Michael McCormick, Vietnam and Me

My work is mostly about the Vietnam war. My novella, Across The Pond by Michael McCormick, deals with the trials and tribulations encountered by Vietnam veterans, both during and after the Vietnam war. The United States sent it’s young men into battle in Southeast Asia, used them once and then threw them away. 

The war itself was particularly brutal, especially during the Tet Offensive of 1968, in Hue and along the DMZ, in the northern part of South Vietnam. More bombs were dropped on Vietnam during the war than were dropped in all of World War II. It is estimated that between one and three million Vietnamese died. Fifty thousand young American’s died. 

After all this carnage, when the Vietnam veterans returned home, they were treated very badly. The U.S. Government, the American people and the very society that sent them to war in the first place scape-goated the veterans. They were blamed for the whole mess, cast out, ridiculed, called suckers and rejected. This is me during the war, second from left.

 

 

Across The Pond by Michael McCormick is the story of a young American who fights for his country during the war in Vietnam, only to be rejected when he returns home. The author based the story on his personal experience as an infantry squad leader who served in combat. Ron Kovic, author of Born On The Fourth of July writes in the foreword, "This little book with it's deeply compelling narrative grips the reader from the very beginning and does not let go. It is written with the violence and fury of Leon Uris's Battle Cry, and the tenderness and compassion of a simple poet. I believe it will be recognized as one of the important books to come out of the Vietnam war."

Michael McCormick is the author of Across The Pond. He enlisted in the United States Marine Corps just out of high school at the age of 17. Soon after, he found himself in battle in the jungles and rice paddies of Vietnam. He was nearly killed on several occasions, but managed to survive and return home at age 19. After the war, Michael earned his B.A. in psychology and his M.A. in clinical psychology. He lives in Oakland, California with his wife Gina. You can contact him at: mikemccormick49@ymail.com.

Goodreads | Amazon | Twitter  

QUOTES

“I think war is a crime, if you don’t believe me, ask the infantry, ask the dead.”  

“With this work, McCormick takes his place among the other important chroniclers of this period.”

“Sean McBride had survived his war in Vietnam. At the age of nineteen, he was about to be decorated with the Silver Star Medal, the third highest military award for gallantry in action.”

“His experience in war had shaped his thinking in unique ways. He knew he was different from other men." 

 

 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

The Influence of Setting on Story; Budapest and Lake Balaton

 by Blair McDowell

Because of my long love affair with Hungary I chose to set the climax of my novel of romantic suspense, Romantic Road, there.
Lacy Telchev, a young widow on a mission to fulfill her late husband’s last wish, finds herself relentlessly pursued across Europe, to end finally at the shores of Europe’s largest inland fresh water lake, Balaton.

First I show her in the Budapest of today, a lively vibrant culture, seemingly affluent. But I wanted echoes of the past in my story, so I put words I once heard from an elderly peasant woman in the Matra Mountains, into the mouth of one of my central characters, a middle-aged doctor who remembers well the days under the Soviets and who comments pithily as to what she sees as the good and the bad of the two forms of government, Socialism and Democracy (Free-Market Economy).

One of the great things about being a writer is that we may explore both sides of issues through conflicting viewpoints of our different characters. I had Dr. Zsuzsa Szilard express a point of view that I have heard voiced by Hungarians today. They say the beautiful eighteenth and nineteenth century houses of Budapest are almost all now restored to their former splendor, but the average Hungarian can no longer afford to live in them. They have all been bought and restored by foreigners. They are lived in or rented out to foreigners. Hungarians now all have access to passports, but few can afford to travel. The city is inundated with people from poorer Eastern European counties, people seeking a better life, only to swell the already large ranks of the Hungarian unemployed. The black joke of today is “Under the Communists everybody had a job and nobody worked. Today, we’ve progressed to nobody has a job.”

Hungarian friends tell me that on the heels of the free-market economy has come massive organized crime. Whatever problems the socialist state produced, crime was not one of them. The Budapest of forty years ago was one of the safest and most crime-free cities in the world. Today, cars are stolen off the streets to be “ransomed” back to their owners. A quick way to turn a tidy profit without risk to the thieves. Free market indeed!

Still, the cafes ring with the music of the gypsies as they have for the last hundred years or more, the shops offer every product the world can produce, and people seem to be willing and able to buy them. The streets are clogged with cars, the theaters and concert halls are filled to capacity every night. Budapest is once again a sought-after destination for travelers. A rich environment for those fortunate enough to call it home.

Lake Balaton is only a short drive south of Budapest, but it is a drive into another world. The largest freshwater lake in Europe, it is good for swimming and water sports from May through September, and it lies picturesquely amid high hills covered with vines that produce some of the best wines in Europe.

