available at www.war-books.com.--Walter Haan

It's no fun being left behind.

2007-01-30T09:09:00.000-05:00

My wife, Wanda Haan, died four years ago today. She was 59 when she had the sudden heart attack that killed her on January 30, 2003 at 6:00 pm. We were talking when it happened but she was gone before I could reach her. She was executive editor of Southfarm Press and edited most of the books we published from 1996 to 2002.

She was complimented by author Daniel Ford when he reviewed our 1998 title, Janey: A Little Plane in a Big War by Alfred W. Schultz for Amazon.com. Ford is the author of Incident at Muc Wa which is the basis for the Burt Lancaster film, Go Tell the Spartans. Ford said this in his review of Janey:

“'Dawn's first light crested the eastern hills and gave the earth a rosy glow. Flying on such a day was pure joy. Smooth, dense, misty morning air slowly released its grip as light emerged from the countryside, fulfilling the promise of another day. Our fears vanished as we soared above the sleeping ground. We were immortal. From our perch above the commotion, we watched the world come to life to begin another day of killing.'

“Normally I'm turned off by the High Literary Style, but the way that passage ends with the knife-twist—‘another day of killing’--redeems it with room to spare. Time and again in Schultz's book, he and his collaborator pull off that neat trick: loving memories entangled with the ordinariness of war.”

Wanda was the editor of the book and she had added those words, ‘…another day of killing.’

Wanda also wrote children’s poetry and we published a children’s picture book of 19 of her poems after she died. The book is titled The Macaroon Moon: A Book of Poems and Rhymes for Children (ISBN: 0-913337-51-X). The book’s Web Site is http://www.wandahaan.com.

Here is one of her poems for children that is not in The Macaroon Moon but is also about flying:

Did I just then see the Sun blink?
No. A big old crow blacker than ink
Flew past the Sun to take a drink
From the big blue pond,
Which is nature’s sink.

It's no fun being left behind. ---Walter Haan, www.war-books.com

NOTE: Heart disease is the number one killer of women, eight times more deadly than breast cancer. Thousands of women like Wanda die every year without any warning and without any history of heart disease.

John Lennon about Christmas

2006-12-25T10:04:00.000-05:00

And so this is Christmas,
And what have you done?
Another year over,
A new one just begun.- John Lennon

For 2007, I vow to get more involved, to fight for justice for our troops. After all, they are the ones out there exposed to and threatened by the actions of Bush and Cheney. They are the ones who have sent me manuscripts. I owe them back. --Walter Haan, www.war-books.com

This National Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day, We are the Japanese

2006-12-07T13:16:00.000-05:00

We have shown complete disregard for the Iraqis. When they were overjoyed at the fall of Saddam Hussein, the American occupiers accepted their gratitude but exhibited complete disregard for their needs, their allegiance or the potential threats to them. We threw Iraqis out of work, allowed them to use weapons on each other in sectarian violence and deprived them of necessities.

This is what the Japanese did during World War II in places like the Netherlands East Indies. It invaded and overthrew territory of a western colonial power and the Indonesians at first felt liberated. Then reality set in. If an Indonesian looked a Japanese soldier in the eye on the street, he was beaten. All Indonesians were required to look down when approaching the Japanese as a sign of servitude. Millions of them were rounded up and transported against their will on Hell Ships to places like Thailand to be coolies for Japanese construction projects like the River Kwai Railway bridge project. The death rate was terrible, both on the Hell Ships and on the job for the Japanese. Oh, and the Japanese said they did all of this to liberate Indonesia.

I saw a figure this morning that 650,000 Iraqis have died because of our invasion, occupation and our liberation of them from Saddam Hussein.

On this National Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day, it is recommended that we fly our flags at half-staff. I suggest that this should not only be for the over 3,000 casualties inflicted 61 years ago in Hawaii BUT ALSO for the casualties we have caused in Iraq since 2003.

Tojo said that the western colonial powers "surrounded" them and needed to be eliminated. That led to Pearl Harbor. How Japan could be "surrounded" by western colonies that were all located south of Japan is interesting. Bush said we needed to eliminate Saddam Hussein because he had weapons of mass destruction. That wasn't true either. In both cases, securing resources, such as oil, was behind the invasions. Bush is our Tojo. --Walter Haan, www.war-books.com

Iraq Study Group Report Took Nine Months to Compile???

