Blood Memory w/ Philip Voodoo: The J. Burden Show Ep. 473

enjoyed this book. We'll get into it later. But before we do that, you know, as much as you're comfortable, Well, who are you? And how do you get started writing?

Mongol Moon series. He's since written second, and the third is promised to come out sometime in probably twenty sixty. But he asked me to write a short story. He knew I had a background helping some military friends with their various fiction and nonfiction endeavors. One of the hazards of being illiterate infantryman is they all ask you to help write things for them. But that was a great experience, and it's a great time helping my friends, and so I started to do it again. I wrote I wrote

a short story for Mark for his publisher. They were going to do a sort of a close action of short stories, and the task was write one short story about ten thousand words. I wrote three, and one of them happened to be like forty thousand words and the editor said, you know, can you cut this down to ten? And I said, don't you'd delete a single word out

of this. We're going to have words. And he said, all right, the other option has turned into a book, so can you add eighty thousand words to it and we'll call it a novel because it's sort of built for that, that has the bones and the structure to be expanded on a little bit. I took it up and said, yeah, I'll turn this into a novel, and I that's where we are.

Is it something that had been bouncing in your head for years? Is it something you just sort of had a little bit and you developed it as you wrote. And then two. The other thing that's unique about this book is is the setting right sub Saharan Africa, And so I'm curious to get your thoughts on, well, where did the setting come from? And well where did this whole you know, chase, where did that idea come from?

I'm gonna nitpick the setting or whatever. Or if I'm from you know, La and I read a book about Kentucky, I have an idea in my mind of what life in Kentucky's like, and so reading this book is always going to have this preconceived notion of what it's like. I think writing about Africa is as close as you can get to writing about a sci fi world with it being real, and it's it's like that for a number of reasons. But it's just just a such a different setting than what you're used to, and it's just

such a different place. And one of the things that I did is I went through the writing of the book was make sure that that Africa remained the character you know, when you read books like that or when you watch movies like that, you know, and in places that most people don't spend a lot of time, like a lot of you know, a great book about the old features the sea as a character. You know, it's not the old Man and the fish, it's the old

man in the sea. Right, It's this vast expanse of nature that you're forced to contend with in addition to contending with all the challenges man throws at you. And so I wanted to write something that people had to use their imagination, and also it made them a little in some ways uncomfortable reading about it because they can't rely on what they would do or how they would go to ground or you know, in the event I would find a I would find a you know, a

gun store, and I would find ammo for myself. But there's no gun stores in Zambia, you know, there's there's no cabellas that you can go to and raid, right,

And that's that's one of the things. And also the thing that I liked about it is, you know, it's certainly not going to be a spoiler, but in the Mongol Moon universe, a series of EMPs, he's a nuclear attacks knocks out almost all the electronics in Europe and North America, and so all of the Mongol Moon Universe stories deal with that in their own way, but nothing happens to Africa, Like Africa just goes to sleep and wakes up and the outside world is just gone, you know,

you lost the ability to contact Europe or North America. And so it's not so much a book about what happens when the power goes out. It's a book about what happens when the rest of the world goes away and how parts of the world are forced to continue on after that.

that place. And I, perhaps thankfully have never been to Africa, but even just the level of having been to the third world, which is a I realize an overly broad term, but you know, work with me for a little bit.

You realize, like it you're almost on another planet. That the way that you know, we as kind of quote unquote educated Westerners think that normal people act, that's highly culturally contextual, right, and you know, if if you step into a place that's very very poor, very dysfunctional, that has a culture that isn't working, you realize that it

works off a completely separate set of rules. And I thought that was really interesting in this because the broad strokes of the narrative is we have this this convoy, this kind of motley crew of Americans. Right, there's Cia guys, there's the embassy staff that you know, the ambassador, his wife, others all in this convoy kind of trying to join back up with other Americans being chased by a group

