Charles Sheehan-Miles

Making sure your prims belong to you

2009-06-16T15:09:00.004-04:00

As I noted earlier, I'm going through some of the pain I dealt with in securing RPCS so would-be hackers won't exploit the system. Of course, no system is completely secure. But I've done everything I can to make it so expensive and difficult to hack that no one will bother.

So.. the first challenge was this: preventing people from both listening to the internal communications of the system, and preventing them from impersonating those communications. That's actually more difficult than it seems, for a number of reasons. First, even though every object and script in second life gets it own GUID (globally unique identifier), that can't be used for this purpose, because the entire system gets a new GUID every time it changes ownership or is rezzed in world.

This is complicated a bit further because the system itself contains multiple scripts. So I'll walk through the steps that were taken:

Resetting the device

First: reset the device. This happens every time it's attached, when you log in, or when it is rezzed on the ground. Resetting the scripts clears the memory (and any data, including passwords), and forces a startup from scratch.

attach(key f_ID) {
llResetScript();
}
changed(integer f_Changed) {
if ((f_Changed & CHANGED_OWNER)) {
llResetScript();
}

Ok... so now we've got a clean startup. However, this doesn't do anything with the _other_ scripts in the object. That's fine, because just about the first thing that will be done is resetting all of the scripts.

Now, since the script is being reset when a new person gets it.. when they rez it... when they wear it... we know we're starting from a clean slate. Next step is to start checking security. First, we ask for attach permissions, because if security checks fail, the object kills itself. Second, a password is set.

Note that the password uses an internal algorith that all the scripts know, so that they can independently arrive at the same one. We'll need that in a minute.

What we're trying to accomplish here is a couple of specific things.

First, one of the ways people hack objects in LSL is by replacing nonessential scripts. Second, they'll insert their own, which listens to what's going on inside. Third, they'll rip the scripts out, and place them in their own prim. We're going to address all of those things.

string securePass;


default {
    state_entry() {
     llRequestPermissions(llGetOwner(),(PERMISSION_ATTACH)); // (Ask for permission to attach, because if it fails, the object will commit suicide
     securePass = "whatever";
     llResetOtherScript("everythign"); // reset all the other scripts *except* for the security script, we'll get to that seperately
     checkSecurity();
        llSetTimerEvent(0.3);
}
timer() {
        if ((securityOK == 1)) state load;
}

Note what state_entry basically does: nothing. It calls the checksecurity function, and then chills. Unless the events in checkSecurity work out? The system never moves to loading or running states.

Next we'll take a look at the checkSecurity() function.

checkSecurity(){
    me = llGetOwner();
    if ((llGetCreator() != "put GUID of creating avatar here")) {disable();}
    integer perms = llGetObjectPermMask(MASK_OWNER);
    if (me != "put my own GUID here") {
              if ((perms & PERM_MODIFY)) {
             disable();
        }
    }
    llResetOtherScript("security");
}

Ok... now we're getting to our first actual checks. Notice we've had .. maybe 1 millisecond pass at this point. If that. The checkSecurity function starts, the first thing it does is sets a variable for the owner of the object.

Next step: we check llGetCreator() ... does it equal who the creator of the object is supposed to be?

Important point here. If you're like me, there's probably mod/transfer and full perm objects floating all over the place created by you. That won't do. What I did in this case was grabbed an alt... one who'd never made anything... ever... for anyone... and _that_ account created a prim and scripts and passed them over. So that's what I'm working with here. The only mod prim in existence created by that account belongs to me.

So.. the first check here says... if I'm running in a prim created by anyone else... then run disable() (which causes the meter to choke and die).

Then... just in case I screw up and hand out a mod version of it even once, it checks first... is the object owned by me? If not, it checks if permissions are modifiable. If they are? then it dies.

So this mostly deals with the issue of prim creator/owner. Next we move on to the tough part. We reset the script security, then sit back and wait, because that script takes control of the next phase.

Market research firm predicts population explosion for virtual worlds

2009-06-16T11:04:00.002-04:00

From Massively.com. This echoes other reports I've seen (not to mention on the ground "virtual" experience of rapid growth).

They've predicted that by 2015, the overall population of virtual worlds will go from what it is now at 186 million people all the way up to 640 million

Developing a secure gaming platform in Second Life

2009-06-16T09:46:00.003-04:00

Warning! Some geekiness ahead. One of the projects I've been working on heavily lately is RPCS, a roleplaying and combat system in Second Life. Not something I've blogged about here before, but it's actually proved to be a fairly fascinating project on a technical level. One of the biggest reasons is because hacking, particularly hacking of games, is a huge challenge. I want to spend a little bit of time writing about the specific challenges involved, and how I've addressed them here, because I had a great deal of difficulty finding much on the web which addressed these issues. This is a fairly new frontier in a rapidly growing area. So... the objectives were simple:

Prevent people from being able to modify the system or to hijack it by impersonating commands (for instance, by stealing experience points, using hijacked commands to kill other players, etc.)
Prevent people from accessing the source code or in an way modifying the system itself
Secure communications between the meters which are worn by avatars
Secure communications between the meters and the internet hosted database server

That's a lot to cover, and it's a challenging task. The fact is that the most popular combat systems in Second Life have been hacked to death, cheated, exploited on a regular basis. Going into this I knew that I had my work cut out for me. Not to mention that we're using multiple technologies, all of which have to be secure in order to keep the system from being exploited. The technology used in this project includes Microsoft SQL Server and Coldfusion 8 on the back end, and Linden Scripting Language (LSL) for the in-world portion.

For the internet side, most of the pieces are fairly well known (though I'll cover those)... the things I primarily needed to address were:

Unauthorized access to the back end website which communicates with in-world devices
SQL-injection attacks
Internal permissions and access to specific portions of the public website

For the in-world portion, it gets more complicated. Some of the most commonly used methods of hacking an in-world system include:

Listening to/impersonating meter-to-meter communications (open chat)
Listening to/impersonating internal communications (linked messages)
Insertion of unauthorized scripts
Stripping scripts out of the device to recreate a new one

On top of that, as anyone who has scripted in LSL knows, both lag and available memory space are HUGE problems. Because each LSL script has a memory space of only 64k (if compiled in mono) for both the script bytecode and all variables, and because the average simulator runs thousands of scripts at a time, performance and memory tweaking are major priorities which can often come at the cost of security.

The next couple of entries will address these various risks and ways they can be addressed.

Giving Away My Book for Free

2008-01-01T15:34:00.000-05:00

I've never been one for New Years resolutions. Quit smoking? Yeah, right. However, a New Years action I can deal with. Here's the plan: starting today, I'm going to be giving away the ebook version of Republic for free.

No more sample chapters, partial books that end in the middle, none of that. You can download and read the complete book. Share it with your friends, email it, do anything you want with it except sell it. Hope you enjoy the book and tell others.

Ebook Links:

Adobe Acrobat PDF

Mobipocket / Amazon Kindle

HTML (Read online)

RTF (Rich Text Format / MS Word)

Podcast Links:

Subscribe with iTunes

Podiobooks.com

Feedburner

You can also order from Amazon: $16.95

Okay, so maybe you are wondering why? After all, I'm hoping that within the next few years, I'll be making enough money from book sales that I'll be able to write full time. Isn't giving the book away somewhat counterproductive to that goal?

I don't think so. Here's why: the biggest challenge most authors face isn't online piracy. It's not people out there diabolically copying their works and distributing them for free. In fact most authors (including yours truly) suffer from a different problem entirely -- no one has ever heard of them. After all, literally hundreds of thousands of new titles come out every year, and only a few hundred writers in the entire United States (if that many) actually live off their books full time. So, by giving away the book, I hope more people actually read it.

Want to share it with a friend? Feel free. Email it to them, send them the link, whatever. If you find that you enjoy the book, I'm hoping you'll order a copy, but that isn't required. You could also post a review somewhere. Post a link in your blog. Ask your library to order a copy, so more people can get it for free. Whatever. If you do post a link somewhere, let me know about it. I'd love to see lots of people reading the book, the more the merrier.

Will giving it away cut sales and make me a poorer person? I don't think so. There's plenty of evidence out there that giving away the book will actually boost sales. If you don't believe me, check out Eric Flint's column in Jim Baen's Universe, which actually runs the numbers and takes down some of the myths associated with Digital Rights Management, publishing, encryption, and copyright fanaticism.

http://www.ericflint.net/index.php/2007/04/27/eric-flint-on-drm-and-copyright/#more-316

Update:

I did not expect this to end up on the front page of Digg. That is excellent. Someone asked about the license -- it's under the Creative Commonse 2.5 Attritibution, No Derivatives license. In other words, read it, give it to other people, but don't make money from it. Thanks to those who mirrored when my server went down last night!

Reviving the Bonus March

2007-12-07T06:54:00.000-05:00

About ten years ago, I picked up a long out-of-print copy of Walter W. Water's account of the 1932 Bonus March. Waters was one of the leaders of the original group that travelled from Oregon to Washington, DC. The book had been out of print since before I was born, but is now back.

