Bastogne

It wasn’t what I was expecting.

For two years, all you heard or saw was how glorious it was. The newsreels showed gruff men smiling, holding the spoils of war. Tanks hurled across the desert, firing their big guns. The fleets of ships and planes – all of it – got me to enlist the day I turned 18.

Ma cried that day. I wouldn’t be surprised if she still is. Pa… well, Pa jut shook my hand and said, “Good luck.” Turned his back to it all.

I left them, just turned 18, still a boy, head filled with the glories of war.

It was December 2, 1944 when I arrived at Camp Mourmelon, outside the village of Mour-melon-le-Grand, France. I was assigned to C Company, 506th Regiment, 101st Airborne. These men I had to be part of, were frightening. They strutted around the camp, fully outfitted with live ammunition, hand grenades, and unauthorized firearms. They smelled bad, were unshaven and never smiled. These were not the heroes from the newsreels. These were murderers.

Two days after my arrival, the temperature dropped to below freezing. Being in camp behind the lines, it wasn’t too bad. We had heat, showers and hot food, but that morning, all of my extra clothes were missing. When I brought the theft up to my sergeant, he scoffed and said I wouldn’t last long enough to need any of it. He really didn’t care. None of them did. We new recruits meant nothing to them.

We weren’t with them for Normandy, Carentan, Hell’s Highway or the Island. We were green, untested and not their brothers. We were the shunned, the ones they knew would die first.

And so, they made no effort to get to know us. We… I, was alone.

On December 19, we marched for Bastogne. As part of the 101st, we were set up on the line – part of a giant ring defense. The devastation in that area was like nothing I had ever seen. As we were marching in, the men we were relieving were marching out. They were defeated, starved, wounded and frost-bitten. They were the walking dead and we were about to take their place.

I will never forget that first shelling. It was at night and I was freezing in a foxhole, praying that my feet were ok because they didn’t hurt anymore. The noise was unbearable. Explosions were everywhere and the screams of wounded and dying men is a sound that will haunt me from this world into the next. So many explosions it was like the sun had risen.

We were supposed to fight back. Get up and fire our rifles. Not many of us could.

All I could think of, was that somewhere back home, my mother was still crying.

Eventually, the shelling stopped. I had no idea how much time had passed, but the real sun was halfway to noon. I was in one piece. Many of the others were not.

I was ordered out of my hole to help with the wounded. It was gruesome. The medics were frantic, helping those they could while we bore stretchers to carry away the men who would get shipped back to Bastogne proper where a hospital was set up. Hopefully, some of those men would get sent home.

One of the last men I helped that day – I never knew his name – said to me as I loaded him onto the truck, “Hey kid, don’t worry. They got us surrounded, the poor bastards.”

With those words, I finally understood what it meant to be a part of the 101st Airborne. True, I was green and probably would end up on a stretcher myself, if not shipped home in a box, but those words gave me hope. Being a part of the brotherhood with these men wasn’t about looking and acting tough, it was an attitude of toughness borne from living through experiences that should have killed you.

It wasn’t what I was expecting.

Breaking the Girl

Another entry for the 100 Word Song. This week is brought to us by the Red Hot Chili Peppers and “Breaking the Girl.” I decided to resurrect Reggie and Gris from my story Easy Money. This scene takes place about 12 hours before the start of Easy Money and was written while blasting Blood Sugar Sex Magik.

“Shit, Reg, don’t do this. Something doesn’t feel right about this one.”

“C’mon, Gris, it’s why we’re here,” Reggie stuffed his antique Colt in his shoulder holster. He cocked his head, smirking. “And since when do you care? I thought we weren’t about that.”

“We’re not,” she scoffed, fingering her stim inhaler. Her blue eyes met his brown. “Call it professional concern. You’re the best gun in the colony and the Rogers need you.”

Reggie chuckled. “I know, so stop worrying. This job is gonna pay big.” Then he was gone, the Zephyr’s door quietly clicking shut.

Gris stared at the door for some time, twisting the inhaler around her grasp.

Eyes purple, she lowered the inhaler and whispered to the door, “I do care.”

Understanding the Separation of Church and State

This article was written by me and first appeared at Borderless News and Views on March 1, 2012.