of Russians. And so yeah, sure, that's the overarching narrative that's what happens in this book, that's what pushes it forward. But for most of the book, just going by page count, the Americans and Russians are separated. They aren't fighting, right, They're being kind of pushed along, And so most of the interactions are with the locals, right, the Africans and also right, you have this kind of fight against just

the hostile terrain. But I thought it was really interesting how it really is this sort of free for all zone. So you have you know, technically hostile forces, Congolese rebels or you know, people who are maybe maybe not allied with the government, who in one instance want nothing to do with this, it's not their fight, and in another instance,

for other reasons, become incredibly hostile. And I thought that you portrayed the kind of cultural differences, you know, the gap between the kind of Western and I guess you could say kind of like broader African culture really well,

really accurately in that. So I'm curious, right when you were planning this book out, how much were you thinking about that that kind of culture shock because and I'll give you a more specific example, I think that the character of im not gonna remember her name sorry about that, Philip. But the ambassador's wife is kind of a particularly interesting character, and so I'm curious, right, like, what was your inspiration with that? What were you trying to do with her in this book.

the Russians are chasing them. You know, they meet the Russians and then run into them one time, and they get away from them, and most of the convoy say, say, one guy has no reason to believe or even suspect

that the Russians are looking for that. And so I think that's a that aspect of it is sort of a fog of war thing that if you pick up on it, you kind of understand how the world works, right, because a lot of books will will tell you and a lot of books will, you know, show that relationship from both sides, and it will say, you know, everyone knows. And so there's this there's this chase and one side doesn't even know they're being chased, and I think it

adds to the tension a little bit. And her name was Nala, the Ambassador's wife. But one of the things about the book is that the book is about people, right, normal people. And one of the things that that sort of irks me about modern media, and we were talking about a little bit before, is it ever one in modern media right now seems to be a superhero in some way, like they seem to have some sort of superpower.

You know, you get obviously the Marvel characters who all have their superpowers, or the the Jack Reacher type characters, who are you know, just mammoth people with brains that are better than everyone else's. You know, the Black Widows and the Black Sparrows or whatever they're called that are on Netflix. Now everyone's a Special Forces Delta guy or you know, some sort of super advanced CIA person, like

everyone's got some special power. But looking back at like ancient literature and then some of the American stories, they're mostly about people, and I think people link to that a little bit more than if you know, we're talking about Captain America and Captain America even starts as a as a normal person and he's made into something super But if you look at people who have these superpowers, how do how do you, as a as a young male,

relate to that character? Can you? I don't know that you can, Like you can idolize thatcharacter, but you you can never structure your life or the course of your life in a way to become a superhero superpowers, right, But you could structure your life in a way to become one of the people in this story because these

are all normal people. You know they have sure, they as the military experience where they work at the CIA, but lots of people do that, right, that's not a that's not a superpower, that's a that's a thing that lots of regular people do. And everyone in the book has sort of a mirror character or a mirror plot line. You know, there's there's good Africans and bad Africans. There's there's good Americans and bad Americans. There's not a lot

of good Russians. But but there are competent Russians and incompetent Russians, right, And so you see this this balance between characters because that's sort of how the how the

world works. And I think Nala, the Ambassador's wife, more than anyone in the book, learns more and it has more of a character are character development than almost any other character in the book, right, because she starts off as this this really you know, stereotypical blacks liberal who just you know, hates everything that America does overseas and things we have this this cultural guilt that all all

white people bear. And but in reality, she's learning throughout the book that things aren't always the way they look, and things aren't always the way she understood them going to school at you know, wherever she went to school in Chicago. And so that's that's one of the things that combat and war and in general change the way people view the world, and especially if you're not mentally

prepared to go through those struggles. And and one of the things that a lot of veterans learn is that the bigger the wall they put up, the harder it is to take get down afterwards. Right. And you try to try to keep the war out of your psyche, and you try to prepare yourself for it, but it still gets in there. But if you are not prepared at all, and you just wander into the stress and wander into the environment. It changes you in ways is

that maybe you can't even control. And it happens very quickly, like all life and death experiences do. And so she, more than anyone, is one of my favorite characters in the book. And I had people, you know, send me messages being like I hate her, like I hope she I hope she dies like and I was like, yeah, that's the point. You're supposed to not like her when the book starts, and you're supposed to have those feelings.