Walter W. Waters was an Army sergeant who had served in Europe during the first World War. Like millions of other Americans during the great depression, he struggled to find a livelihood for his family, with little luck. In 1932, he led 300 veterans in a cross-country odyssey to petition Congress for release of the promised bonus for World War I veterans. Eventually, more ten thousand veterans gathered in DC. They were driven out. From Waters’ account of the tragedy: “The troops stopped at the buildings in the Pennsylvania Avenue area and took them one at a time. Each one housed forty to a hundred men. The men were chased out with drawn bayonets and gas bombs. The men of the B.E.F. had come to Washington, hoping to get something from the Government. They were getting it—the most modern type of tear gas.” While a number of accounts of the Bonus March exist, this is one of the only first-hand accounts, written by one of the leaders of the movement. I'm very proud to be involved with bringing this book back into print, and hope you'll check it out!

http://www.amazon.com/B-Whole-Story-Bonus-Army/dp/0979411459/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1245149705&sr=8-7

Irritated this morning (or why Chris Hedges pisses me off)

2007-12-05T06:56:00.000-05:00

About 2 days a week, I work from Cup a Joe Hillsborough in Raleigh, rather than driving all the way home after dropping my son off at school. This morning, I sat down at my table to see a copy of the Triangle Free Press, which the previous occupant left behind. The headline: "Top Commanders Oppose Iran Attack." So far, nothing too surprising. But then I read the first paragraph of the article, written by Chris Hedges. Here it is:

When military command is the voice of reason in a debate about a new war, you know our democracy is in trouble.

Chris, Chris, Chris. Come on. Where have you been the last decade? Here's the point you miss -- the last person who wants to go to war is the people who have to live through it. It's the stay at home couch commandoes who yell for war. The soldiers go where they’re told, and no doubt if they have to go to war, they do it without question and with absolute loyalty. But our recent history demonstrates all too well the fact that those who have to do the shooting (and dying) want to see reasonable steps taken before they are sent into combat. Here's a quick review. It was the Chief of Staff of the Army who gave the only realistic assessment of how many troops would be needed to have a successful occupation in Iraq. It was the Marine commanders who argued against stupid and unnecessary punitive expeditions to level Fallujah instead of a genuine counterinsurgency -- and the civilians who overruled them. It was the soldiers, who argued strongest against the use of torture, and it was a soldier who reported abu Ghraib and risked his life and future to make sure the right thing was done. It was the military lawyers who fought the Department of Justice (!) against the use of extreme interrogation techniques, and the counterintelligence experts who argued publicly that torture wasn't going to get us anywhere. In Congress, it was the military veterans, including John McCain, who argued most aggressively against failed techniques that violated the Geneva Conventions. It was veterans groups like Veterans for Common Sense that made the most cogent and reasonable arguments against going to war in the first place in Iraq. Chris, this is coming from an avowed left-of-center American. It's comments like that, which make the left look like a bunch of latte-drinking Volvo driving America haters. When you base your argument off an assumption that all too many in the left make, that the military is made up of a bunch of gun toting thugs who love to go to war and KILL KILL KILL, you miss the whole fucking point. You hand ammunition to the culture warriors, and take us all a step back into the time warp of the 1960's that all too many of the culture warriors on both sides want us to stay in. Finally, you alienate the very people who have the most to lose in any conflict -- the people who have to fight in it.

5 Dec 2007 Paul Sulivan Charles, Congratulations that your book is featured at Borders! Let's make some money on your talent! And happy birthday to your older brother! (I vote for the baby picture.) Regarding Chris Heges, you are correct, that it is the soldiers who do the fighting. And you are absolutely right when you say the military is not a bunch of gun-toting thugs who want to kill, kill, kill. Those of us who have been there know better. However, our military is infiltrated with just dominionists religious fanatics, especially chaplains, demanding and fighting for their religious holy war to destroy the globe and bring about their rapture. They are led by an insane criminal and warmongering miliary deserter. In defense of Chris, he often writes for the rich and forgets his time in several combat zones as a reporter. I think he is trying to say that it is bitterly ironic that the out-of-touch military leadership that remained nearly unanimously quiet (except Shinseki) about Bush's lust for war, at least for a few retired brass, found some balls and dared to say that another pre-emptive war against Iran would become yet another debacle. Paul.

5 Dec 2007 Charles Sheehan-Miles Yeah, I know he's well intentioned. But too many people are too slipshod in both their language and assumptions, and this opening sentence was a classic example.

Remembering Oxford Books

2007-11-15T06:58:00.000-05:00

For about ten years – from 1984 until ’94, I was a regular at Oxford Books in Atlanta. It’s been on my mind the last few days, because Veronica and I have pretty much made the decision that we want to be closer to family, and we’ll likely move back there once the school year is over. It’s hard, however, for me to imagine an Atlanta without Oxford Books. I realize the population of the city has near tripled since I was in high school, and many of you in Atlanta now never knew Oxford. It was a literary paradise – a wonderful independent bookstore, originally at Peachtree Battle shopping center, then expanded into the space next door, then they expanded more into a huge old house nearby for the used books, then much later they opened their flagship store on Pharr Road. The rapid expansion in 90-92, combined with the recession, did a lot of harm financially, and the company finally went bankrupt. What I remember – living just a few blocks away in middle school, Oxford was a regular hangout, because we could get good sci-fi, new and used there. In high school, virtually every girl I dated (or at least wanted to) worked there at one time or another, and I remember long, late nights sitting in the Cup & Chaucer (the upstairs coffee shop) writing, talking, and, of course, smoking. Later, it became a refuge when I was in the Army, and very often I drove from Fort Stewart (near Savannah) to Atlanta on the weekends just so I could hang out there. After the Army I returned to Atlanta, and spent I don’t know how many hours there in the coffee shop: making friends, relaxing, reading, writing. I worked there for a while, in the receiving department at Peachtree Battle and later as a cashier on Pharr Road. In the fall of 1993, I was sitting in the coffee shop reading a book called “Among The Thugs,” about England’s famous football thugs, when a young yankee woman (sorry, northerner) kept bumming lights from me. Turned out she actually had a lighter, but wanted to say hello. Six months later we got married right there in the coffee shop, and we’re still together today. I suppose it’s a truism that you can’t ever really go home, and I know that Atlanta is certainly not the same city it was when I was free and in my early twenties. I’m certainly not the same person I was in my early twenties. I understand there’s a new, large independent bookstore in Decatur called “Wordsmith’s,” which I’ll be sure to check out. But part of me will always grieve a little that Oxford is gone. The slideshow is a few shots from our wedding at the Cup & Chaucer.

Why interface design is so important

2007-11-04T06:59:00.000-05:00

I’m finally finished doing the layout and design of Cincinnatus Press’ newest book, B.E.F. The Whole Story of the Bonus Army. The book was originally printed in 1932, and is a must read for anyone who follows veterans issues: written by one of the key organizers of the 1932 bonus march, it chronicles the story of the bonus marchers as they crossed the country on their way to Washington, the summer spent lobbying Congress, and their final expulsion from DC at the hands of the U.S. Army. What does this have to do with interface design? Well, the authoritative place to go when you are registering new titles in print is Bowkerlink.com, because Bowker is the authorized manager of the US ISBN agency. If you want to be listed in Books In Print, you have to go there. And my conclusion, after dealing with their terribly designed and nonfunctional system, is that no system at all is probably better than a badly designed one. The issue I’m struggling with is that in adding three different versions of the same book (hardcover, trade paperback and ebook), somehow their system managed to munge two of them so I now have to editions of the book with the same ISBN number. That’s a problem, because it will screw up ordering systems, etc. This is pretty basic functionality – generally when you design a database that has a column which should countain unique records – which ISBN’s are supposed to be – you simply make the column a primary key and program some logic which prevents anyone from accidentally entering a duplicate. I’m not sure at what point in the process I ended up with the duplicate, but I do know that it’s a big problem. I’ve written their tech support, and hopefully it should be relatively simple to resolve (we shall see) but it raises an issue I’ve been struggling with a lot lately as I get the beta of ActiveCharity.org up and running. I’m no expert when it comes to interface design. In face, my experience is that the interfaces I do design tend to be frustrating, difficult to use, generally a big headache. Kind of like using Bowker’s ISBN logbook application. So I’ve spent weeks (actually months) extra on the programming, trying to do everything I could to simplify, streamline, and make the application as self-explanatory as possible. Where possible, I’m trying to use Apple as an inspiration. Say what you will about Apple as a company or OS X as an operating system, if there’s one thing those guys know how to do, it’s program an interface that works. The iPhone in particular has such a simple interface that when I checked one out at the Apple Store recently, it literally took about 30 seconds to figure out how to use almost all of the device. Unlike my current phone, a Windows Mobile device that routinely gives me fits, has to be reset three times a day, and misses calls on top of all that. So I spent some time reading about interface design, trying to identify what works and what doesn’t. Then I spent some time studying my Mac and how the best programs seem to flow. Then I started putting it together. Will it work? We shall see. In the meantime, if anyone wants to donate an iPhone so I can get a closer review and therefore improve my programming skills, please feel free.

