WHY I’LL REMEMBER 2013

The newspapers during the last few days have contained many reviews of 2013. Many of them are gloomy.  The U.S. Congress remained gridlocked during the year, stumbling from one crisis to another. The government was forced to shut down for several days. Fights over the implementation of the “Affordable” Health Care Act dominated politics and the news. Nelson Mandela passed away. The giants appear all gone, and mere humans are left to grapple with the problems of our times.

2013 was far kinder to me. When the year began, I was struggling to market my little-known novel, FALL EAGLE ONE, about a Nazi attempt to kill FDR. Sales were very modest, and I had few ideas about how to spread the word about my book. But I had asked my daughter, Karen Williams, to help me mount an Internet marketing campaign as my Christmas present. In late winter, we began the effort.

I already had a Facebook page, but it needed a lot of updating. Then Karen introduced me to Twitter. As soon as I grasped the “expanding ripples” effect of Twitter, I took to it readily.  Carefully studying how successful authors were using the media, I realized that one had to widely publicize the works of other authors to get them to publicize mine. I began devoting over an hour per day to Internet marketing. Meanwhile, Karen was building an author’s website for me.

By April 2013, FALL EAGLE ONE had climbed into the upper one percent of Kindle sales and has hovered in that range for the remainder of the year. It has 43 Amazon.com reviews with a 4.5-star out of 5 average rating. I spend about an hour and a half a day on marketing, but it has paid off handsomely.

I completed my second novel, HOLD BACK THE SUN, in the summer of 2013. Another World War II yarn, my new work follows the adventures of two U.S. Asiatic Fleet lieutenants during the opening months of the Pacific War. Karen built a YouTube trailer, which appears on my website. We launched the Kindle version of the new book in early August, and it quickly began to sell. When Amazon.com subdivided its bestseller lists in autumn, HOLD BACK THE SUN appeared as #8 in the historical fiction/Asian category. It soon climbed to #3 and has been in the upper 10 all year. It has 28 Amazon.com Reviews with a 4.3-star out of 5 average rating.

My third book, ASPHALT AND BLOOD, is already in the works. It will tell the story of how the U.S. Navy Seabees aided the Marines during the Battle for Hue City during the Vietnam War. My target launch is for Labor Day 2014.

I shall always remember 2013 as the year I could truthfully add the title, “author,” after my name.

Note: Warren Bell is a historical fiction author with two novels released and for sale either for Kindle or in paperback from Amazon.com.  Both are set during WWII, with Fall Eagle One taking place in Europe, and Hold Back the Sun is set in the war in the Pacific. Karen Williams, Marketing for Authors specializes in Marketing and PR for Independent Authors.  She can be reached through her website or at karenwilliamsmarketing@gmail.com.

The Disruption of Identity Theft

Last weekend, my wife, Annette, and I were the victims of identity theft. The incident is still under investigation, so I’ll not reveal all the details. Our incident was not as serious as some, but it completely disrupted our lives for several days.

On Saturday, we held a book sale and signing in Norfolk, Virginia. We had the best sales of any similar event to date, so left for Williamsburg feeling very satisfied. After fighting through a driving rainstorm, we arrived safely at home. Annette tallied up the finances of the event and them did some work on line. On a whim, she checked our bank accounts. Red flags began slapping her in the face.

Someone had gotten into one of our credit card accounts and advanced a large sum of money to our checking account. They were in the process of transferring smaller sums from that account into other bogus accounts at the bank, then withdrawing it at once. We were fortunate that Annette discovered the scam so soon. A frantic call to the bank’s 24-hour number got all the accounts frozen and stopped the hemorrhage. After we filed a fraud report, the bank made us whole. The bank, however, is currently out several thousand dollars.

Then the cleanup began.  Since this was a sophisticated hacking, we had to close all our accounts with the bank and open new ones. Consequently, we had to contact all the sources of our revenue and change the account to which our direct deposits are made. Even more complicated, we had to contact every establishment to whom we had agreed to automatic drafts from our accounts and change them also.  This has taken the better part of a week to accomplish. The big bugaboo was avoiding additional charges for returned and late billings. We’re not sure that we’ve plugged all the holes yet. We still have to contact all the charities that take monthly amounts from our credit cards. One of our remaining headaches is that we have to physically go to our bank branch to conduct business until the changes are all in place. Another requirement of the bank was that our computers be completely scanned for viruses.  We use have an Imac computer, but the scan did find some weaknesses, which have been repaired.