And every time someone texts me that they hated her, I was like, secretly very happy because it means I wrote the character well well.

all right, man, yeah, I dislike those characters too. I dislike those people. So just putting one of them in and holding them up is this kind of like hate figure. It's like, okay, like, what are we doing. It's not twenty sixteen anymore. But there really is a sort of a very interesting growth with both Nala and her husband, the ambassador. And there's this moment and by the way, Philip, I told you I was not going to offer spoilers.

This is going to make no sense unless you've read the book, and I'm not going to give you any details. So by the book. But there's a quiet conversation between doctor fray Are sort of the main character's wife, and Nala. It's a really interesting interaction. It's a might be my favorite scene in this book. I assume you know what I'm talking about, and I was wondering if you could, you know, explain what's going on there a little bit.

do anything right. And the scene that you're referring to, and I actually read about this later about a there's a there's a test that you can apply to movies and TV shows of two women having a conversation about something that's not a man and this did fail that they talk about their husbands for a lengthy period of time. But in the scene major of Frey, who's the main character, is off doing a small quasi raid with some of

his guys in the night in Congo. To try to write a sort of historic or sort of contemporary wrong that's happening to some people, the scene is is doctor Frey, Amanda Frey, who's who's major phrase wife, and Nall, who's the ambassador's wife, drinking a bottle of wine as as

women are known to do. And they're sort of on this hill and they're overlooking where Amanda Pray's husband is on this very life and death sort of raid, and they can see the battle, they can hear it, they can see the flashes because this at night, they can see the fires, they can see all sorts of stuff, but they're talking about people, and they're talking about, you know, their different upbringings and having come from somewhat of a

upper middle class, lower upper class background. When I joined the army, there were a lot of people who said, did you like, did something happen? Like did you get arrested? Did like? Is there is there a reason this is happening to you? And you're not going to Pepperdine or whatever school that they expect me to go to. And I said, no, this is something I want to do. And they're like, well, I don't know what happened to you.

You must have gotten arrested and just And that is a conversation that almost plays out directly in this story where Naala Brown, who is the ambassador's wife, has these preconceived notions of you know, the phrase background and she knows Amanda phrase the doctor, and but she just assume that, you know, Alex the major comes from this, like, you know, I think I referred to as a directional state school like your Southwest Missouri College of Science and Art. But

he had gone to an ivying school. And that's not as rare as it may sound. I knew quite a few guys who who had that sort of background when they joined the army. But it's a it's a sort of a a breaking moment for her knowing that the people that she is is watching risk their lives to do something that she's only ever dreamed of doing are people that aren't so different from her. And it sort of is a a moment where she realizes that if this thing that I thought so vehemently is wrong, what

else is wrong in my life? It's it's her her moment of Gelman amnesia. I like, I realized this one thing is off? What else is off? In all of my other world views? And they were in the book.

There have been a conversation that happened the night before and then this action, And one of my favorite parts of the scene is where she's thinking about, you know, all of these these young men, these young Americans who weren't from Africa, they had all volunteered to go on this rate, like none of them had had said they want to stay behind. And that's how that's how it works. Like you know, most of them are young Marines. They want to go do the thing that they had trained

to do. They want to go out and be close to it with their with their brothers, and it's a it's a life changing moment for her to see these people who have no vested interest in this village in Africa volunteer to maybe maybe die to avenge it.