Two new reviews of Republic

2007-09-18T07:01:00.000-04:00

Good news here. Two solid reviews came back on Republic, from Midwest Book Review and Out in Jersey Magazine.

From Midwest Book Review:

"Republic is a very interesting, thought provoking story about the loss of jobs due to corporate greed, abuse of power by government agencies and a civil war. Charles Sheehan-Miles is an exceptional writer..."

From Out in Jersey Magazine:

"This book's strength is that anyone who prizes the traditional rights and freedoms of our nation will be both frightened and alerted by the near-future possibilities it presents....a fast, well plotted action story of the sort one can now put down."

Republic reviewed at Veterans for Common Sense

2007-07-05T07:02:00.000-04:00

Paul Sullivan, the executive director at Veterans for Common Sense just posted a review of Republic on his blog. "Republic is the best contemporary fiction I’ve ever read." Wow. Thank you, Paul.

Read the full review here.

How podcasting and free content is changing the publishing landscape

2007-07-04T07:05:00.000-04:00

There's a great piece in this morning's Broward-Palm Beach New Times about J.C. Hutchins, who has been podcasting his 7th Son series over at Podiobooks.com. The most important quote: sleep is for pussies.

J.C. is way ahead of me in terms his podcast -- 20,000 listeners, compared to my measly few hundred to date. but the basic point is there -- more and more, authors are getting out there and doing it themselves, in some cases podcasting their work, or simply giving it away for free, as sci-fi author Cory Doctorow is doing.

Great stuff, because its slowly changing the publishing landscape and opening doors, thanks to new technology including the internet, the ability to print a single copy of a book on the same day it is ordered, and lots of other good news for folks like me. Scott Sigler, an awesome writer who podcasted Earthcore, among others, just inked a $500,000 movie/book deal with Crown Books. Nice.

Which takes me to the last couple weeks with Republic. Right after the DailyKos review last Sunday, Republic shot up to the number 2 spot on Amazon's Sci-Fi/Alternate history list, and has been hovering in the top 20,000 to top 40,000 books sold ever since (right now the sales rank is 11,588). While being in the top 20,000 may not sound like much (and it really isn't) for a bestselling author, it's pretty damn good for a author/publisher/broadcaster one man operation. Especially since that's top 20,000 out of over 4 million titles. I've got no complaints.

Final comment -- I'm well into writing the sequel to Republic. I haven't decided yet whether or not to post any of the raw, ugly stuff here yet, or wait until its finished, re-written, polished, etc. However, one way or the other, I plan to have the new one out by next summer. The book takes place about seven years after Republic, and has a significantly different feel to it. While Republic is speculative fiction, it's still close enough to our time (2016) that technology hasn't changed that much, and the world I'm writing about is still very much our own. By 2022, however, things have changed a lot. I'm still trying to get my mind around what kinds of changes those might be: technology, politics, war, economics, health. It's fun and exciting and I can't wait to start sharing it.

Anyway, check out the article about J.C. Hutchins and take a stop over at Podiobooks.com, where, along with his books, my own are available.

Amazon forums

2007-06-29T07:06:00.000-04:00

I started to post a comment in reply to a post over at Steve Weber's blog, about promoting books on Amazon's customer forums page. But the comment got longer, and decided to go ahead and post it as an entry.

Steve raises the question of authors promoting their books on Amazon's customer forums, and makes the point that the forums are seeing greatly increased use now that the are posted across multiple books based on keyword, rather than a forum for each title.

What I've noticed looking through the politics, war and scifi forums (the ones which fit my books the most) is that there's some strong discussions going in, but there's also a small number of writers jumping in saying "pick me! pick me!" Goes like this: Q. Can you recommend a good book on x? A1. I recommend blah blah.... A2. I though blah blah was .... A3. I wrote a book called ... You get the picture. What is interesting is that the voting links, where people say whether not a post "added to the discussion" invariable punish the self-promoting author. What I think this means is that if you are going to promote in Amazon forums, you have to be a little more subtle than that. Otherwise, people figure it is just spam. So participate in the forums, but not just to say, "Well, buy my book." Instead, make relevant and valuable contributions that people will find of use. It will help your credibility. Whether or not it helps book sales is an open question.

Why there may still be hope in Iraq

2007-06-26T07:07:00.000-04:00

For me, the war in Iraq has never been about domestic politics. It's been about the incredible damage we did in 1991 by encouraging the Kurds and Shia to rebel against Saddam Hussein, then abandoning them to be massacred by their own government. For me the question about the war always centers around: how do we get to a viable end-state in Iraq where the people have a chance at a decent life. Dave Kilcullen over at Small Wars Journal has written an excellent piece which gives some hope to that possibility.

Kilcullen's blog entry is a simple explanation of what the intent of the surge operation is all about. This is important, because a lot of folks are running around saying "the surge has failed!" According to Kilcullen, and most of the other military folks I've been reading, the surge is only now starting. Everything up to now has only been preparation.

“I know some people in the media are already starting to sort of write off the “surge” and say ‘Hey, hang on: we’ve been going since January, we haven’t seen a massive turnaround; it mustn’t be working’. What we’ve been doing to date is putting forces into position. We haven’t actually started what I would call the “surge” yet. All we’ve been doing is building up forces and trying to secure the population. And what I would say to people who say that it’s already failed is “watch this space”. Because you’re going to see, in fairly short order, some changes in the way we’re operating that will make what’s been happening over the past few months look like what it is—just a preliminary build up.”

This makes sense to me -- all I have to do is consider how many months it took to get US forces in place during the '91 Gulf War. You can't turn an operation that size on like a light bulb.

Here's the point that gives me hope, however. I was writing more than two years ago that the focus needs to shift from killing the enemy to protecting the population, because the only way to help Iraq back on the path to a viable state is for the population to be able to work, go to school, and live their lives without fear of being blown up by either terrorists or errant artillery from our side. That shift in emphasis is critical, and it is the key point I've seen developing in recent months:

When we speak of "clearing" an enemy safe haven, we are not talking about destroying the enemy in it; we are talking about rescuing the population in it from enemy intimidation. If we don't get every enemy cell in the initial operation, that's OK. The point of the operations is to lift the pall of fear from population groups that have been intimidated and exploited by terrorists to date, then win them over and work with them in partnership to clean out the cells that remain – as has happened in Al Anbar Province and can happen elsewhere in Iraq as well.

For me this isn't academic. Given that my nephew just joined the Marine Corps, I'd say the odds of his going to Iraq are pretty much certain. I'm hoping that when he does go, the plan makes sense.

DailyKos Review

2007-06-25T07:11:00.000-04:00

This morning TeacherKen over at DailyKos posted one hell of a review of Republic: A Novel of America's Future. For those of you who aren't aware of it, Kos is the powerhouse of blogs, with more than 100,000 daily visitors. The exiting news? By the end of the night, the book had jumped to the top ten new releases on Amazon, with a sales rank in the low 2000s. Wow.

Of course, we know that will drop -- temporary peaks like that are pretty cool, but I'm in this for the long haul, and that means growing my audience one reader at a time. Starting with you: if you haven't picked up your copy yet, now is the time.

I'm only going to quote a couple of paragraphs here, you can check out the full review (and the many, many comments) here.

We live in a time where we have seen people resort to domestic violence because of their grievances. We have had the assassination of abortion providers, the bombing of clinics. We have seen groups establish themselves as "militias." Timothy McVeigh was moved to his terrorist act because of what had happened in Waco. We had a shooting at Ruby Ridge. We have had lynchings of people because of their race, their sexual orientation, their appearance. We do not live in a nation where the level of trust - of our government or of each other - is something that inspires confidence in our personal security.

I am going to urge you to read the book. It flows, it will not take you all that long to go through the 331 pages. It will disturb you. It should.

Perhaps the image Sheehan-Miles offers us may seem extreme, unlikely. But in a time when we have seen our basic beliefs about our nation, our rights, our government, challenged and undercut, perhaps we need to at least contemplate the consequences if we do not challenge the erosion of our basic liberties even in the name of security. And if we do not understand how deep some grievances can be, how disconnected some people may become from our society, then this novel of America’s future may be far more prophetic than we might otherwise imagine.

Is this what we swore to defend?

2007-06-25T07:09:00.000-04:00

I’ll never forget the day I took the oath of enlistment. It was April of 1990, and I was preparing to leave for Fort Knox, Kentucky for basic training. Little did I know that in a little less than a year, I’d be keeping that oath for real, on a battlefield in Iraq.

I enlisted because I’m a believer in democracy. An idealist, if you will. I grew up knowing that my father had served in Vietnam, and that his father had spent more than three years in a Japanese prisoner of war camp. And, though there was no war on the horizon on the date I enlisted, I knew that the possibility was there that I would one day be called to arms to defend those principles I believed in.

That’s one of the reasons I find it so difficult to accept where I believe our country is headed today. As a longtime activist and novelist very concerned about the future of our country, I keep asking myself, how did we get where we are?