2006-12-06T10:42:00.000-05:00

A few excerpts from portions of the Iraq Study Group report, which was being released today, follow.

My question is this: IT TOOK NINE MONTHS TO WRITE THIS REPORT??????? I could have written it overnight nine months ago.

''The situation in Iraq is grave and deteriorating. There is no path that can guarantee success, but the prospects can be improved.'' Duh!

''Our most important recommendations call for new and enhanced diplomatic and political efforts in Iraq and the region, and a change in the primary mission of U.S. forces in Iraq that will enable the United States to begin to move its combat forces out of Iraq responsibly. We believe that these two recommendations are equally important and reinforce one another. If they are effectively implemented, and if the Iraqi government moves forward with national reconciliation, Iraqis will have an opportunity for a better future, terrorism will be dealt a blow, stability will be enhanced in an important part of the world, and America's credibility, interests and values will be protected.'' Really?????

''If the situation continues to deteriorate, the consequences could be severe. A slide toward chaos could trigger the collapse of Iraq's government and a humanitarian catastrophe. Neighboring countries could intervene. Sunni-Shia clashes could spread. Al-Qaida could win a propaganda victory and expand its base of operations. The global standing of the United States could be diminished. Americans could become more polarized.'' This isn't rocket science.

''During the past nine months we have considered a full range of approaches for moving forward. All have flaws. Our recommended course has shortcomings, but we firmly believe that it includes the best strategies and tactics to positively influence the outcome in Iraq and the region.'' NINE MONTHS, NINE MONTHS WASTED, WHILE AMERICAN LIVES WERE WASTED!!!!

And Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld are still not being held accountable.

This all reminds me of something I read about 17th Century Dutch history in the East Indies. Native sultans didn't always honor trading agreements with the Dutch, causing friction. The Dutch, eventually under their top leader in the Indies, Coen, attacked those sultanates that were being dishonest in their dealings, causing casualties among the natives. Coen was called back to Amsterdam to explain his violence and scolded for his launching of attacks. The directors of the Dutch East India Company told him he wasn't sent there to do that.

The difference here is that Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld sent our forces to Iraq to exactly do that: attack and occupy. And unlike in Coen's case, there is no one with the balls to scold or impeach them for their illegal actions and for overextending US forces. --Walter Haan, www.war-books.com

"Who won?"

2006-12-05T14:50:00.000-05:00

News Report from this morning:
"ABOARD THE USS INTREPID IN THE HUDSON RIVER, Dec. 5 —
The USS Intrepid is no longer stuck in the mud.This morning, one month after the first attempt failed, a team of tugboats yanked the old, gray World War II aircraft carrier from its berth in the Hudson River on the West Side of Manhattan, where it has served as a military museum for 24 years."

The reasons for moving the Intrepid were that its dock needed to be rebuilt and the ship itself needed to be drydocked to clean and paint its bottom. I remember my last visit to the Intrepid with my family some years ago. On board there was an elderly Navy man, in uniform, acting as a guide and resource for the many visitors. We struck up a conversation with him and he commented on the number of children and teenagers that visited the museum. He said they simply had no knowledge of World War II and he was sorry that history classes in the nation's schools were failing their students so badly.

One group of students had asked him who he was and why he was there. After he explained his and the ship's involvement in fighting the Japanese during World War II, one of the students asked, "Who won?"

Today is also the day that Robert Gates is being grilled by a Senate panel in preparation to becoming our new Secretary of Defense. Gates has already admitted this morning that the US went to war in Iraq without a large enough Army. That grave error by outgoing Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld results in all of us asking that same question: Because of that blunder, "Who won?"

It certainly wasn't the almost 3,000 Armed Force's casualties we have suffered in Iraq. But the defense contractor Haliburton could certainly be considered a winner. I noticed in our Web Site statistics that someone at Haliburton has been looking at www.war-books.com. I don't know why, but I find that frightening.