And you know there's another albeit a different, you know, part of this plot that has to do with you know, the Chinese sort of trying to come in and you know, shore extract resources. But it seems as if through this book, no matter who is trying, and whether it's the Russians, the Chinese, the Americans, Africa remained sort of unchanged. And so I realized, I threw a bunch of you there, Philip, and I'm curious to get your thoughts.

with enough hard work, we can till this land. And we can. We can make western Oklahoma, you know, able to farm. And I don't care how many dust bols come, we can we can make this work. But the thing about Africa is it's filled with people. And while the land is hostile in a lot of ways, also very beautiful in some ways, but it's hostile, So can the

people be both? And there are definitely people in the story who are trying to make their world better for them and then those around them, and there are those who are trying not to. They're trying to do the exact opposite. They're trying to be the new colonizers, but in a more ruthless way. And the character of Meredith Emmons is an interesting one because there's a scene in that sort of side quest where they have this this dinner and I wrote that entire scene and as an

homage to the French plantation scene in Apocalypse Now. It's one of my favorite scenes of any movie of all time. And I don't even know if it's in the theatrical release. I think it's only in the like nine hour long director's cut, but it's it's one of my favorite scenes of any movie all time, and so that that whole segment of the book is written to make that scene work.

But Meredith Emmons is this this American aid worker who's sent to Africa to help establish this Doctors Without Borders clinic, and she faces some of the same choices that other people in the book face of like what are you

willing to do to make your mission a success? And she gets sort of this target fixation where the mission is the most important, and she gets this this Bismarckian and I it's not, but the end is justified the means sort of mentality of it, of what I'm doing isn't that bad because it's for a greater good or it's for you know, it's not that bad on its face because it's gonna happen anyway with or without me. And she's a she's an example of it, of a

character who has this moral dilemma. And she's the same as a lot of other characters because there are there aren't really any objectively bad characters in the book. I mean when I say bad, I mean just evil for evil's sake, right, there are there are definitely quote unquote the bad guys I mean everything.

would they act and be the same way? And I don't know that they would, you know, And it's the setting itself of being in Africa creates a set of behavior and it sort of tears away societal norms as we in the West know them. But yeah, that character is definitely could definitely be viewed as it's a pure bad guy. But and that's that's that's the question, right Like if you were in Africa, what how would you act?

You know, people in Africa are given a choice of maybe try to collaborate in a land where collaboration has almost always failed, or try to try to carve out something nice for yourself and and hold on to it in a way. You know, a lot of the Mongol Moon stories are this post apocalyptic people coming to grips with the things they have to do. But in Africa, that's already there, like, that's always been there. It's always been part of the culture, especially in the Congo and

places like that. It's it's it's baked in to the culture. Yeah.

and then there's a couple of them are sympathetic. Like I don't want you to like or feel bad for any of them, definite only to take their sides, but villains have their own motivation, and to know their motivation is important, and most villains think their motivation is right, Like they they're not just villains for the sake of it. They think they have a legitimate grievance and they're gonna do it. And a lot of the Russians in the book act out of the same patriotism that the Americans

act out of. Some of them definitely do not, but a lot of them do. And that doesn't mean you have to side with the Russians just because they're patriotic, Like you would make the case as an American that our patriotism is more important than theirs. But yeah, and having that frame of reference that everyone thinks they're the good guy in their own story, but from our lens, most of them are definitely not. It is an important way to look at the book.

novel here, we're really like getting into it. It's like, well, I don't need to like him, but I need to get it right. And the motivations or the kind of lead Russian bad guy it makes sense. You're like, Okay, I can understand why a guy would do that. You know, it's not just the kind of like, ohaha, I will take over the world. And I think that that's a really important distinction because like the the relatable villain and

the whole anti hero thing. It's like, there were there are some good examples of that, you know, kind of early on in that trend, but it sort of became it kind of became a crutch in a way, you know, it became a kind of a cheat. And I appreciate that you didn't. You didn't go down that rabbit hole.