Here are just a few of the things that frighten me for the future of America:

The Military Commissions Act. Need I say more? All you need now is the mere suspicion of involvement in terrorism to be denied the basic writ of habeas corpus. What’s the bottom line? Your freedom. The fundamental basic right to challenge your detention. Even if we give the President the benefit of the doubt (yeah, I know), there’s nothing to prevent a future president from abusing this power. What constitutes support for terrorists? Does this diary count? Who knows? So let’s say – just for example – that the government breaks down your door in the middle of the night, and carries you off to an undisclosed location because you are suspected of involvement with terrorism, you don’t have the right or the ability to challenge that designation. You could be held for years, with no charges, no access to an attorney, and no way to contact anyone on the outside.

That scary part about this is that it seems many Americans, who are so terrified of Islamic terrorists sneaking into their house at night and beheading them, don’t really care or even know about the erosion of their rights. After all, we trust our government. They wouldn’t do something like this to us, only to those bad guys (the ones with brown skins, I mean).

Who can blame Americans for thinking this? After all, 4 in 10 American still believe Iraq sponsored 9/11, and 20% of them believe that "most" of the hijackers came from Iraq.

Fear, ignorance and prejudice have allowed our government to steadily increase the scope of its activity as well its intrusion into our own lives, from the large issues to the small. You have to ask permission from the government to start a business, open a bank account, or make alterations to your home. The government, on the other hand, doesn’t have to ask you for permission to do anything, anymore. In other words, it is all turned upside down. Pretty soon, with the so-called "REAL ID" in the works, you’ll have to have federal identity papers to board a place, train or enter a government building. How long will it take before you have to show your papers to open a bank account, or register your child for school. There’s no way to opt out.

Today, if you are, like me, a frequent traveler, you can do a "pre-clearance" background check in order to go through security quickly at some airports. How long will it be before you have to have a background investigation in order to get on a plane at all? And god forbid if you, like this woman did, bring your child through the gates with a dangerous sippy cup. Luckily for her, she only had to get down on her hands and knees and wipe up the water spill while the agents stood around watching. It could have been a lot worse.

Even as the federal government takes more and more notice of our every day lives, it’s doing everything it can to keep citizens from paying attention to what they are doing. There’s been plenty of talk all over the internet about Vice President Cheney’s role in trying to shield the office of the Vice President from any form of public disclosure, as well as the illegal use of private email accounts by White House staff in order to shield activities from legal oversight of federal information systems. But it’s not just Cheney, and it’s not just the White House. There has been a concerted effort at all levels of the federal government to deny access to documents and activities that normally are subject to the Freedom of Information Act, and after September 11, the feds went through an orgy of pulling data offline because it might in some way endanger us all.

Sadly, it’s not even just the government getting into the act. Even as a federal court judge slammed the President today over the domestic spying scandal, AT&T is moving to develop technology that will allow it to monitor the internet usage of all of its customers. After all, they might be trading pirated software. Or talking about democracy. Who knows? This explains why French officials have been given the hard line – no more Blackberries, because the network traffic would cross U.S. networks.

We do know that according to a recent audit, the FBI violated its own rules on privacy in more than 1000 cases, and that states investigating the illegal release of information about their citizens by public utilities to the federal government are being stymied by that same federal government, which is seeking to have the investigation and court case dropped on the grounds of "state secrets." I know. I’m probably going a little over board. After all, the feds don’t really go around rounding up people in secret.

That is, unless they’re foreigners (or maybe just look like foreigners). German citizen Khaled el-Masri was kidnapped by the CIA, drugged, beaten up, taken to central Asia and held without charge for months. When they finally realized they had the wrong guy, they dumped him off on a hillside in yet another country. Crazy. Masri’s case, however, is going nowhere, however, because – you guessed it. State secrets. In this case, as well as one in Italy, a number of CIA agents and pilots are now facing investigations and trials for those activities, which the US government won’t accept responsibility for.

On the flip side, it’s becoming increasingly dangerous to demand the level of transparency and accountability from our government that a democracy demands. For example, a few weeks ago in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, an 18 year old passenger attempted to videotape a traffic stop. The driver got a ticket. The kid with the camera, ironically, now faces felony wiretapping charges. Go figure.

In our country today, the federal government can kidnap you, hold you without legal recourse, seize your camera, take your home and give it to a developer, bar you from travel, monitor your telephone and internet usage, and force you to show your papers to travel.

Do you think this is what they meant in the enlistment oath when they wrote, "Protect and Defend the Constitution?"

Neither do I.

National Archives Uncovers Handwritten Note from Lincoln

2007-06-07T15:18:00.000-04:00

The National Archives discovered in its stacks a handwritten note from Abraham Lincoln to General Henry Halleck four days after the battle of Gettysburg. What an incredible find, and it raises the question of what other kinds of really incredibly interesting stuff can be found in the archives. I wrote a couple of years ago about my search through the archives for information about my grandfather, who was captured on Java at the beginning of World War II along with his entire battalion.

It was fascinating spending the time there digging up those documents, which included an affadavit he wrote for a war crimes trial, photos of the camp he spent most of the war in, as well as all kinds of other interesting stuff.

Here's what Lincoln had to day, courtesy a post over at Knee Deep In Mud:

Major Genl Halleck We have certain information that Vicksburg surrendered to General Grant on the 4th of July. Now, if Gen. Meade can complete his work so gloriously prosecuted thus far, by the litteral(sic) or substantial destruction of Lee's army, the rebellion will be over. Yours truly, A. LINCOLN

I had to come back and edit this on one point. Since I normally rant about how inefficient and screwed up the government is, I should point out that my experience with the National Archives was superb. They are well organized, and the archivists are incredibly knowledgeable. My first trip there, pretty much all I had was my grandfather's name, rank and serial number, and the fact that he'd been a POW in Japan. Within an hour of talking to one of the archivists, they got me the first cable that reported his capture. Pretty amazing.

Featured Author Interview

2007-05-12T15:11:00.000-04:00

After the review of Prayer at Rumayla last week on the Podler Book Review, they asked me to do an interview as their featured author. I was quite honored. Here is the interview:

http://podler.blogspot.com/2007/05/featured-author-interview-charles.html

Charles Sheehan-Miles is the author of A Prayer at Rumayla and is our featured author. Below is the interview. Prayer at Rumayla is your first novel. Tell us about the impetus for writing it. I started work on the first draft about two weeks after the ground war ended in Iraq. To be honest, it was that, or blow my brains out. I was very disturbed not so much by the violence of the war as my emotional reaction to it. The first version was entirely autobiographical, nonfiction. It was terrible — primarily because by writing about myself, I found that the writing was very technical and distant. In 1993 I tossed out everything I’d written and started again from scratch, initially with a short 500 word story I’d written that captured Chet Brown’s voice. What Chet was able to do was act out the emotional turmoil I was stuck in, and do and say things that I would never have done. How much of it is based on your own experiences and how much of it is fiction? Virtually all of the combat sequences are directly from my own experience, with one major exception, a friendly fire incident when the company executive officer called in artillery on his own troops. Most of the rest is fiction — Chet’s coming home was symbolic both of how I felt and what many of my peers went through. What are your views on the current war in Iraq? My views are somewhat schizophrenic on the current war. Imagine if, in 1985, Ronald Reagan had announced that we were going back to Vietnam to get those damn communists. People would have gone insane. I felt the same way about invading Iraq — it was a mistake, a huge mistake. That said, I vividly recall the fate of the Iraqi people after we abandoned them in 1991. Our refusal to act in March 1991 resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths. As huge a mistake as the invasion was, I believe prematurely leaving Iraq now would be a much bigger mistake. For my part, I side with the tens of millions of Iraqis who got out there and voted in their elections, and who want to return to normal lives. Ceding the battlefield to religious extremists would be an absolute betrayal. I’ve written a little about my feelings on this, in an article I co-wrote with another Gulf War vet, titled “Abandonment of Iraq is Wrong” ( http://www.sheehanmiles.com/articleid/12 ) How has the situation of veterans changed, if at all, in comparison to their situation after Desert Shield? There is increasing recognition within the military that post-traumatic stress is a real problem, and in at least some commands, the Army and Marine Corps have been taking very proactive steps to help out folks who are having trouble. There are exceptions, however. A good example is Fort Carson, Colorado, which is currently subject to a series of federal and congressional investigations because soldiers who’ve come home with PTSD are being thrown out with bad-conduct discharges instead of getting the help they need. Have things gotten worse for veterans as far as services are concerned? Overall the VA is much better than it was 15 years ago. The flip side is that the demand is so much higher, with hundreds of thousands of new patients. Waiting lists to see a doctor are sometimes as long as six months. If there is someone out there like Private Brown, reading this, what would you tell him--how would you advise him? Get help. Talk to your family, your peers, and if you aren’t getting help through your chain of command, go visit a VA Vet Center, which will see active duty soldiers. But get help. Post traumatic stress can be life threatening. The best resource out there is the Vet Centers, because the counselors are almost all combat vets themselves. How did you get into writing? I started writing because of a love of reading. My first short stories, when I was in the fifth grade, were complete rip-offs of Marion Zimmer Bradley and Philip Jose Farmer. Later on in high school I wrote a thriller that involved all of my friends getting killed. Had I written it today I’m sure I’d be kicked out of school, but back then my English teacher actually edited the book for me. A second novel was about the Palestinian-Israeli conflict — based on the six months I spent there after high school and before the Army. Did you take any courses in writing, and if so, where and what courses were they? None, though I could use some serious work on my grammar. What is your writing day like? That’s the funniest question I’ve ever heard. Two kids, a job, ownership of a new and tiny publishing company, and volunteer work mean I squeeze the writing in whenever I can. Usually I get that time in by waking up very very early, and writing from around 5 to 6 am, before the kids get up for school. Do you keep a journal? Not anymore. I was once very introspective, and kept details journals with multiple entries per day. After the war I stopped writing in my journal, and now manage two or three entries per year. How do you begin a story--with a concept of character or plot? Both really. Prayer at Rumayla arose so much out of personal experience that it’s hard to describe its genesis, but I think the primary point was that very short story I wrote sitting in the coffee shop at Oxford Books in Atlanta back in ‘93. The new one — Republic — arose out of questions generated by Timothy McVeigh and the Oklahoma City bombing. Later the concept crystalized around the idea of a modern day civil war, and what conditions could cause it to happen. What challenges do you face as a writer? Time and discipline and rewrites are the big challenges. The discipline and rewrites go together — writing a first draft is kind of like mainlining — it’s an experience of joy and ecstasy. The re-write is a slog, a terrible burden. For the new book I hired a professional editor who I’ve worked very closely with, and that’s made the process work a lot better. She had a lot of great ideas and really helped flesh out the work. Do you have any books on writing craft that you use and love and would recommend to other writers or to people who want to start the journey of a writer's life? Donald Maass and How to Write a Breakout Novel is probably the best — he really breaks down some of what makes a good read turn into a great one. You have also written a new book, Republic. I have to say that the cover alone makes me want to grab it and read it. Please tell us something about it. The question is this: If a government continues to tighten security, surveillance and the laws in response to terrorism, at what point have we actually given up our freedom? The story centers around a small town near Harpers Ferry where the main employer, a microchip manufacturer, has shut down and left everyone out of work, and takes place about ten years in our future. Republic envisions a future where our government has become so incredibly intrusive in people’s lives, compounded with massive debt and an economy that has collapsed. The result: spiraling, out of control violence that ends up in a shooting war in West Virginia. The settings: all over West Virginia, plus a lot in Washington, DC in the halls of Congress. The characters are all primarily tied together by one man, Lieutenant Colonel Ken Murphy, an Iraq War veteran who is now a battalion commander in the West Virginia national guard. Murphy finds himself faced with some tough questions — questions about his loyalty to his country versus his oath to defend the Constitution. I’m doing final checking of the galley proofs right now, and it will be available in August. The book’s actually already available for pre-order on Amazon ( http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0979411424 ), and as I did with Prayer at Rumayla, I’ll be podcasting the entire novel. I’ll also be sure to submit it for a review here, I hope you enjoy it as much as the other one!

What Does It Feel Like to Kill?

2007-04-04T15:37:00.000-04:00

What does it feel like to kill?

For some reason, that question’s been on my mind a lot lately. With Chris going off into the Marine Corps later this year, it came up at my brother’s party last weekend. We were talking, and I said to him, “The one thing you have to be prepared for, is you may be put into a position where you have to kill someone.”

But what does that mean?

I’ve been asked the question, many times, starting just a couple of days after I got home from Iraq. It was three a.m., and I was sitting in a Waffle House in Macon, Georgia, with a girl I liked, and I had the misfortune to be wearing my uniform. Somebody had to ask: did I just get home from the war? Yeah. That led to the question, the big question, the one I didn't want to answer, even to myself.

"So what did it feel like to kill somebody?"

None of your god damn business, and who the hell do you think you are to ask something like that anyway?

I didn't actually respond that way. In fact, I don't remember what I said. In due course, the girl I was with became my fiancé, then my ex-fiancé, and life rolled on. But let's face it: the question never went away, did it?

In fact, it's come up again, once or twice. People too stupid or misguided to know better always ask. Did you kill anybody? What was it like?

Bastards.

So how did it feel?

This time I think maybe I'll actually answer the question. But first, let me lay the background.

My life is logically divided into a before and after. The before is everything up until about two in the morning on February 26, 1991. Up until that time, I'd shot at targets, on the range, and even in a lengthy battle on the afternoon on February 25. But to be honest, I was so scared out of my mind on the 25th I barely looked where I was aiming. Bunker that way? Yeah, pull the trigger and hope for the best. Keep firing, the spent brass falling from the machine gun with a rattle, then jump down into the turret to reload a main gun round. Surely some of those main gun rounds killed, but it's not the same when you can't see it.

Then came the moment that neatly bisected my life, and not so neatly ended someone else's.

The tactical details (that's a lot easier to discuss than the emotional): our company was stopped just on the north side of Highway Eight, not very far from Nasiriyah in southern Iraq. It was just about as far north as any American forces got in the 1991 Gulf War. We'd had no sleep to speak of, and the situation was incredibly tense after that lengthy rolling battle through what I later learned was called "Battle Position 102."

I was drifting, asleep in the loader's seat when someone - I think it was our Company Commander, called over the radio. Trucks to our front. We all jumped up, in a panic I think, and the first shot fired hit one of the trucks and it exploded, spraying burning fuel all over the other truck, which also caught fire.

For the record, when the first guy ran out, I pulled the trigger, and discovered the hard way my safety was on. I fumbled with it, until my platoon sergeant, with more than a little impatience, reached over, hit the safety, and walked the stream of bullets until it hit the guy and he went down.

The second one didn't have as much time. As soon as he was in sight I opened fire. Just like training, except that this guy was running away and on fire - I had to chase him down with the tracers.

Another one ran out, and his end was quicker. Our wingman tank opened fire, but the gunner forgot to switch the computer to the coax machine gun. The Iraqi was cut in half by a main gun round.

Then it was over, in one sense. In another sense, it never ended, because that moment never ended, not for me and certainly for the families of the Iraqis we cut down. I've been worrying that moment in my mind for a decade, rubbing my tongue against it like a bad tooth, every once in a while discovering some new aspect of it to keep me awake at night.

***

A few days later - not long at all in objective time, but a lifetime, it seemed, for me, we had a cease-fire, and I took a long and healthy look down the barrel of my .45. It was a model M1911A1 Colt, with extremely worn palm grips, a rifled barrel, and a heft completely absent in the 9mm Berettas we'd trained with in basic training. At fifty feet it shot about six inches to the right, but I'd learned to compensate.

It didn't matter anyway, jammed up in the mouth, whether it shot to the right or not.

It's actually kind of awkward to shoot yourself with a .45, at least that model. Along with the regular thumb safety, and the half-cocked position, the .45 features a third safety, on the back of the pistol grip, to prevent it from being fired unless it's actually gripped in someone's hand. But you can work around that, and I almost did, but I was a bit of a coward after all, and though I wanted to do it, and didn't really have much reason not too, I just couldn't bring myself to pull the trigger. It would have made a god-awful mess in the turret, which my crew would have had to clean up.

I told myself later, it's because of the guys. They depend on me - if I were to pop a cap into my forehead I'd probably get replaced by some dumbhead right out of basic training. I could live with being responsible for my own death, but not my crew's. See, don't I sound noble? Not that I'd have to live with it. It sounded better than 'I chickened out'. But in reality, what I thought was that I was just too much of a fucking weasel to blow myself away. Instead, I'd continue on, poisoning the world and the people I loved with my own brand of sickness. By that time I hated myself so thoroughly that anything I did seemed wrong.

It's not like I really wanted to kill that guy anyway. Hell, he was on fire, and running across the field of view of 14 enemy tanks. He was going to die, no matter what I did. But I was really fucking eager to do it.

S.L.A. Marshall, probably the most influential military historian of the last century and chronicler of, among other things, the forces in Europe in World War II, wrote that as few as one-fifth of soldiers in wartime ever actually fire at the enemy. The rest simply fire in the general direction of the enemy, like a pre-industrial army refusing to actually aim - or firing deliberately low or high. In World War I, whole units established informal cease fires with their opposite numbers in the trenches, and had to be provoked by their own commanders into firing a shot.

It would seem that, despite all our beliefs to the contrary, there is a native reluctance to kill. Despite all the horror and bloodshed of our century, and the many proceeding it, the natural state of humanity is generally to leave each other alone.

I don't know if the more efficient training methods of modern-day basic training have been effective in overcoming that reluctance. I suspect so - the emphasis on training by rote, and doing the same tasks a thousand times until they become second nature, is designed to take away the human aspect of combat. When you ride an Abrams tank into combat, it's not so different from going downrange during gunnery, after all, except that you are scared out of your god damned mind, and the targets move around and shoot back. Not that the Iraqis ever had a chance to do much of that.

The question at hand is: why am I part of the one-fifth who actually pull the trigger? Am I defective or sociopath? Why the hell did I pull the trigger and shoot some guy in the back when I didn't even have to?

