I read a lot of novels about war, political intrigue and espionage. Recently I read all of the Clancy novels. When you include those with collaborative authors, it's aound rwenty, and many of them are around a thousnd pages. I finished Clavell's "Whirlwind" last week. It's a story about the people of a helicopter leasing company in Iran and what they went through during the fall of the Shah and the rise of the Islamic government there.

This week I'm reading Hemingway's "For Whom the Bell Tolls", which has been called the greatest war novel ever written. I'm not sure if I'd agree, but his plot line is easier to follow than Clancy's, that's for sure.

I guess what preoccupies me is the nature of war, the hows and whys and whether or not I agree with the many who say it's unavoidable, inevitable, built in to civilization, and so on.

My own experience with war was with first battalion, third Marine Regiment in Vietnam from November of '65 to September of '66. I was a radioman at battalion level. That meant sometimes I humped a radio for a captain or a major and sometimes I'd get loaned to one of the infantry companies and be radioman for a sergeant or a corporal.

After Vietnam I was placed into a reconnaissance unit, 5th Recon Battalion, in the newly activated 5th Marine Division. Normally people only went to Recon by volunteering. At that time, Vietnam was taxing the Corp's resources and they weren't asking if I wanted to be in Recon or not. Anyway, it turned out to be much like the regular infantry except about twice as intense and, like it or not, I did acquire a much deeper understanding of military sciences than the average guy gets.