Internet banking can be a wonderful convenience. Vulnerabilities to hacking can turn it into a nightmare. As violated as Annette and I feel, our experience must pale before the realities of people who have had new credit cards and accounts opened in their names by identity thieves. Many have had their credit completely wrecked by these heartless criminals. We have credit monitoring in place to spot such activity early. Everyone who uses the Internet for financial transitions should do likewise. I leave you with one further piece of advice: NEVER write a check and use a credit card issued by the same bank at a single establishment on the same day!

Note: Warren Bell is a historical fiction author with two novels released and for sale either for Kindle or in paperback from Amazon.com.  Both are set during WWII, with Fall Eagle One taking place in Europe, and Hold Back the Sun is set in the war in the Pacific.

Babyboomers and Technology

Washington Post columnist Alexandra Petri ignited a flurry of rebuttal letters with her recent editorial suggesting that Babyboomers are far behind Millennials in their grasp and use of today’s technology. I have to agree with her critics. My children and their spouses are all Babyboomers.  All of them are very adept with the world of electronic gadgetry. They are my technical support. Without their help, I would never have mastered the intricacies of Facebook, Twitter, text messaging, webpages, and all the other technology I use daily in writing and promoting my books. 

Unless I can’t count, Bill Gates and Steve Jobs are both Babyboomers. So are Stephen Spielberg and George Lucas. The Internet was largely a Babyboomer invention, as were cell phones and videogames. Facebook and Twitter may be credited to the next generation, but I don’t know many Babyboomers who don’t employ them.  It seems to me that the difference between Babyboomers and Millennials is that Babyboomers use technology to accomplish their ends while many Millennials appear obsessed by it. Computer screens of one size or another consume a very large percentage of their attention.

Many Millennials appear both rude and impatient: rude because they ignore other humans around them in favor of an electronics device; impatient because they expect their every want to be satisfied with Internet speed.  Most Babyboomers are more adept at human interactions. My sister-in-law observed such behavior when she taught briefly at the university we attended earlier. In our day, students clustered in groups and enjoyed each other’s company. During her tenure as a professor, she observed most students crossing the campus independently, their faced buried in their cell phones.

You may notice that I use the words, “many” and “most,” in my discussion.  I’m trying not to overgeneralize. I would not say “all” to characterize any large group, for there are always exceptions to group patterns of behavior.

My generation learned patience as a virtue. One of my maternal grandmother’s favorite sayings was, “With patience possess ye your soul.” I’ll admit that I wasn’t a patient man for many years. Changing Navy duty stations every two or three years for decades, I learned what I termed, “calculated impatience.” When one is presented with a limited time to make an impact on one’s environment, too much patience can result in a lack of performance. Only with age did I finally conclude that my course was negatively affecting my relationships with others.  I learned patience to preserve those relationships. For in the final analysis, relationships are what count most in life.

  

The Passing of a Giant

Yesterday, the world lost a great peacemaker. Nelson Mandela was one of history’s indispensible men, as important to South Africa as George Washington was to the United States. Emerging from a long political prison sentence, he guided his country through a period of forgiveness and reconciliation that ensured the creation of a stable democracy. In South Africa, the pattern of “one man-one vote-one time” that plagued the continent’s post-colonial history was not repeated. Like Washington, after a time as President, Mandela foreswore a ”presidency for life,” stepping down after one term.

South Africa could have turned out quite differently. After reading The Covenant, James Michener’s long novel on the country, I was convinced that apartheid could only end in an inter-racial bloodbath. Then I discovered the writings of Wilbur Smith. A native of the state of Natal, Smith writes of Africa with the clear-eyed realism of a man who loves his homeland. His works address the history of Africa from the viewpoints of both black Africans and white colonialists. His stories of friendships developing between the races gave me hope for a peaceful resolution of a seemingly hopeless situation. Mandela brought those hopes to reality.

Wilbur Smith was not widely recognized in the United Stated before the end of apartheid, perhaps because of his origins. Since the emergence of Mandela’s “Rainbow Democracy,” Smith’s epic novels, River God and Triumph of the Sun have appeared on the New York Times Bestseller lists. I recommend his prolific writings to all readers who would understand the history of Africa, especially South Africa and Zimbabwe. His last few books deal with Egypt, the Sudan, Somalia, and Kenya.

Nelson Mandela will be long remembered and revered. His life stands as a challenge to those of us who remain to match his capacity for forgiveness and peaceful change. The cycles of revenge so prevalent in today’s world must somehow be broken if peace is ever to prevail. Perhaps Mandela gave us a roadmap.