Maybe the idiots of the world should stop asking, "What was it like to kill somebody?" and start asking, "Why?"

***

When people ask the damn question, they always have one of two looks in their eyes.

The first look is pity. Those are the people who look at you, concern in their eyes, as they listen to the story. They're the ones who say, "Boy am I glad I never enlisted: I'd never be able to kill someone."

Idiots. Of course you could, it's so fucking easy to kill you wouldn't believe. All you have to do is do what you are told.

Besides, unless you were out protesting against the war, you pulled the goddamn trigger, too. We all did, including those who are too uninterested or tuned out to vote. You mean you didn't vote? You're a killer, too. Welcome to democracy.

I can live with those folks, the ones who are concerned and questioning and just don't know enough to mind their own damn business.

It's the other ones who worry me. The other look some people get, when they ask the question, is one of eager interest. "So what was it like, huh? Huh? How did it feel?"

The look is one of lust: vicarious lust, they want to know what its like. These are the folks who most often say, "I would have joined the Army, but the dog ate my AFSVAB test," or "I almost enlisted in the Navy Seals, but I broke my big toe," and they just freaking piss me off.

It's the same impulse that drives some of the violent movies and games, I think, and I'll be the first to admit that I too, like my share of violent entertainment. Why? Are we the Romans? Will the next step in reality TV be a two thousand year step backwards? The ultimate in reality TV will be an American infantry platoon in combat, and guess what folks, its not that far out a concept. It wouldn't be out of character. I finally realized that the reason few Americans were concerned about the impact of sanctions in Iraq (much less the impact of bombs) is because to them, it just wasn't real. Except for the eldest among us, few Americans have any conception of what real suffering means. To us, real suffering is having to wait three hours while our SUV gets fixed up, or suffering a thirty minute power outage. September 11 was a terrible anomaly, a shock and a tragedy to be sure, but familiar to the rest of the world. It was such a shock to us precisely because we largely lead sheltered, privileged lives.

To the Iraqis, suffering was watching your kid slowly starve. Or never knowing what happened to a missing loved one. Having a father killed in the war with Iran, or in Kuwait, or in one of two wars with America.

Here's what I knew about the Iraqis in 1991:

They had the fourth largest army in the world, a fierce, battle hardened force.

They threw babies out of incubators and speared them on their bayonets.

They tortured their prisoners.

They were in my fucking way if I was ever going home.

I knew all of that then, but now I don't know any of it. Turned out the baby incubator story was an out-and-out lie, invented by a Washington public relations firm and supplemented by the testimony of the daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador and a Congress which took no steps at all to determine if they were being lied to. To you it may be academic that they lied about it, but to me it determined the shape of my life, because I killed for that lie. Some might think the lies that launched us into war are irrelevant, but those people never pulled the trigger, or looked at a stack of dismembered human bodies, or machine gunned a burning man who ran away.

They told us the Iraqis lied to their own troops. The Iraqis have been told that Americans will torture them, or shoot them. What about the lies they told us?

You would think, after more than fifteen years, and three-or-four more wars, a new life with a family and a job and whatever, I wouldn't still be so goddamn angry about it.

If you thought that, you would be wrong. I thought that, but then, a couple years ago, I watched on television as the Third Infantry Division crossed the border into Iraq for the second time, and I felt a strange pulsing above my left eyebrow as my blood pressure climbed, and I knew that another generation of soldiers and civilians was about to go through hell. Some of them I know, because they were there the last time, too.

This time it is worse, far worse. Even though it took lies to get Congress to vote for the last war, at least there was some provocation. After all, Iraq did invade Kuwait. But what about this time? Prior to the war I believed they were lying, and now we know for a fact that they were. To the pundits or people watching television, it is academic. It might be scandalous that the President lied, but no one, except on the hardcore left, is calling for his impeachment or resignation. For my neighbors and for many of us in this country, it is, once again, an academic question.

To the soldiers and civilians whose lives have been laid waste, it is anything but. The irony, of course, is once we got there, there’s no going back. You can’t take down a national government and all its institutions and replace them with nothing. That just leaves you with a failed state, an incubator for terrorists, and humanitarian disasters. It leaves you with future enemies.

Which takes me back to the question I'm still avoiding -- just what exactly did it feel like to pull that trigger and watch a man die.

The thing is, I'd never been a terribly confident person. I turned twenty during the war, and I think in some ways I was a lot younger. Sergeant Lino, my platoon sergeant, wasn't just my tank commander and platoon sergeant, in some ways he was almost a father figure, and I continually felt uneasy, as if nothing I ever did was quite up to snuff. What I remember most about it: more than anything else, I wanted to do the right thing, I wanted to do what would make Sergeant Lino proud of me. That's why I killed, I think: because I didn't have what it took to feel good about myself, I needed someone else's approval. I needed Sergeant Lino to think of me as a man, and not as the scared little kid I really was.

Did it work? Who the hell knows? Pulling that trigger didn't make me any more sure of myself, I know that much. I was still the same scared kid, except now I had every reason to hate myself.

So: what did it feel like? The truth is, it felt good. After days of terror and fear, after chaos and violence on a scale I'd never imagined, when I pulled the trigger and shot that burning man as he ran, all of the sudden I had control, I had all the control. When I pulled that trigger, just for a moment, I was as powerful as God, and for just a second I said "Yes!" and knew that no one could ever fuck with me again.

It may be that isn't what you want to hear. There I was, making a noble sacrifice for my country, putting myself in harm's way to protect your freedom. Forget about it -- once the shooting starts, all that bullshit evaporates. All that's left is 'Get me the hell home.' You wonder how it is civilians get killed in war? It’s because we take a bunch of scared kids, hand them guns, stick them in a shooting gallery, and they do what comes naturally.

After my initial exhilaration, however, what came next was horror and shame. Not because I'd killed -- after all, that's what you do in war. Shame at myself, for my reaction, for that instant of bloodlust and elation at killing another man. It was all over that quick, but as I said before, it never really ended. I can return to that moment any time I want, simply by closing my eyes.

For me, the rest of the Gulf War was merely aftermath, including the battle at Rumayla, where second platoon lost a tank and where I pointed my machine gun at a wounded man who was missing the bottom half of his legs. I was so scared I screamed at him to stay still, spittle flying from my lips as I threatened to kill a man who was already dead anyway.

Sixteen years later, I can see his face. I wonder if his family knows what happened to him? I wonder about the family of the man I killed along Highway 8, who I never saw except as a black silhouette. Somewhere, his mother grieves. Somewhere, his wife or his children learned of his death (or maybe they didn't, maybe they never got any word at all) and wonder who was the person who killed him.

Not long before we invaded Iraq in 2003, some guy who was a REMF during the war wrote to one of the Gulf War veterans email lists, wondering why I had "turned against America." Idiot. It's the people who lie to drive us into war who turned against America. It's the Americans who let us do it without question who have turned against America.

I catch myself sometimes thinking about the soldiers of 4-64 Armor (my old unit) and what they must be going through today, preparing for their third tour in the current incarnation of the war. What will happen to the gunner who shot and killed Captain Korn a during the ground invasion in a friendly fire incident? Or the other gunner, who fired a high explosive round into the Palestine Hotel, killing a Spanish journalist. Will they, like me, be haunted by those they killed?

You should be, too. They are our collective victims, our collective responsibility.

And so it goes on. Another war, another tragedy. Do you feel safer today?

You notice I still haven't answered the question? What does it feel like to kill someone? It's like asking what it feels to breathe. If you didn't vote, well, you should know what it feels like to kill, because you pulled the trigger just as sure as I did. The scariest thing about it wasn't how shocking or gory or frightening or terrible it was. The real horror is in how easy it was. One two three. Pull the trigger, track the tracers on to what was, after all, a brightly lit target (don't forget he was on fire) and poof, he's dead. So easy I was afraid of myself. So easy I worried for years it might happen again, in less socially acceptable circumstances. So easy I can still smell the blowing wind and the burning gunpowder today, I can still see him when I close my eyes.

It occurred to me a couple years ago that now that we've "liberated" Baghdad (you still believe that, right?) maybe I could go back there and seek out that spot, somewhere along the highway where part of me died along with the man I killed. Would I be able to find it? For some reason, I think I could. What would I do there, other than go insane?

The defining fact of my life: when it came time to shoot, I did. I had a choice. It wasn't in the heat of battle. By that time I'd gotten my machine gun off safe and back from Sergeant Lino and I'd awakened. When that man ran out, on fire, I calmly, thoughtfully, murdered him. Not in the heat of battle, while I was wildly terrified, but calmly and in cold blood.

And that, I think, is what it felt like to kill someone.

Next time, just don't ask.

On the Diane Rehm Show: PTSD and Iraq

2006-03-06T15:53:00.000-05:00

10:00 Mental Health and Military Service in Iraq

A new study shows more than one in three members of the U.S. armed forces serving in Iraq seeks help for mental health problems. We talk about the types of problems they're experiencing, the help available, and long term cost to individuals, their families, and the nation.