There has been a lot of noise in the media and the campaign trails lately about the separation of church and state. Many different things are being said and not much of it is correct.

Let’s examine what “separation of church and state” really means as it applies to United States law, because that’s what it is. We have laws, written into the Constitution, that explain exactly how this is supposed to work.

We need to look at three parts of the Constitution: Article VI section 3, the 1st Amendment & the 14th Amendment.

We’re also going to look at an often forgotten part of Article VI – section 2 – regarding treaties.

But first, a little history.

We all learned in grade school about the Pilgrims and how they fled religious prosecution in England. England had a state religion (the Church of England) and in the years prior to the Separatists’ and Puritans’ journey to North America, it was illegal not to attend Church of England services and you could be fined for it. It was also illegal to conduct unofficial services which could also lead to fines and even imprisonment.

What is shocking, is that after English colonies had been established, the colonies followed the example set by England and began to set up “state religions.”

• In the 1650′s, Peter Stuyvesant formally banned all religions other than the Dutch Reformed Church in New Netherland (now New York).
• Massachusetts had in their state constitution a clause which left the decision of who was taxable for a particular religion in the hands of the selectmen. Obviously, this system was abused but wasn’t abolished until 1833.
• Connecticut set up the Congregational Church as a state church and Yale College, at the time a Congregational institution received grants from the State.

The stories we heard in grade school were false. Each state, whether they set up a formal “state church” or not, did play favorites – one religion over an other. It was a volatile situation and a topic that was heavily debated while the U.S. Constitution was being drafted.

Article VI section 3

…no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.

Before any amendments were applied to the Constitution, this was the only mention of religion in the law. What does it mean?

First, it’s important to understand that this clause only applied to federal office until the 14th Amendment was ratified. Before that time, most colonies had in place a Test Act – usually an oath to swear that you were of a particular faith. Anyone not of that faith could not hold office.

For example, the New Jersey Constitution of 1776 states:

That there shall be no establishment of any one religious sect in this Province, in preference to another; and that no Protestant inhabitant of this Colony shall be denied the enjoyment of any civil right, merely on account of his religious principles; but that all persons, professing a belief in the faith of any Protestant sect, who shall demean themselves peaceably under the government, as hereby established, shall be capable of being elected into any office of profit or trust, or being a member of either branch of the Legislature, and shall fully and freely enjoy every privilege and immunity, enjoyed by others their fellow subjects.

This clause would allow for a Test Act, but it didn’t explicitly require one.

Article VI of the U.S. Constitution forbid Test Acts for people seeking federal office. This was a first step towards separation.

The First Amendment

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof

It is important to note that this is the very first line of the Bill of Rights coming before even freedom of speech. The religion question was just as important then as it is now.

It seems pretty straight forward, but James Madison, author of the Bill of Rights, said, “… the meaning of the words…, that Congress should not establish a religion, and enforce the legal observation of it by law, nor compel men to worship God in any manner contrary to their conscience…”

In order words, the federal government (remember, until the ratification of the 14th Amendment, this didn’t apply to the states) can not say, “Only Scientology can be practiced in the United States. All other religions are illegal and you have to worship in such-and-such a way … etc.”

That’s as far as it goes. No decrees of a State Church and in no way can the Federal Government tell you who, what, when, where or why you can worship.

It’s freedom “of” and freedom “from” religion.

The 14th Amendment section 1

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Not only did this clause secure rights for former slaves in the first sentence, it also allowed the Federal Government to incorporate all relevant federal rights against the states in the second sentence.

In other words, the states now had to follow the Bill of Rights just as the Federal Government had to and the U. S. Supreme Court has upheld it but didn’t actually do so until 1947 in the Everson vs Board of Education case. The case dealt with whether government funds could be used to pay for transportation of students to both public and Catholic schools. The state law was upheld in this case (public funding to bus students to a Catholic school neither establishes a state religion nor does it tell people how to worship) but the significance is that the states were now officially to abide by the Bill of Rights.

On the other side, on 1962, the Supreme Court heard the case of Engel vs Vitale in which the issue of officially sponsored prayer or religious recitations were legal in public schools. The court decided that it was unconstitutional for state officials to compose official school prayers. The court noted that it:

is a matter of history that this very practice of establishing governmentally composed prayers for religious services was one of the reasons which caused many of our early colonists to leave England and seek religious freedom in America.