I want to go back before we move on, because you mentioned something probably ten minutes ago that I want to return to about the firefights, the actual action in this because I hadn't actually put it into words until you said it that there are there is punctual action in this right, It's an exciting book. There are things happening, but I wouldn't say the majority of the time, but a lot of the time you're not getting the perspective

of necessarily our heroes. Several points said it it is deliberately not told or shown to you, which is interesting. You mentioned the kind of rate on this mining compound. There's another one which I said, I wouldn't do spoilers, so I won't bring it up, but kind of close to the climactic end of this book, where you know, you know what happened, but you don't get the kind

of blow by blow. But also there are other instances where we get the at the perspective of the opposition, right, we get the perspective of the Chinese, the perspective of the Russians, And so I'm curious, was that a deliberate choice to sort of give you the perspective of you know, the guys getting wrecked.

battles are like that, they're they're very chaotic. You can only be sure you experienced the things that you directly saw, and so to cover them from different perspectives where people might not know what's happening. I thought, was it something I really wanted to do? Like it's something that I don't see a lot in books or movies, but it's

it At least. I think it's a unique way to tell about a story because so many people are used to watching, you know, this hero run through all the different stuff, and you know the hero is not gonna die, but like you know that, you know other people will, and and reading it from this perspective and running from that perspective, you're not exactly sure what's gonna happen because you're not exactly be sure who you're who you're talking about all the time, because a lot of the characters

in the battle scenes are new for those battle scenes, and a lot of them are just just chaotic. You know, a couple paragraph panic mode, you know, incidents, and that's reflective of how a lot of small unit engagements are right. Obviously, if you're you're standing in the Battle of Gettysburg, it's not it is chaotic, but you see hundreds of thousands of people around you, and you have a sort of a perspective of of where you are in the thing, and you know the enemy is coming and and all

this stuff. But you know, out in the bush sort of in small units, people just sometimes run into each other and they just shoot it out, and they they all try to break contact because it's it's a natural human instinct to try to you know, break contact away from from gunfire. But that was that was a very deliberate choice to write those battle scenes in a way that one wasn't repetitive, but then two tried to find a way to to do it a little bit differently.

portray violence in this is incredibly visceral. Not that it's you know, kind of gratuitously going over the you know, the blood and gore per se, but in the sense that it feels as if every character is at very real risk when they are getting shot at. And I think that that's really a credit to your work. And I'm curious right now. I realize that I think I've said that as an introduction to a question like six times,

but it won't stop me. Uh, I'd like to get your thoughts on on that, Like, how do you write action in a way that gives real stakes? You know, it doesn't feel like it's just sort of a you know, an episode of the eighteen.

And so for that that few minutes, you're taking away from the POV character of Captain Miller, who you know is gonna live, right, because you know he's gonna be in the movie longer. And you just watch Americans get killed on Omaha Beach, and you watch it for long enough, and you watch it happen, you know, and in gruesome ways, like a flamethrower exploding or a guy carrying his arm or or all the all the honest, you know, gruesome

parts of modern war. And by the time the scene focuses back on Captain Miller, he has lost that in a in a way that that hero's armor, and you're like, maybe he will die. Like, I've just seen so many people die in this movie. I no longer believe that anyone is safe. Right, You're you're just inundated in the violence, and now you're looking at it from a different lens, and and most of the time you don't connect who's

firing and who's dying. Right, Sure, you see the scene from from behind the Germans with the machine gun, but the bullets are just coming and things are just exploding, and things just happen, and you're just trying to stay alive.

And you're watching this scene and it pulls you into the scene one because it is from a p like a random POV perspective and sort of a steady came of guy walking up the beach, and so trying to write the action scenes in that way I think helps to the perception of anyone is vulnerable, right because in the book, you know, obviously the main character isn't dead as you go to the book, but you get the idea that he could die, and he even talks about it.