Education is the key. Today's kids in school need to know about World War II. Today's adults need more information about why American Presidents think the US should go to war before he commits our troops and sets up his propaganda campaign to mislead us. --Walter Haan, www.war-books.com

Buy a book, send a free book to a serviceman or woman for the holidays

2006-11-27T11:52:00.000-05:00

Announcing the Victory Corps Book Program:
Buy One Book, Get Another Sent Free to a Soldier, Marine, Sailor, Coast Guardsman or Airman

This holiday season, www.war-books.com is offering to send a free book to a soldier, marine, sailor or airman because you bought a book on its Web Site. It’s a simple offer. We’ll send you the book you ordered and then send the same book to a serviceman or woman for free. All the buyer has to do is supply the name and address of the serviceman or woman and www.war-books.com will send the same book you ordered to him or her. You pay for your book and its shipping charge. The Web Site pays for shipping the free book to the service member of your choice. If you don’t know anyone in the active military, we’ll select someone in the armed forces for you and ship that book to him or her in your name.

This special offer is open to buyers from the United States. As a buyer, all you have to do is complete your purchase using PayPal by Midnight on December 21st.

The Victory Corps Book Program is named after the Victory Corps that the US Government ran for high school students during World War II. The Web Site www.war-books.com wants to reward those patriotic American men and women who are serving their country this holiday season.

So help us spread some cheer to those who are serving the rest of us in our attempt to spread justice and security in places like Iraq, Afghanistan, Korea and Europe. Order a Southfarm Press book from www.war-books.com today. Use PayPal to pay, list the name and address of the soldier you want the free book sent to on the comments section of the PayPal order form, and we’ll do our best to get your book and the soldier’s book to them by December 25th. Or tell us to pick a serviceman or woman for you. We’ll let you know to whom the book was sent.

Each free book will include a gift card with your name shown as the thoughtful person giving the book.

Associate Justice Hugo Black said long ago, “Here’s hope, strength and love to those who give hope, strength and love.” That’s our people who are serving in our Armed Forces right now. Here are some suggestions of gift books on www.war-books.com for our men and women in the Armed Forces:

Airmen and women might appreciate receiving Janey: A Little Plane in a Big War, Flying Low or The Grasshopper That Roared. Today, automatic drones fly over battlefields to observe the action and direct fire. These three books recount the experiences of real men in Piper Cubs over the battlefields of Germany, Italy, France, Belgium, and in the book The Grasshopper That Roared, New Guinea and the Philippines. For George Patton fans, Janey: A Little Plane in a Big War has accounts that military readers shouldn’t miss.

Ground pounders might like to read Dudley C. Gould’s Follow Me Up Fools Mountain or Good Night Love. The Military Book Club praised Fools Mountain: “Written by a rifle-platoon leader…[this is] a brand of combat memoir we’re rarely treated to. Relatively little is written with as much realism and verve.” Good Night Love is a perceptive look into front line combat that will automatically promote the cause of peace in Korea, Iraq, Afghanistan and around the world .

Navy men or women might like to read about the sinking of the USS St. Lo (CVE-63) as recounted by a Piper Cub pilot while he was on the deck of the USS Fanshaw Bay (CVE-70). That’s in The Grasshopper That Roared. Or Frank Bogart’s account of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7th in Till War Do Us Part. Frank wasn’t on a battleship on Battleship Row. He was an ensign forced to take command of the USS Gamble, an old four-stack destroyer minelayer after his ship’s captain had a mental breakdown while enemy bombs and fighters swooped around his little ship as it attempted to shield the battleships.

Our three facts quiz books will test yours and a serviceman’s knowledge of World War II or Vietnam. Inexpensive books, Vietnam War Facts Quiz, World War II Facts Quiz Europe and World War II Facts Quiz The Pacific are all ball breakers.

Know someone in the military that is an Abraham Lincoln fan? Abe Lincoln and the Frontier Folk of New Salem recounts how Lincoln developed character as a young man that he drew upon during The Civil War.

For that woman in the service that you know, order In the Hands of My Enemy. She’ll read about one of Norway’s heroes during World War II, Sigrid Heide. Heide was a courier in the Norwegian underground captured by the Nazis that refused to break under intense torture and isolation. Her torture included a device that separated Heide’s kneecap from the bones around it. She was crippled for life. Publishers Weekly called this book “Searing.”