Remember what Madison wrote? “…and enforce the legal observation of it by law, nor compel men to worship God in any manner contrary to their conscience…”

Article VI section 2

This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.

What this is saying is that the Constitution, any new laws made according to the rules laid out by the Constitution and all treaties made are to be considered laws in which both the Federal Government and the States are to follow them.

This is interesting because of one treaty the United States made in 1797 with Tripoli. In article 11 of that treaty it states:

As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquillity, of Mussulmen [Muslims]; and, as the said States never entered into any war, or act of hostility against any Mahometan nation, it is declared by the parties, that no pretext arising from religious opinions, shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.

This is interesting for two reasons.

First, this treaty confirms that the U. S. Government was created to be religiously neutral.

Second, it also confirms that the U. S. Government has no enmity towards Muslims.

In conclusion

The line seems pretty clear. The United States are to be religiously neutral, allowing all citizens to worship (or not) as they please. The government of the states and at the federal level can not create or establish a “National (or State) Church.”

It is a system that has allowed a variety of religions to flourish in the US unlike anywhere else in the world.

Understanding what Roger Williams, the founder of Rhode Island, meant when he wrote in 1644, “[A] hedge or wall of separation between the garden of the church and the wilderness of the world” is essential to understand and intelligently talk about the issues and topics surrounding the current presidential election.

The next step is to spread awareness of what an awesome thing the Separation of Church and State policy really is and what it has done for this country. Once people learn that, perhaps individual religious prejudice will end.

 

Because I’m a glutton for punishment, I’m linking with Yeah Write this week. Something I haven’t done in a while.

Mistborn: Birthright

Fendin “Fiddle” Fathvell - a coinshot?

Just announced is Mistborn: Birthright by Little Orbit and Brandon Sanderson.

Birthright will be a single player RPG that takes place in Sanderson’s Mistborn world and is set several hundred years before the first book in the series.

The game will be released in 2013 for the PS3, Xbox 360, PC platforms, and Mac and will feature an original storyline created by Sanderson.

Not much is known now, but I’ll post progress updates as I find them. I’m very interested to see how they interpret the books for a game – I’m imagining tons of Allomantic action!

The Grand-daddy of Wargames

I think that there’s one game that really set the stage for all wargames that followed – Tactics and the updated version, Tactics II.

Tactics was developed by Charles S. Roberts in 1952 and self-published in 1954 under the company name The Avalon Game Company. It met with a minimal amount of success. The game was rethought, updated and published again as Tactics II. The company also changed their name to The Avalon Hill Game Company – a name that has become synonymous with tabletop wargaming.

Now YOU Command an Army Group...

All of the pictures in this post were taken by me of my copy of Tactics II. I purchased it from a nice gentleman on eBay about 10 years ago. It’s the 1973 edition and it’s in incredibly great shape.

No, it’s NOT for sale.

Tactics II is simple as far as wargames go. The board has minimal markings and is divided by squares rather than the more modern hexagrams. The board is also numbered down the left side and across the top for easy grid referencing.

The playing pieces are half inch square cardboard, red for one side and blue for the other. They are marked with the standard NATO military symbols for land units.

I know they look pink, but they're red. Really.

Also included is a 16-page rules pamphlet, (Yes, pamphlet. You don’t have to have that giant 3-ring binder to play a good wargame), a weather chart (with a time record card on the back) and another card with the tables required for resolving combat. That’s it!

Everything needed to play (Except dice. Mine were culled for another game).

The first six pages of the rules teach you everything you need to know to play a basic game. Turn order, movement (including some of the terrain), combat (based on an odds system), capturing cities and how to win. The rest of the pamphlet explains advanced rules such as the remainder of the terrain not explained in the basic version, effects of terrain on movement and combat, special units (such as mountain troops and paratroops), sea transfer and organization of forces. There are also some optional rules covering weather, replacements, isolation, playing a shorter game and even nuclear weapons (sign of the times when the game was created). The last two pages of the rules is a nice essay on military tactics and strategy. The rules have plenty of pictures to illustrate the concepts explained in nice black, white and red.