 

Many vineyards are owned by private families, who raise just enough grapes to provide wine for family and friends and perhaps to sell to local restaurants. It is with such a vintner and in such a vineyard that I set the explosive climax of Romantic Road.

I was a student in Hungary some forty years ago. I see it both as it was and as it is now. A vibrant people who are survivors. They survived the Turks, they survived the Austro-Hungarian Empire, they survived the Nazis, they survived the Soviet occupation, and I have no doubt they will survive democracy. 

a Rafflecopter giveaway



When Lacy Telchev buries her husband she finds herself in treacherous waters. Igor, much older than Lacy, had secrets. Suddenly Lacy is being chased across Europe by men who believe she can lead them to those secrets. Evading her pursuers with the aid of a chance acquaintance, the handsome and mysterious Max Petersen, Lacy travels across Germany, Austria and Hungary, to a shattering discovery in Budapest.
Along the way, she meets three women from Igor’s past. As Igor’s story unfolds through them, Lacy is less and less certain who her husband really was. Who can Lacy trust? Will she survive to find out?

ROMANIAN SPRING TADITIONS by Carmen Stefanescu

Old Women’s Days

 

Romanians have a lot of customs and traditions linked to spring, especially to the month of March. Beside the lovely Martisor tradition, on 1st March, there’s also an interesting one linked to the first nine days of this month. It dates back to ancient times and I think it’s unique.

Our ancestors were aware that the first days of March are too cold, or too warm. Typical spring weather. They called these first nine days of changing weather - Old Women’s Days.

From 1st to 9th March people have to choose one day, or better said an old woman, which will reveal their true nature. If the weather is nice on that day, the person is a kind-hearted one. If the weather is rainy, cold it means the person is unkind and peevish.

Old Women’s Days finish on 9th March when the weather already gets milder and sunnier.

Where does this belief come from?  The ethnographers say that the myth is one of the most important myths in Romania, that of Dochia.

If we take into consideration that the old Roman calendar started on 1st March, then old lady Dochia is the embodiment of the old year that is ending and must die at the beginning of March. Dochia’s death on 9th March is considered a border between the cold and the warm season.

There are numerous legends regarding old lady Dochia. One of them claims Dochia is an old woman who daily scourges her young daughter-in-law. Once, on 1st March, Dochia sends her to wash black wool until it gets white. The daughter-in-law goes to the river and washes the wool until her fingers start bleeding but the wool stays black. An angel takes pity on the poor young woman. The angel gives her a white flower and tells her to touch the black wool with it and the wool will turn white. Seeing her daughter-in-law with the flower in her hand, Dochia thinks spring has come and goes up the mountain with the sheep.

She puts on nine thick sheepskins to keep her warm. But while climbing the mountain the weather gets either too warm, or too cold, it rains and her sheepskins turn wet and heavy. Dochia takes them off, one by one, until she is dressed only with her shirt. Frost comes and Dochia freezes, being turned into stone, together with her sheep, as remembrance for what happens to mean people.

So, the days between 1st and 9th March represent the time when Dochia fulfills her destiny, climbing the mountain, together with her sheep, to die for rebirth. The instability of weather during this time is due to her freakish character.

We still keep the tradition in my family. Sometimes it’s funny how my husband tries to check the weather forecast ahead to be able to pick a sunnier day. Sometimes it fits, other times it doesn’t. We have a lot of fun on this topic.

Another thing I should mention in connection with the day of 9^th March, when Dochia dies. On this day women bake a sort of small cakes having the shape of number 8. They are called mucenici/martyrs. It’s dough and sprinkled with grind nuts and honey on top. They represent the spirit of wheat brought as sacrifice to a solar deity. I think this meaning was lost along the time and is considered more as a remembrance of the dead people in one’s family.

Another more exotic custom on 9^th March, especially in the countryside, says that men should drink 40 or 44 glasses of wine. This is a reminiscent of the ancient Bacchic celebrations. This too, has lost the ancient meaning. I wonder if men have any idea where the custom originated. One thing is clear - they have an excuse to drink.

 

Find Carmen Stefanescu online at

goodreads.com ~ author

shadowspastmystery.blogspot.ro

@Carmen_Books

bookblogs~ CarmenStefanescu

     www.wildchildpublishing.com 

Carmen Stefanescu was born in Romania, the native country of the infamous vampire Count Dracula, but where, for about 50 years of communist dictatorship, just speaking about God, faith, reincarnation or paranormal phenomena could have led someone to great trouble - the psychiatric hospital if not to prison.