You know, he talks about all the danger he's facing, his different deployments, and he talks about, you know, there's armor, but he doesn't have any body armor. And there's one scene where he's on the ground talking to some Africans and he realizes he's only got three magazines and in Iraq he's used to carrying like seven or eight with the bag of him in his truck, and he realized for the first time just how naked and alone he is out here without one the logistics that he's used

to fighting a war with, but two without any support. Right, You're you're just a group of Americans out here in the middle of Africa where everything can kill you. And I think that was like a very very deliberate choice as well. And I've had people talk about, you know how they're they don't like reading books where like the hero solves everything or you know, he's he's the hero,

he's not the main character. And I deliberately wrote it like that, and I deliberately have this this internal struggle with a lot of the main characters, and that's how people would react. Like people, no matter how many times you've been to war, you feel fear when you get shot at. No matter how many times, like you've told yourself to embrace the knowledge that you could die, you

still feel a little bit of fear response. And I wanted the audience that to understand one a little bit of the chaos, but then also a little bit of that that fear maybe the main character can die.

the line of support they're used to. They don't have the direction that they're used to, and you know, by writing the book in that way, you add this sort of just baseline level of risk to it, where even an escape right even when you you know, you have the characters sort of get past the Russians or get past this obstacle. After the kind of chaos subsides, well, all of a sudden we realize that they're you know,

there are men wounded and killed. And one of the sort of interesting things about this book is that the start of almost every chapter has and like, I'm never been in the military, this is probably some form that I am not aware of, but basically a spreadsheet which has you know, every organization there represented, and then the status of both you know, the machines that because you know, a large portion of this is keeping you know, these

these trucks running right, keeping them enough, giving them enough fuel, provides a lot of pressure throughout this, but also this

kind of actuarial table of how everyone's doing. And I think it's a really interesting contrast between this sense of relief like our characters have gotten through this and then this you know, kind of stinking realization like oh no, the fuel tanker has holes in it, or oh no, you know that RPG went off in the back of one of these fans, and then to have all of that kind of summarized in this like very dry kind of table. It's a it's an interesting story of life, I'll put it that way.

he doesn't change through the whole book. He keeps that sort of mentality, but by the end he softened and can make jokes about it. Right, He's still gonna to do things the same way, but he understands that it's become sort of like a comedic thing to a lot of the guys in the unit. But but those person

they're called perse stats, a personal status report. Those are the livered daily in the army and even on tiny outposts in Afghanistan, you're every morning and every night you're sending a purse that back either by the radio or by a computer system saying hey, we started the day with twenty guys. We've still got twenty guys present for duty. We've got all of our sense of items, we've got everything. We're good to go, and you know, report on your

different categories supply. But that is like a core function of the army. It's a core principle of like reporting your people and reporting stuff, and it's a marking someone. There's a there's a part in the book where some of the guys are sent off on a side mission right by themselves, and they're marked on this This perse status is what's called DUST one, which is duty status whereabouts unknown. And in the army, that's like a very very serious category to mark someone in. It means essentially

someone's missing, like I don't know where they are. I kind of like I know where I last saw them, but I don't know their status. They might be dead,

they might be captured. I just don't know. But the the discipline it takes to on a on a form or on a spreadsheet mark a friend of yours is dead is a like a seriously emotional trauma to go through because it makes it official, right, like you know, you may have seen that person die, but until you're you're forced to write on an official form like yeah, this person is Kia, this person is dead. It it doesn't have the sense of permanence that it used to happen.

So this is a it's a it's a plot device I really liked, mostly because it's it's such a part of military life that even in World War three, even in the middle of a Africa, some of the people just can't get away from it. They can't get away from, you know, doing what got them to this point.

the world. So one, if you could, could you briefly because again we're trying to stick to an hour and I don't want to reveal too much again buy the book, But what are you trying to do with Alex Free our main character and then his brother, right, who's much more mysterious and has a very kind of different role in this story, but is still kind of pushing people, you know, towards the kind of finish.