Note: Warren Bell is a historical fiction author with two novels released and for sale either for Kindle or in paperback from Amazon.com.  Both are set during WWII, with Fall Eagle One taking place in Europe, and Hold Back the Sun is set in the war in the Pacific.

On Thankfulness

This is the time of year when Americans reflect on what we are thankful for. Those in committed relationships should be thankful that they were able to find someone to share a lifetime of romance. My wife Annette, my partner for over 55 years, is the greatest blessing of my life. Close behind must come the blessings of family. Humankind has organized itself in nuclear families since, as the Greeks used to say, “time out of mind.” My children, their spouses, and my grandchildren have enriched my life beyond measure.

Those of us who live in free and open societies should be especially thankful. Too many of us take the blessings of liberty for granted. Far too few of the world’s citizens live in open societies. Billions of others live in states ruled by despots for whom the welfare of their citizens is not a consideration at all. Winston Churchill once said that, in a free society, if one receives a knock on the door in the dark hours of early morning, it is probably the milkman (as opposed to a squad of secret police coming to arrest you).  Freedom of speech and religion exists only in free societies. In most of the world, the press reports only what the government approves.

Anyone who has access to modern medicine should be thankful for it. When I was a young man, life expectancy for an American man was about sixty-nine. Now it is approaching eighty. And the additional years often provide a much higher quality of life. If you do not indulge in self-destructive behavior (drug use, smoking, overeating to the point of obesity), your chances of having a long life are quite good. How to make the same level of care available to all is one of the world’s biggest challenges.

I’m thankful to have lived in the time and place that providence allotted me. My parents and their ancestors lived much harder lives than did my generation. I lived in an age of opportunity in which it was possible to quite literally live the American dream. Coming from relatively humble circumstances, education opened for me the door to upward mobility my grandchildren may never enjoy. My “golden years” are presently very comfortable. The innovations introduced during my life are mind-boggling. So far, I’ve been able to sort of keep up, but the adeptness of my grandchildren with electronic devices is astonishing.

I am also thankful for a relatively long life. In Greek mythology, Achilles was given the choice of a short life of fame or a long but common life. He chose fame, and died young outside Troy with a poison arrow in his heel. Odysseus, on the other hand, lived a long life and visited much of the known world. Alfred Lord Tennyson described the wisdom of Odysseus gained in his poem, Ulysses (the hero’s Roman name).

I am a part of all that I have met.

Yet all experience is an arch wherethrough gleams

That untraveled world whose margin fades

Forever and forever when I move.

As though to breathe were life!

Life piled upon life were all too little

And to me little remains.

And this grey spirit yearning in desire

To follow knowledge like a sinking star,

Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.

I have experienced a wide swath of history, some of it good, some of it discouraging. I continue to be an optimist. Somehow, we humans always seem to muddle through to an acceptable solution to most problems. Given the choice of Achilles, I would choose to live long.  
Note: Warren Bell is a historical fiction author with two novels released and for sale either for Kindle or in paperback from Amazon.com.  Both are set during WWII, with Fall Eagle One taking place in Europe, and Hold Back the Sun is set in the war in the Pacific.

What Did You Do in the War, Mommy?

World War II was the last war in which whole populations were engaged in the struggle. Because the military required a large part of the male population to fill the combat ranks, women were called on in large numbers to fill support positions and keep industry functioning. Most Americans are familiar with “Rosie the Riveter” and film clips of hundreds of women working in factories. But many do not realize the vital contributions made by women who worked primarily with their intellect.

I was reminded of the critical role of women in WWII while reading last Sunday’s Washington Post.  The paper prominently featured the obituary of 92-year-old Mavis Batey nee Lever, one of the many women who worked at the “Government Code and Cipher School,” at Bletchley Park. Perhaps the best-kept secret of WWII, Bletchley Park was where Allied codebreakers deciphered and read the most secret radio signals of the German High Command.  For most of the war, Allied leaders knew exactly what the Germans planned to do ahead of time. Some historians believe that victory in the Battle of Britain hinged on the fact that RAF commanders knew

Luftwaffe bombing targets and schedules the night before.

Mavis Lever was recruited directly out of university for this top-secret work. Her fluency with the nuisances of the German language proved a priceless asset not only in translation but also in the codebreaking itself.  She is credited with predicting Italian naval movements in the Battle of Matapan, allowing Britain’s Mediterranean Fleet to savage Mussolini’s battle fleet. She also was instrumental in convincing Hitler that the Normandy Invasion was a feint.