English teacher in her native country and mother of two daughters, Carmen Stefanescu survived the grim years of oppression, by escaping in a parallel world that of the books. 

She has dreamt all her life to become a writer, but many of the things she wrote during those years remained just drawer projects. The fall of the Ceausescu’s regime in 1989 and the opening of the country to the world meant a new beginning for her. She started publishing.

 

 

 

 

 

BROKEN WINDOW ~ NEW YORK CITY 1984

by Dorothy H. Hayes

New York City was still suffering from an economic crisis in 1984, which is the time period that Broken Window takes place. It was not the city we enjoy today. The title, Broken Window, is itself historical; it reflects a type of crime that is nonviolent but a result of the lowering of police presence of the times. People were arrested, for example, smoking pot on the street, speaking too loudly, selling items without a license. It was said that such crimes were like a broken window that allowed vermin into an otherwise sound house. Some argued, at the time, however, the police should focus on real crime; the muggings, killings and kidnapping that were taking place in the city. That arresting people for “broken window” crimes was abusive.

 

That argument still stands today. 

The neglected, failing subway trains, of the times, were relics of themselves, unreliable often leaving passengers waiting at subway stops for forty minutes or more. Ten thousand police officers were taken off the street and there were not enough officers riding the trains to protect passengers from gangs that openly roamed and threatened passengers for pocket money with weapons like screwdrivers and knives. It was the year that Bernie Goetz shot four black youths who had threatened to mug him.

Talk show hosts joked about people getting mugged. “When was the last time you were mugged?” was a typical one-liner. 

The Crips a street gang, which is the prominent gang in Broken Window, began to sell drugs in NYC, and Queens. The Crips, basically a Los Angeles gang, were known to abduct beautiful girls, which acted for an aspiring member as initiation. The gangs then passed her around or sold her. Such criminal events still happen to day and were an inspiration for me to write Broken Window. Also inspiring me were the three courageous girls in Cleveland held captive for ten years, and the revelations of human trafficking in this country of our young, mentioned by Attorney General Eric Holder. He pointed to the tens of thousands of young who have run away from home and are left defenseless on the streets, and are exploited. That was also the case in 1984. 

The graffiti marred subway station and trains became a symbol of New York City’s decline. They were unrecognizable and more like crime scenes. So when my character, Kelly Singleton, a young beautiful girl about to become a freshman at NYU disappears on the Number Six Train, in August 1984, it is totally believable.

 

 

www.dorothyhayes.com


 

 

The New York City subway was dangerous, the parents told the three Wilton High School graduates, but the girls weren’t taking no for an answer. Kelly Singleton, soon to be an NYU freshman, and her two friends board the hazardous subway train. Several stops later, her two friends get off, but Kelly is nowhere to be found. It is the torrid August of 1984, and crime is at an all-time high. Kelly’s desperate parents turn to reporter Carol Rossi and police detective Jerry Stevenson to find their missing daughter.

 

 

 

“From the first sentence to the last, Dorothy Hayes takes you on a pulse-pounding journey into the heart of darkness … With flowing prose that won’t let go, impeccable research, and characters that breathe life on the page, do not miss Broken Window.”

--Racine Hiet, author, Stanley Park: A Novel; radio host, Party 934;

 and publisher/editor, Thrive in Life Magazine

 

“Hayes captures the danger of New York City in the 1980s and the nightmare of a girl gone missing … This suspenseful story rings so true, I couldn’t put it down.”

--Garry Rodgers, retired homicide detective, forensic coroner and best-selling crime writer

 

“Wow, another great book! … Hayes continues the fast-moving mystery thriller technique of Murder at the P&Z as we follow Rossi in her search for a missing 18-year-old girl in New York City.”

--Frank Hoffman, Co-founder, All-Creatures.org

 

“Over her head, professionally and romantically.”

Scratch the surface of a small town planning and zoning department, and you’ll uncover a story. That’s what Carol Rossi counts on in the winter of 1983, and she’s right. A former teacher, age 47 and romantically involved with a much younger police officer, she needs a big story to make a success of her new career as a reporter for a Wilton, Connecticut, weekly newspaper, but murder isn’t what she had in mind. When the victim turns out to be a woman on Rossi’s beat, writing a story no longer seems enough, and she vows to find the killer. Stalked and terrorized, Rossi soon finds herself in over her head, professionally and romantically.

Published by Mainly Murder Press: February 17, 2013 

Broken Window, another Carol Rossi mystery, will be published in the spring.