So order a book for yourself today on www.war-books.com. In doing so, you’ll be sending a holiday gift to one of our Armed Forces' heroes. Thank you.--Walter Haan, www.war-books.com

Veterans: economic victims because of their service

2006-11-26T23:38:00.000-05:00

The very best way to rebuild the links between the battlefront and the homefront requires reinstating the draft. Ever since the Vietnam War era, those with less opportunities have served as our Army enlisted personnel, with barely a college guy in sight. In my Signal Corps company in 1965-66, there was only one college graduate out of 150 enlisted men. Me. Since the repeal of the draft, the situation has gotten worse, with military and economic systems that literally force poorer young people to join the regular forces and the National Guard.

The Angrist-Krueger analysis of World War II veterans suggests that they earned five percent less over the decades after their service than those who did not serve. Joshua Angrist’s study of the Vietnam experience calculates that military service during the Vietnam War reduced average overall earnings for white males by 15 percent. Skills acquired in the military do not make up for lost civilian work experience.

Today, our poorer youth are still penalized for Army service while the sons and daughters of the political and commercial elite avoid risk from actions their fathers supported, such as in Iraq. I am a former Peace Corps Volunteer and Army Sergeant and have published military history and memoirs for 23 years, having read hundreds of manuscripts by veterans. Those experiences have taught me it is arrogance on our part to maintain a two tier system where the disadvantaged that do serve are economically punished for the rest of their lives. --Walter Haan, www.war-books.com

S.L.O.W.: Senator Lieberman on War

2006-11-14T15:48:00.000-05:00

S.L.O.W.: Senator Lieberman on War
A new special, continuing feature from War Books, News and Opinions

As a resident of Connecticut, I've had out-of-staters ask me repeatedly about how Senator Joseph Lieberman could be re-elected our senator. After all, Connecticut residents are among the best educated in the nation. How could Connecticut voters back Lieberman with his abysmal support of President Bush, Vice President Cheney and the Iraqi War and Occupation? How could he be re-elected by a majority of Connecticut voters?

Let's set that record straight. He was not re-elected by a majority of Connecticut voters. The majority voted against him by voting for the four other candidates for senate. It's a small, tiny majority, I admit. But it means that there are more of us out there in the Nutmeg State who were against his re-election than for it. Thank God!

That means he is not empowered by the majority of Connecticut voters to do anything he wants. Like he thinks he can do. On Meet the Press on Sunday, November 13, 2006, he said he has told the Secretary of State's office in Hartford that he is an "Independent Democrat." And that it was possible he would support Republican positions and maybe the Republican party. Hell, he's been doing that for years.

So when SLOW Joe takes positions on war, this blog is going to highlight them and compare them with his past positions. If you're into hypocrisy, this should be a favorite part of this blog for you.

I call him SLOW Joe because he doesn't seem to understand that his support for the Bush-Cheney War in Iraq is partially responsible for American military deaths and casualties in that war. As an advocate of our fighting men and women, I think his past and future positions on war need to be studied, exposed and compared. Stay tuned for some interesting stuff from SLOW Joe. --Walter Haan, www.war-books.com

That 70s Show and Veterans Day

2006-11-11T07:46:00.000-05:00

That 70s Show, the Fox TV Network sitcom now in reruns, has a Veterans Day show. In that episode, Red is celebrating Veterans Day with his annual Veterans Day Picnic/Barbacue/Party. Suddenly, Red learns that Bob, his next door neighbor, Donna's father, is holding his own Veterans Day Party and Red sees red.

Why? Red is mad because Bob wasn't in the regular Army, he was just in the National Guard. Thus, in Red's eyes, Bob is not a real veteran.

Well, that was in the sixties and seventies. In those decades, the National Guard and Reserves were hiding places for men avoiding the draft and full time service. President George W. Bush is the poster boy for the guys who did that.

But in the 21st Century that has changed. National Guardsmen and Reservists have found themselves "drafted" in large numbers to fill in the gaps within our armed forces in Iraq. These men and women have had their lives interrupted for 12 to 18 months and have taken casualties. And there are reports that they are somehow not eligible for all the benefits their Regular Army brothers are entitled to even though they served in Iraq. That needs to be fixed.

I'm sure Red would agree with me that times have changed. Guardsmen and Reservists who have served overseas this decade are true veterans. This Veterans Day, let's not forget these reservists who have given so much to all of us with their sacrifices. I mourn the losses within their ranks this Veterans Day. We all should. --Walter Haan, www.war-books.com