The game is very easy to pick up and has a high degree of play-ability. I like to think of it as one step up from chess – more pieces, and a few more rules, but when played Tactics II is essentially a slightly more complicated version of chess. In fact, the rules compare Tactics II to chess often!

The game can be set up in minutes and typical game lasts about two hours. It’s a great way to kill a few hours on a rainy afternoon!

Velvet Goldmine

Writing prompts can be fun. When I saw that this week’s prompt at Studio 30 Plus was “Goldmine,” I immediately thought of David Bowie‘s song, “Velvet Goldmine.”

“Velvet Goldmine” was recorded during the Hunky Dory sessions and was supposed to make onto the Ziggy Stardust album, but it was ultimately rejected. It was eventually released as the B-side to the UK single of “Space Oddity.”

The song was originally written about how Bowie wanted to make out with another man, but the lyrics were changed to make it more ambiguous.

Here it is. It’s used to be a bit of a rarity, but with the internet being what it is, what’s rare nowadays? Not much. Luckily, the version here is from the re-master of The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars. It was added as a bonus track and I can proudly say that I own the CD. 

Bowie as Ziggy Stardust

Ziggy Stardust is my favorite Bowie album (followed closely by Aladdin Sane, commonly referred to as the Ziggy sequel). Ziggy Stardust had only one single, “Starman,” but it is best known for the songs “Ziggy Stardust” and “Suffragette City.” The album is a very loose concept album about an alien who comes to Earth and becomes a rock star, falling into all of the common vices associated stardom – alcohol, drugs and sex. The character of “Ziggy” had a message of peace and love, but it gets lost in his antics.

“Ziggy Stardust” is one of Bowie’s more well-known songs, so I’m giving you the original demo. Just Bowie and an acoustic guitar. Brilliant. 

One more thing before I go.

Today is Steven Tyler’s birthday, he’s 64. Give it up to the original Bad Boy of Boston.

Keep rockin' brother!

In honor of his birthday, here’s an Aerosmith classic. Enjoy!

What I Couldn’t Brain About Last Week

Looks like I skipped a review last Sunday. Things have been very busy for me lately. I’ve been working hard with Kelly from Naked Girl in a Dress with tons of behind the scenes changes for Studio 30 Plus – we’ll be making a HUGE announcement later in the week so watch for it! This whole process has made me feel incredibly lucky to be working with Kelly and all of the wonderful opportunities she has been offering me.

I started a second blog last week called NH Grog which is an outlet for my tabletop gaming hobby. At NH Grog, I’ll writing game reviews, talk about upcoming new releases, and I’ll be writing a novel-style recap of my ongoing D&D campaign, The Shackled City. Fun for me, to be sure..

Music Mondays have been fun as usual. The Allman Brothers Band, Miles Davis and Social Distortion have all made appearances over the last 14 days. The Allmans stopped by because one of their songs was stuck in my head and they wanted to reclaim it. Miles dropped in to remind me that things weren’t as bad as I might think when I wrote a post about the difficulties I have writing about my autistic son. Social Distortion rocked the house as part of the 100 Word Song.

I have been collecting funny things I find around the internet for some time now and I put together a post with some of my favorites. Then I posted one more that said very clearly how I feel about the political conservatives and their hypocrisy.

The NFL season may be over and my Patriots lost yet ANOTHER Superbowl, but things have been happening in the off-season with fervor. The New Orleans Saints have fallen from favor with everyone, Payton Manning is now a Bronco and Tim Tebow is a Jet. Holy crap, the draft hasn’t even started yet!

If you haven’t started yet, I highly suggest you get wrapped up in my serial, The Linden Tree. It’s a bit of a departure from how I normally write and I’m posting the raw, unedited first drafts. Go check out the episodes!

Whew! That was a lot to cover! Told ya I’d been busy and it looks as if next week will be just as exciting!

Lovecraftian Fun? Maybe.

No too long ago I picked up Mansions of Madness by Fantasy Flight Games from my favorite store The Game Castle. I was super excited to give this game a try, and at $70, I was expecting a lot from it.

This thing weighs about 10 pounds, I think.

…and a lot I got. So much stuff is in the box, that we spent nearly 2 hours sorting it all out before we could play. There are 12 types of cards (both regular playing card size and mini ones), 13 types of tokens and markers, 15 map tiles (double-sided, so you have 30 map pieces), monster pieces, player pieces and 2 books.