 

 

Dorothy Hayes, a staff writer for local Connecticut newspapers for five years, received and honorary award for her in-depth series on Vietnam Veterans from the Society of Professional Journalists. Prior to that she was a Language Arts teacher. A staff writer for a national animal protection organization, for six years, she wrote Animal Instinct, 2006. Dorothy lives in Stamford, CT with her husband, Arthur. She also raised four children, and is the mother-in-law to three, grandmother to fourteen, and is GN to Bella. She writes for WomenofMystery.Net, CriminalElement.Com, and is a member of Sisters-in-Crime-Tri-State Chapter, and Mystery Writers of American. Visit her at DorothyHayes.com for more information. 

Dorothy began her writing experience as a staff writer for the Connecticut newspaper, The Wilton Bulletin.  After three years she moved on to the larger regional daily newspaper, The Hour in Norwalk.  During her tenure at this paper, she received an honorary award for her in-depth series on Vietnam Veterans from the Connecticut chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists.
Following her time at The Hour, she held the position of staff writer for a national animal protection organization for six  years.  In this role she was engaged in lobbying efforts at the state capital on behalf of animal protection and local and national campaigns for the advancement of animal rights.

THE BRIDGE OF DEATHS

 

© M.C.V. Egan

 

Based on true events and real people, The Bridge of Deaths is the culmination of 18 years of sifting through conventional and unconventional sources in Denmark, England, Mexico and the United States.

The story finds a way to help the reader feel that he/she is also sifting through data and forming their own conclusions.

On August 15^th 1939 an English plane from British Airways LTD. crashed in Danish Waters between the towns of Nykøbing Falster and Vordingborg.

There were five casualties reported and one survivor. Just two weeks before Hitler invaded Poland with the world at the brink of war the manner in which this incident was investigated left much open to doubt. The jurisdiction battle between two towns and the newly formed Danish Secret Police, created an atmosphere of intrigue and distrust.

The Bridge of Deaths is a love story and a mystery Fictional characters travel through the world of past life regressions and information acquired from psychics as well as archives and historical sources to solve one of those mysteries that never get solved”.

Cross The Bridge of Deaths into 1939, dive into cold Danish waters to uncover the secrets of the G-AESY.

 

BLACK HISTORY MONTH

 

In the United States and Canada February is

Black History Month or African-American History Month, in the UK the special month of remembrance for the African diaspora is in the month of October.

Diaspora refers to scattered populations with a common origin in a smaller geographic area. In the case of the ancestry of black people of African descent, the scattering was of course created forcefully as they were enslaved and shipped to the Americas. The largest populations were in Brazil and second to the United States.

The remembrance and acknowledgement of people of African descent has changed through the years. The first acknowledgement was in 1926 in the United States, led by a historian Carter G. Woodson and the Association for the study of Negro Life and History.

The second week in February was chosen, to honor the movement as much as to coincide with two key players in abolishing slavery in the United States. Abraham Lincoln; American President credited with abolishing slavery and Frederick Douglass an African-American social reformer, orator, writer, and statesman. Who escaped from slavery, and became a leader of the abolitionist movement. Both men were born in the second week of February.

The event originated with education in mind, and at first was not received with thunderous support. It eventually gained more support from the Department of Education. The Historian Carter G. Woodson argued for support with the following statement.

"If a race has no history, it has no worthwhile tradition, it becomes a negligible factor in the thought of the world, and it stands in danger of being exterminated. The American Indian left no continuous record. He did not appreciate the value of tradition; and where is he today? The Hebrew keenly appreciated the value of tradition, as is attested by the Bible itself. In spite of worldwide persecution, therefore, he is a great factor in our civilization."

By 1929 most states complied by adding it to their educational curriculum. The growth to a full month celebration was not a cut and dry process but by 1976 under President Gerald Ford it blossomed into a month long event. President Ford a Republican felt that Americans as a whole needed to

"Seize the opportunity to honor the too-often neglected accomplishments of black Americans in every area of endeavor throughout our history."

There are people who oppose that a single race is given a month and amongst them Morgan Freeman, is a strong critic of Black History Month,

 "I don't want a black history month. Black history is American history."

The actor also feels that there is no such thing as a white history month because this would limit rather than expand exposure to white American historical figures.

The UK added their Black History Month events in 1987 and Canada in 1995.

Do you think designating a month to a specific race increases acceptance and integration? Or does it create a greater barrier and separate?  