Guests

Charles Sheehan-Miles, executive director of Veterans for Common Sense and a veteran of the first Gulf War

Col. Dr. Charles Hoge, director of the division of psychiatry and neuroscience at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research

Chaplain John Morris, chaplain for the Minnesota National Guard

Craig Smith, served as a Specialist in Operation Iraqi Freedom from April to November 2003

Listen to this segment

Remembrance and Responsibility: Why Abandonment of Iraq is Wrong

2005-05-30T15:54:00.000-04:00

Charles Sheehan-Miles and Erik Gustafson

TomPaine.com

May 30, 2005

Charles Sheehan-Miles is a combat veteran of the 1991 Gulf War and director of Veterans for Common Sense , working to improve human rights and national security. Erik Gustafson is also a veteran of the 1991 Gulf War and directs the Education for Peace in Iraq Center, founded in 1998 to promote peace and democracy in Iraq.

A column of dusty, tan vehicles moves rapidly down the highway, when a loud explosion shatters the calm morning. One of the vehicles, a humvee older than its driver, flips, crushing a passenger, Sgt. Mark Maida of Madison, Wis. He was 22 years old.

Seventy miles to the north, a two-seat Kiowa helicopter is shot down by small-arms fire. Both crewmen, Matthew Lourey, 40, of East Bethel, Minn., and Joshua Scott, 28, of Sun Prairie, Wis., are killed. In the city of Hadithah to the west, a rocket-propelled grenade lands next to Marine Major Ricardo Crocker, 39, of Mission Viejo, Calif.

Today, Memorial Day, we honor these men and the 1,656 other service members who have died in Iraq since the U.S. invasion. Memorial Day is also a time to reflect on the civilian casualties of war. Last month alone, suicide bombers killed more than 600 Iraqis, mostly civilians.

As we enter the third year of a brutal insurgency, there is no end to the violence in sight, no light at the end of the tunnel, and no clear sense of impending victory to give meaning to the sacrifice of our fighting men and women.

As the directors of two organizations that opposed the invasion of Iraq, we are familiar with all of the arguments for why we shouldn't have gone there. We both worked hard to build a case against invading Iraq, and we regret to see how many of our concerns have come to pass.

In a letter signed by 1,000 fellow veterans, we warned President Bush that a U.S. invasion of Iraq could lead to protracted urban warfare with casualties our nation hasn't seen since Vietnam. Together we argued that a war with Iraq met no urgent U.S. security need, and would likely make us less safe than we were to begin with.

For the moment, however, we've come to believe it's time to set those arguments aside, to leave them to be argued by future historians. Because, two years into the war, it's time to start figuring out what to do now.

Iraq as a nation sits on a razor's edge. On one side is a reasonably stable society, with power sharing among its people and a better future for all Iraqis. On the other side is a major sectarian war, ethnic cleansing in the many mixed communities in Iraq, with possible dissolution as a state or a return to totalitarian regime. And, as much as we opposed the war, now the one thing preventing Iraq from falling on the wrong side of that line is U.S. and coalition troops, and newly deploying Iraqi police and military units.

Some progressives have argued that because the war was wrong, the United States should pull out and "leave Iraqis to rebuild their own country." Would that it were so simple. We were there in March of 1991 when we did just that. After giving a thin veneer of hope to the millions of Iraqis who had long suffered under Saddam Hussein, we pulled back and let them sort it out for themselves. The cost of that decision was somewhere between 100,000 and 300,000 lives snuffed out by Saddam's security forces.

As long as Iraq is without a functioning state, the people of Iraq are in even greater danger today. That, however, is not stopping the far right from actively pushing the Bush administration to abandon Iraq. Conservative pundit Robert Novak writes, "…Bush's supporters believe it now is time to go and leave the task of subduing the insurgents to Iraqis." Never mind the fact that U.S. Presidential Envoy L. Paul Bremer disbanded Iraq's National Army and security services, or the fact that U.S. commanders in Iraq and independent experts estimate that another year or more is needed for Iraqis to rebuild their police and military.

According to those who advocate abandonment, the United States apparently has no moral or legal obligation to the people of Iraq. In this week's Conservative Chronicle , William F. Buckley writes: "If the bloodletting is to go on, it can do so without our involvement in it… It is Iraq's responsibility to move on to wherever Iraq intends to go." However, the U.S. invasion triggered the collapse of Iraq's central government, and brought with it a wave of crime and terrorism. The United States also shares responsibility for supporting Saddam Hussein in the 1980s and ensuring the maintenance of more than a decade of crippling sanctions. Supporting the people of Iraq is a responsibility that we cannot walk away from.

Some, including Michael Moore in a blog entry he wrote last year, have mistaken a violent insurgency that represents a small number of Iraqis with a national struggle for genuine self-determination. According to Mike Whitney of Dissident Voice , "The disparate Iraqi resistance is the legitimate manifestation of a national liberation movement." Are suicide bombers a more legitimate expression of self-determination than the 8 million Iraqis who risked their lives to vote in January?

Opposition to the decision that took our nation to war and skepticism about White House claims of "catastrophic success" in Iraq are more than appropriate, but taken too far, such views can derail common sense and reason. For example, to counter the remarkable success of Iraq's elections, anti-Bush activists emailed an old 1967 press clipping titled "U.S. Encouraged by Vietnam Vote." The subtext: the U.S. mission in Iraq will fail too.

Forgotten by such pessimists were the hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of Iraqis, who in 2003 nonviolently took to the streets to demand early elections. Allowing direct elections to occur by the end of January 2005 was a concession, not a choice, which the people of Iraq forced upon the Bush administration. Nevertheless, in January we received numerous articles and messages that all made essentially the same arguments—elections under these conditions were wrong.

Consider the alternatives. Perhaps the elections could have been held under U.N. auspices, with U.N. troops providing security. The problem, of course, is that the United Nations has no troops, and has explicitly stated that it won't increase its mission in Iraq until the United States meets its obligations under international law to restore basic security. Others have suggested the Arab League. But how much incentive does the Saudi monarchy, King Abdullah or Basher Assad have to establish a functioning democracy on their borders—one that may be dominated by Iraq's 16 million Shiites?

The bottom line is that a majority of Iraqis demanded elections, and President Bush and the Coalition Provisional Authority had no choice but to concede. And despite the flaws and irregularities, they were better than any alternative available.

Are critics of the Bush administration so caught up in their own dislike of the president to ignore what is at stake for 26 million Iraqis, international security and the 130,000 Americans who remain in Iraq?

As Americans, it's time we stepped back from the argument over the war, and began to focus on the imperative of bringing it to an end. While slogans such as "bring them home now" sound great, they offer no practical solution to ending the continuing violence in Iraq. On the opposite end of the spectrum, "staying the course" makes nice political rhetoric, but does little to alleviate the suffering of Iraqi civilians or of our brave men and women in uniform.

Instead of using further rhetoric, we should honor the sacrifice of those who have died in Iraq—both Americans and Iraqis—by coming up with some practical ideas. Ideas not only about how to secure the safe return of U.S. forces, but how to actually end the war.

The administration can best give meaning to the sacrifice of those who have given their lives by offering a credible plan for helping the people of Iraq stabilize their country and establish their own functioning government. Then perhaps we can finally keep the promises we failed to keep in 1991.

Moving to overturn Miranda

2002-12-03T06:29:00.000-05:00

In what may be a landmark Supreme Court case to overturn the Miranda decision, the court is scheduled to hear arguments from Solicitor General Theodore Olsen on December 4, 2002.

Bush's political appointee intends to claim our government has the right to coerce information from a witness, as long as the evidence obtained isn't used at trial against the witness.

The landmark 1966 Miranda v. Arizona decision ruled that suspects could not be interrogated without first being advised of their rights to remain silent and to obtain an attorney. The wording of Miranda is familiar to all Americans who watch TV, and is assumed as a basic right. The Justice Department wants to change all that.

In other words, Olsen plans to argue the police can detain or arrest anyone for any reason and then beat you up or even shoot you to get information, even if there are no emergent circumstances.

In other countries, this is called torture. In our country, we have the 5th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution designed to prevent such horrendous abuses by the police.

What events could possibly lead Bush to champion a police state over liberty? In the case, Chavez v. Martinez, the U.S. government supports a police officer who interrogated a man the police shot 5 times, once in the face. The injured man also demanded that the questioning stop, but the officer continued his interrogation until the injured man fell into unconsciousness.

Interestingly, the police and the United States don't argue the facts of the case. Five years ago, Oliver Martinez was riding his bike down a path when he came upon two police officers questioning another man. The officers ordered Martinez to stop, forcibly stopped him, frisked him, wrestled him to the ground, and then shot him five times at point-blank range. Martinez was blinded and paralyzed and screamed for medical care.

What the police did next will shock you even more. A police officer, Sergeant Ben Chavez, kept the injured passerby in police custody. Chavez climbed into the ambulance with the paralyzed and blind man and interrogated him for 45 minutes in the ambulance and at the hospital. Chavez tape recorded the injured man's pleas to leave him alone and stop questioning him.