this book. That's not always true in those are the short stories that followed the Mango Moon universe that I wrote. But you can make the case that that John and Alex are actually the same person and an event in

their life drove them down different paths. They're both you know, tall and athletic, they're both sort of these all American kids who went to great schools and come from a great family, and one of them ends up being this family centric war and the other one ends up being this sort of international not international man of mystery, but this sort of international man with nothing tying him to

a life beyond what he does day to day. And I think it's a it's a path that a lot of young men face the decision to make, like do I want to you know, go off shore and work on a rig for five years, or do I want to get married? Or do I want to join the army or you know whatever. But the two characters spent a lot of the book at odds with each other, and if there's ever a sequel to Blood Memory, it

probably would reveal what happened. But they're these like this dichotomy of one another, but they're both sort of have the same interest in their heart, but they go about it in two very different ways. You Know, John is very selfish and things he's right all the time and used to like not having to report where he's going or or talking about what he does to people. And Alex is used to being in control. He's an army officer.

He's used to saying something and it happening. And he's a he's a father and a husband, so he's used to being around and putting their needs first. And that's also a core Tenet of this sort of an aboss's tale of what happened in Binger family to war and he's so he's forced to face this, whereas John is is sure he cares about Alex and Alex's family, but he has his own priorities and he's going to try to get that stuff done in the way he wants

to do it. And it's it's a it's a little bit of internal strife and it doesn't go, you know, too far over the top, because I don't I don't want to write a book where like there's betrayal by the people closest to you, right, because that's sure that does happen. But like, the book is really about the American way of life and the way Americans approach problems and work together juxtaposed against the way the Russians or

the Africans or the Chinese do it. And a lot of the decisions that the Americans face are also faced by the Russians and the Chinese and sometimes the Africans, and you can kind of see how they approach them differently. But within the American sort of sections of the book, you can see how different Americans approach the problem differently. And using Alex and John in that role lets you sort of pick which American you would solve problems like and I want to include a CIA guy because there's

CIA guys all over Africa. And John is is definitely not a superhuman superspy, right. There are some things he's good at and some things he's really not good at. And he sort of fails a couple of times doing a few things things, but he's also very successful doing a few things. And that's that's sort of the type of character I wanted to to write The Fallible One. Yeah.

did not read it. We had a professional person to read it, and I actually listen into the whole thing before it got released and made a couple of notes, so it I know, a lot of times you read like military audible book audiobooks and the way they pronounce things that are really rile up veterans, but this is veteran improved, I guess. So you're not gonna hear them say an M one six They're gonna call it an M sixteen. You know they're gonna they're gonna do it

the right way. But yeah, that's that's available for pre order right now and then it will drop May fifth. The book is available still on paperback and hardcover. I'm getting a lot of pressure to write a sequel. I'm not sure that that's gonna happen. Happen it might to me, the book is a you know, I say this tongue in cheek, but it's got a pretty clear cut ending and there's no loose ends to tie up, and it ends in the way that you know, it is a

believable ending. But people, you know, I don't want to say that. The more people bug me to write a sequel,

the more I will. But you know, it's all about demand. Right, if people like it, you know, I got on Twitter to to tell stories about you know, the military history and things like that, and if if I think it adds value to people and the way that people view the world, and you know, especially young man at that sort of frux of of their lives looking for not necessarily you know, a hero, but sort of an inspiration of how to solve problems. I think they can find

that in my book. And I think if if that's something that people do derive some value from, I could be persuaded to write a sequel.

If you want to support me because this is what I do, you can head over to Patreon, Substack, or gum road and get all the episodes early with no advertisements for like five bucks a month. It's a pretty good deal. Also, you can check out our sponsors, Axios Remote Fitness Coaching. I've got a little bit of a head cold, haven't been in the gym, but normally five days a week doing what JD tells me to do.

And then also Fox and Son's Coffee. You use code Jay Burden, just Jay Burden, no extra characters or anything. You get fifteen percent off there. Drink it this morning. It's good stuff. I recommend it again. Philip Man, this was a ton of fun.