 

Images from ClipArt

The Pilgrims in England and Holland: What Happened Before They Stepped on That Rock

By Noelle Granger

 

 

 

 

 

 

Catalina has generously offered me a guest post on her blog. Since she and her followers are interested in history, I thought I would write about the Pilgrims. I have written posts about the Pilgrims on my own blog saylingaway.wordpress.com, but have barely scratched the surface of their incredible story. My intense interest in these folks comes from the fact I grew up in Plymouth, surrounded by their history, and was one of the first tour guides at  Plimoth Plantation.

 

Every year, the Pilgrims are trotted out, cardboard replicas clad in dull clothes and wearing tall black hats and shoes with buckles – heroes who braved a transatlantic crossing to celebrate the first Thanksgiving. Heroic, yes. Cardboard, no. The first Thanksgiving? You can call it serendipity or the work of God. The Pilgrims were real people and they did not wear buckles. In this post, I’d like to dispel some misconceptions about their life before the Mayflower sailed.

 

Aren’t Puritans and Pilgrims the same? No. I don’t know how many times I have read this, so I will clarify:  the Pilgrims and the Puritans were separate religious groups. The Pilgrims settled the Plimoth Colony beginning in 1620 and were Separatists, breaking from the Anglican Church. The Puritans settled in the Massachusetts Bay Colony (the later Boston area) in 1630. They were dissatisfied with the Church of England but most remained within the Church, advocating further reforms. John Winthrop, one of the founders of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, was such a Puritan.

 

 

Did the Pilgrims leave England because they were persecuted for their practice of religion? Yes. The Pilgrims left England for Leiden, the Netherlands, in 1609 because the 1559 Act of Uniformity demanded that all British citizens attend services and follow the traditions of the Church of England. The Pilgrims felt the Anglican Church recapitulated the same corrupt order of the Catholic Church and sought to leave it completely (hence the other name for them – Separatists) and practice their religion in their own way. They were persecuted for their views, along with the Catholics.

 

 

 

Weren’t the Pilgrims happy in Leiden? Not exactly. The Separatists had never intended to stay in Holland permanently; while their religion was tolerated, jobs were few and they experienced financial difficulty.  We’ve all heard the story that the Pilgrims ultimately left Holland because their children had become more Dutch than English, speaking Dutch and adopting Dutch customs. While this might have been a contributing reason, in point of fact the Separatists knew the year 1621 would mark the end of the long truce between Spain and Holland. If war was renewed and Spain conquered Holland, they would be hunted down for their Protestant faith by the Spanish Inquisitors. They had to leave.

 

How did the Pilgrims finance their voyage and settlement? This is something not many people even think about. The Pilgrims needed money, which they didn’t have, to finance their plans. English investors, known as adventurers, provided the finance. They formed a joint stock company with the colonists in which the merchants agreed to risk their money on the adventure, hence they were called adventurers, while the Pilgrims would invest their personal labor, for a period of seven years.

 

During that time, all land and livestock were to be owned in partnership; afterwards the company would be dissolved and the assets divided. To help insure the success of the colony, the merchants recruited additional emigrants to participate in the colonizing venture. It’s the reason the colony was chronically short of food and didn’t really prosper until after the company dissolved.

 

Wasn’t their ship the Mayflower? Yes, and no. The Leiden group of Separatists bought a small ship, the Speedwell, for the voyage and to be used in their new home. They sailed to England in July of 1620 and there, with the money from their investors, hired (not bought) a larger vessel, the Mayflower. Preparations were finally complete on August 5, when the two ships sailed from Southampton. As most people know, the Speedwell developed serious leaks and they had to turn back, twice as it turns out. The Mayflower finally sailed alone, on September 6, from Plymouth, England, some of the Pilgrim having been left behind.

September is not the time to be sailing westward on the Atlantic, and their delayed departure had a definite impact on what was to come.

I am looking forward to continuing this adventure, and my thanks to Catalina for hosting me!

 

www.saylingaway.wordpress.com

 

I started writing as a way of letting my children know where I came from and what shaped me.  I grew up in a small coastal Massachusetts town, where the Pilgrims just happened to have landed some 340 years earlier.  My family and I lived in a 100 year old house that was three stories high, square and unyielding even to hurricane force winds, and its many windows reflected the sky and ocean.  At night, you fell asleep to the sound of waves or the lonely fog horn on Gurnet lighthouse.  My seasons were spent on or in the water, so sailing and swimming are themes in some of what I write, with New England overtones.  For the last thirty years, I have lived in North Carolina, a place I’ve come to love, and that New England accent has acquired a Southern lilt.
I had a long and active career in academia, and if you want to know more about that, you can Google me. For now, I am just a writer trying to find her voice.
Noelle Granger
Writing as N.A. Granger, Author of Death in a Red Canvas Sail and Death in a Dacron Sail (soon to be released)