The counterplot in my novel, Fall Eagle One, is set at Bletchley Park. The American protagonist is a German-speaking lawyer who performs essentially the same work as Ms. Lever. He works directly for an Englishwoman, an officer in the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF). Somewhat like a police procedure novel, I explain how Bletchley Park functioned. The plans and orders of my German protagonist’s secret unit are laid bare to allied commanders, but they do not discern that the German mission is to kill FDR.  

Intelligence was not the only field in which women worked with their brains. Both the RAF and Luftwaffe filled their air defense control centers with women. Those who have seen the movie, The Battle of Britain, will recall that WAAF personnel almost exclusively staffed the sector stations shown in the film.  Nurses saved the lives of countless military combatants of all countries. Women also contributed in many logistics positions.

When we remember the “greatest Generation” and its achievements, we must always remember that not only the men beat the Axis. Countless women contributed their brains and their brawn to final victory. 

Note: Warren Bell is a historical fiction author with two novels released and for sale either for Kindle or in paperback from Amazon.com.  Both are set during WWII, with Fall Eagle One takes place in Europe, and Hold Back the Sun is set in the war in the Pacific.

Retrospective on Half a Century

This week has been one of mixed emotions for me. Monday, of course, was Veterans Day. My heart warmed to see the many expressions of gratitude being poured out to today’s veterans. The “thank you for your services” filled the television and computer screens. This is as it should be. The young men and women who fight our country’s wars today do so by choice. They risk their lives daily for our protection, and the whole country should be grateful.

But Veteran’s Day also brought reminders of the war in which I participated—the one in Vietnam. An article in the Washington Post eloquently related the long struggle of the women who nurtured our wounded soldiers in that conflict to obtain recognition at the Vietnam Memorial. A quote from one of the women released memories I had tried to suppress, “We were bitter and angry about how the country treated the Vietnam generation.” It was bad enough that the young men, mostly conscripted against their will, who fought in Southeast Asia were branded “war criminals” and “baby killers” by the antiwar movement. How could they have been so petty and small-minded as to throw the same epithets at women who devoted exhaustive hours to saving the lives of our wounded soldiers?

Many of us who served in Vietnam considered ourselves the “Tommy Atkins” generation. For those of you who have not read Rudyard Kipling’s classic lament of Victorian soldiers, here’s a little background. Tommy Atkins was the phrase Brits use in place of our “G I Joe.”  Here’s a sample:

         I went into a public-'ouse to get a pint o' beer,


The publican 'e up an' sez, "We serve no red-coats here.

"
The girls be'ind the bar they laughed an' giggled fit to die,


I outs into the street again an' to myself sez I:


O it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, go away";


But it's "Thank you, Mister Atkins", when the band begins to play,


The band begins to play, my boys, the band begins to play,


O it's "Thank you, Mister Atkins", when the band begins to play.”

The poem goes on through several verses describing the indignities thrown at Victorian soldiers by an unappreciative public and concludes:

For it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Chuck him out, the brute!

"
But it's "Saviour of 'is country" when the guns begin to shoot;


An' it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' anything you please;


An' Tommy ain't a bloomin' fool -- you bet that Tommy sees!

In his speech accepting the Democratic nomination for president, John Kerry opined that many “blamed the warrior rather than the war” for Vietnam. He got that right.

The other factor that made this past week melancholy for me was the 50-year retrospective programs on the assassination of President John Kennedy. Anyone alive and adult at that time can tell you exactly where he or she was when they heard the shattering news. The very idea that such a thing could happen in modern day America was unthinkable. The entire country was plunged into grief. Kennedy had just led us through perhaps the most perilous time in our history—the Cuban Missile Crisis. Few people realized at the time how very close to nuclear Armageddon the world came in those few weeks. For people my age, the killing of the President began a long series of events that harmed our country: The assassinations of Dr. Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy; the Watergate scandal; push-pull inflation that ravaged the economy; the national disunity over the Vietnam War; the double-digit inflation and interest rates of the Carter Administration.

Winning the Cold War under President Reagan removed the threat of nuclear annihilation but seems to have made the world safe for smaller conflicts. No one is afraid of sucking in the Great Powers and causing a world war anymore. I have a liberal friend who has told me, “Sometimes I miss the Cold War.”

One thing about having lived many years is that today’s challenges don’t seem so overpowering anymore. There’s not much my generation hasn’t faced before and somehow overcome. Humankind continues to adapt and survive. All may not be right with the world, but God’s still in His heaven.

Note: Warren Bell is a historical fiction author with two novels released and for sale either for Kindle or in paperback from Amazon.com.  Both are set during WWII, with Fall Eagle One takes place in Europe, and Hold Back the Sun is set in the war in the Pacific.