Chavez tried in vain to get Martinez to incriminate himself by confessing he was doing something more than riding his bike in the wrong place at the wrong time. Yes, Martinez, a farm laborer, possessed a knife.

Chavez wanted to "clear" his fellow police officers of wrongfully shooting a passerby. Chavez tried over and over again to coerce Martinez into saying he tried to take one of the police officer's weapons. Then the officers would have had grounds to shoot Martinez. If anything, the police were trying to cover up their own abusive practices. Yet none of the officers involved have ever been reprimanded.

After the incident, Martinez hired an attorney and sued the police for illegal arrest, use of excessive force, and coercive interrogation while in police custody. Though he was shot five times, no charges were ever filed against him, and the police department never provided any assistance or compensation.

This horrific story becomes more amazing when the Bush Administration sided with the abusive police. Bush, through Olsen, makes the argument there is no constitutional guarantee against coercive police questioning, even when medical personnel are telling the police to move back.

In other words, Bush says it is okay for the police to grab citizens off the street, shoot them, question them without an attorney, keep medical assistance away, and try to cover up a police shooting with impunity.

In essence, Bush says beat them and shoot them, because the ends justify the means.

Bush says "trust us," we won't use the tainted confessions in court.

If the court rules in Chavez' favor, what will the Bush Administration's policy mean for innocent bystanders who are picked up by the police for being near a crime scene or merely walking down the street?

Will innocent civilians, under the Patriot Act and the Homeland Security Act and the end of Miranda warning, have to submit to a beating before they get their one phone call?

Has the U.S. political leadership in Washington, DC gone crazy?

And, I ask, why is this news, and the broad impact it may have on liberty, limited to the Los Angeles Times and the alternative press?

The Bush Administration is expanding the power of the police and assaulting our civil liberties with a hatchet. Yet Congress, TV, and major newspapers, aren't watching and reporting.

If Bush wins this case, America may plunge into our darkest hour. To paraphrase Sinclair Lewis, "It is happening here."

Now is the time to stand up and stop these horrors, before President Bush completes his plan to turn America into a police state, where anyone, anywhere, can be picked up off the street, shot, beaten, questioned without an attorney, and not told why we are in custody.

Some links about the case:

The Department of Justice's petition to the U.S. Supreme Court

Los Angeles Times: High Court to Hear Miranda Challenge

Miranda v. Arizona, U.S. Supreme Court, 1966

Posted 12/3/2002 9:42:11 AM

Reader Comments

None Posted by Gene Cole on 12/14/2002 5:42:44 PM The DOJ petition states that the police say that the suspect attempted to grab the officer's gun. The officer shouted "he has my gun", and he was shot. Leaving this out of your write-up puts a much different slant on the story. Methinks your posting is simple propaganda...

Human Posted by a Veteran on 12/16/2002 1:15:07 AM It is a sad thing that if one was to compare the statistics of Police shootings, beatings, physical assults, false imprisonment, theft of property, etc with the general crime index, they would find that the Police themselves perpetuate more crime than do the criminals. Note that when the people had the right to resist an unlawful arrest in the 1960's there was less police assults, and murders in line of duty per capita, than the current statistics present. Further, it must be noted that if a police officer touches you in an agressive mannor prior to indicating that you are under arrest, it is an assult and can include battery. But how many civilians know this! Also, when I took an oath for entry into the US military, I swore to defend, not the Government or the President, but the CONSTITUTION against [all] enemies, foreign or domestic. If the government acts in a way contrary to the constitution, then it engages in an act of Treason. It becomes an enemy to the Constitution, for which any military person has sworn to defend. Therefore, the COngress, Senate, President and Judicial Branches of the government must be put on notice to review the OATH of the Military Personnel that has been required to swear to, prior to making any decision that is contrary to the tenants of the Constitution and of which erode rights never granted to government control. The erosion of the rights are an attack which makes the attackers an enemy of the Constitution. Finally, a Judge can render any decision s/he wants however, it must be within the meaning of the Constitution...NOT of the meaning in todays words, but in the meaning of the Time (Federalist Papers) the Constitution was created. If the Judge is neither an expert linguist, or an expert on the English language of the 1750's-80's then he has no more a competence to interpret the Constitution than the common man! Respectfully

Doublespeak at work: The US opposes inspectors in Iraq

2002-12-02T06:18:00.000-05:00

Yes, it's true. After years of crying out that Saddam (that monster) won't let inspectors in Iraq, now that the he is, the U.S. wont let them go. President Bush says he wants to "Give Peace a Chance." Who is he kidding?

On Monday I went to several meetings on the hill with the Lobby Days sponsored by EPIC, and had the chance to meet with some barely-out-of-college hill aids who told me how important the war was. In this case, it was aids to Rep. Tom Davis (my representative) and Senators Allen and Warner. All three said, we'd love to hear your opinion, but in fact we've already made up our minds, no matter what our constituents say.

Whenever I do these things, I always come home irritated. Capitol Hill is full of people who like war and geopolitics and the like, yet most of them don't have the faintest clue what its like to be on the receiving end of a B-52 bomber or years of crippling sanctions. Most Americans seem to have learned entirely the wrong lesson from September 11, 2001. Instead of asking why so many people hate us, we're asking how many people we need to kill in order to get rid of the people who hate us.

Hate to break it to you folks, but there aren't enough bombs in the arsenal to do that, unless we annihilate the rest of the world, because for every bomb we drop into some poor villager's house, every time an American made bullet kills someone's kid, we've made a new terrorist

Posted 10/2/2002 1:31:17 PM

Let's flip a coin: heads, we invade. Tails.... we invade.

2002-11-16T06:36:00.000-05:00

Or so says Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfield, who says that if the inspectors give Iraq a clean bill-of-health, "What it would prove would be that the inspection process had been successfully defeated by the Iraqis. There's no question but that the Iraqi regime is clever, they've spent a lot of time hiding things, dispersing things, tunneling underground." In which case we'll have to invade.

But we knew all of this anyway. The original stated goal was "regime-change." It still is. Everything else is just the justification-of-the-week.

Saddam beat up my great-grandmother, too, before she died. Let's go get him.

Time to renew my VFW Membership

2002-11-15T06:37:00.000-05:00

My renewal notice for the VFW came today, and until very recently I'd been planning to bite the bullet and pay for life membership. But I kept thinking about how Max Cleland was beat out by a non-veteran, pro-war Republican, and how the VFW contributed to that. Here's my reply.

November 15, 2002

Dear VFW:

I was going to pay for my life membership this year, until the VFW decided to publicly endorse a non-veteran pro-war candidate in favor of a triple-amputee Vietnam veteran who has repeatedly fought for veterans and national security.

In an age when virtually no one in public office has served in combat, VFW’s leadership ought to be ashamed of itself for helping to defeat Max Cleland. You’ve lost my membership and my respect.

With regards,

Charles Sheehan-Miles

Posted 11/15/2002 7:08:45 PM

Reader Comments

Maj, USAFR Posted by Don Parish on 11/16/2002 4:36:25 PM I just just off an email to the VFW to tell them I would never consider joining them. (I'm not much of a veteran, but my Jul - Oct '94 time with the USAF at Dhahran in Khobar Towers counts as "combat zone"; and last was the Oct Saddam put tanks on the Kuwaiti border)

Library of Congress employee Posted by David Moore on 12/2/2002 10:09:46 AM As a Vietnam veteran, I also question giving the VSOs my money and time. VSO "leaders" usually become celebrities and camera hogs. Max Cleland is the same. I had seen him at hearings, supposedly on veterans issues, and he never had squat to say. We have no veterans rights at the Library of Congress, but Cleland, Kerrey, Kerry, et alia, all refused to answer my letters. Indeed, neither backed HR 1301, introduced by Lane Evans, to correct this. Cleland even showed up to the Library for Disability Awaremenss Day, even though he had received a letter from me one week earlier noting that the Librarian had delayed implementation of ADA for over five years. Draft dodgers in Congres? Oh puh-leese. I see no difference. And you people wonder why our benefits--the ones we earned--are cut every year?

Another step

2002-11-14T06:39:00.000-05:00

I finished the second draft of "Murphy's War" today. Hooray! Now its time to work on the third draft.

I'm actually taking a couple of days off from that project to work on brainstorming my next one. What kills me is that I've got four or five projects I want to get started on, but I have to pick one. That will keep me occupied for the next eighteen months or so at my glacial writing pace of one or two hours a day.

What I do is drag my posterior out of bed at 5 a.m. every morning, stumble downstairs, walk the dog, then write, coffee in hand, until 6:30. Then its time to wake up the family and get ready for work.

Unless, of course, a miracle happens, and I suddenly start selling 1000 copies a week of Rumayla, in which case I can quit my day job.

Hmmm.

In any event, the new book, Murphy's War, is about what happens when the Federal Government goes too far in its quest for security. Fun stuff.

So what's next? I have some fine tuning and polishing to do, in the next two weeks, and will deliver it to my agent December 1. With lots of luck, we'll find it on the bookstore shelves in about 18 months to two years.

Back to work.

Posted 11/14/2002 7:27:47 PM