Here are three scans of the rule book that show the contents (you’ll need Adobe Reader to view them):

Mansions of Madness component list page 1

Mansions of Madness component list page 2

Mansions of Madness component list page 3

…and some shots of the actual pieces…

Maniacs, witches, cult members and Cthulhu monsters. Oh my!

Our hapless Investigators.

This is the map set up for the scenario we played.

All of the items are of high quality, though. No disputing that.

But there’s just SO MUCH. It took a while for us to sort it all out, figure out what was what and get started.

The game plays much like a paper and pencil RPG – one player is the Keeper who knows the story and controls all the monsters. The remaining players are Investigators trying to solve a mystery. The Investigators win if they solve the mystery and the Keeper wins if he can prevent them from doing so.

Each player piece comes with their own unique set of abilities to choose from, so you may not play the same Investigator the same way in consecutive games. Each scenario also has choices that the Keeper must make before play, so each scenario will not be the same from one playing to the next. Kind of a cool feature that I think extends the play-ability of this game. MoM comes with 5 ready-made scenarios and you do, of course, have the option to create your own.

The first few turns were slow and clunky as we made our way through interpreting the rules and sequence. Game play sped up as we became familiar with how things went and were able to organize the plethora of cards and markers we had to use.

One thing I didn’t like was how powerful the monsters seemed to be. The scenario we played called for Maniacs and Zombies. The zombie made it in to play, but did not encounter the players. The maniac was extremely difficult for the players to defeat. I’m not sure if it was because there were only two players, or if I was doing something wrong as Keeper, but the players spent too much time dealing with that monster and it cost them the game because they ran out of time.

I’ll need to play MoM a few more times to sort out the details and actual play-ability of this game. It has promise to be a fun game if all the players are familiar with it so that game play can progress smoothly.

Ban Hammer!

Yesterday, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell slammed the ban hammer down on the New Orleans Saints.

During the 2009 – 2011 seasons, Saints defensive players were paid on-the-spot cash rewards for deliberately injuring players on the opposing teams. It went so far as that specific players were targeted such as Brett Favre, Aaron Rogers and Kurt Warner.

The NFL and NFL Player’s Association have been investigating the issue for some time and now punishments have been doled out.

Sean Peyton, the Saints head coach during that time has been suspended without pay for the entire 2012 season effective April 1.

You're the guy in charge, douchebag.

Peyton had denied repeatedly that any “bounty” program was in place and instructed has staff and players to deny it also. He got caught.

The biggest balls of them all.

Since Roger Goodell became the Commissioner, he has made it his mission to make the NFL a safe place for players to play. Several rules have changed or been created to protect the health of players.

Some have criticized Goodell’s stance on player safety, saying that the NFL is “for sissys” now, but let me tell you – I wouldn’t want to get tackled by a 300 pound linebacker running at me as fast as he can, would you?

Safety first is the new NFL motto and because of it, Peyton is banned for a season, Saints General Manager Mickey Loomis is suspended without pay for the first 8 regular season games, Saints Assistant Head Coach Joe Vitt is suspended without pay for the first 6 regular season games, former Saints (and current St. Louis Rams) Defensive Coordinator Gregg Williams is suspended indefinitely from the NFL, the team as a whole has been fined $500,000 and their second round draft picks for 2012 and 2013 have been taken away.

Too bad this can't be taken away as well.

There is no place in sports for what the Saints did. None. It’s inexcusable.

I know football is a rough and tough sport – that’s what makes it exciting. But when you have to resort to unfair play in order to win – what essentially amounts to assault under the guise of playing a game – you shouldn’t be playing anymore.

It’s despicable and Sean Peyton and the entire Saints organization should be ashamed.

Announcing NH Grog!

Today I re-launched my gaming blog, NH Grog.

NH Grog was originally started in February 2011 to document in detail my education in learning the beastly wargame Advanced Squad Leader. It didn’t last very long before I had run out of time to play the game. The old posts have been deleted and I’ve adjusted the focus of the blog to focus on gaming in general.

Go check it out. There isn’t much there at the moment, but I’ll be adding great posts and a play-by-play of my current D&D game, The Shackled City as a really cool fantasy fiction story.