Category Archives: ‘Hidden War’

America’s Secret War: What I Saw

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Fifty years ago today, North Vietnamese and Viet Cong forces launched simultaneous attacks throughout southern Viet Nam on more than 40 cities, including the capital, Saigon, and the ancient imperial city, Hue.

NGUYEN NGOC LOAN

“General Nguyen Ngoc Loan executing a Viet Cong prisoner in Saigon”, Eddie Adams – © 1968 Wide World Photos. Copy found at BBC News. Wikipedia

I’ve chosen this date to launch my memories of that war: HOTEL CONSTELLATION: Notes from America’s Secret War. 

Why? The book isn’t even about Tet, as that offensive became known to our generation.

For America, it was a turning point in a war that was dividing us in ways we have not experienced since our own Civil War. It pitted college communities against their surrounding towns, set older siblings apart from their younger counterparts, and turned World War II-era fathers against their draft-age sons.

Yet somewhere around 85% of America’s current population of 325 million were either not born or not old enough to be paying attention to what went on Jan. 30, 1968.
Those of us old enough may not recall the exact date, but we all understand the importance of the Tet offensive in Viet Nam.

I will not belabor the lies and deceit, ignorance and miscalculations that led our nation deeper and deeper into that war, then kept us there, siphoning the lifeblood of a generation.

Like every other young man of that generation, I had to decide how I would answer the call of my country’s political leaders.

Today, I have published an account of my response, a record of two years spent in war-time Southeast Asia. I call it Hotel Constellation, because the bar of that musty four-story edifice was the center of my life for most of that time. I gave it a subtitle to explain what I found there: Notes from America’s Secret War in Laos.

You see, Viet Nam was the big show; Cambodia the sideshow; Laos the secret show.

Ken Burns and Lynn Novick in their impressive Viet Nam War documentary did not cover the secret show. Of course, they mentioned some incursions in the south, raids against the Ho Chi Minh Trail and such, but they did not touch on the massive operation, run by the CIA at the behest of one presidential administration after another, that devastated not just southern Laos but more so, the north.

Hotel Constellation - 3D

Here is my story.

I encourage you to own it. Read it. Rate it. Review it. Recommend it.

And let’s remember the 58,220 Americans who died – in Laos, Viet Nam, Cambodia, Thailand and China – including my brother-in-law, Richard M. Turner, age 19.

We must not forget.

 

Get Your Copy Now

HOTEL CONSTELLATION: Notes from America’s Secret War in Laos is now available at Amazon | Apple | Barnes & Noble | Kobo | Scribd | Smashwords

Hotel Constellation: It’s Almost Here

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Hotel Constellation - 3D

I’m dotting the “i”s and crossing the “t”s with the distributors, but my Viet Nam memoir, HOTEL CONSTELLATION: Notes from America’s Secret War in Laos is almost here.

Check out this [revised] excerpt from Chapter 1.

Then on Tuesday, January 30, get your own copy.

 

Self-Publishing Proofing … UGH!

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You’ve heard the old saw about the dog chasing a car? What will he do with it if he catches it?

I feel the same way about proofing the files for my Viet Nam memoir, HOTEL CONSTELLATION: Notes from America’s Secret War in Laos.

I’m about a third of the way through the process; I’ve found some issues. Now what do I do?

Proofing for a self-publisher is different than for authors pursuing the tradition agent-print publisher model. In the latter, someone else is fudging with the details. (At least, I assume that’s true. Why else would you share 85% of the gross if they weren’t doing work you don’t want to do?)

And if I’ve learned anything about self-publishing, it’s that the process is full of details. Hundreds of details. Maybe a thousand details, or tiny decisions that must be made and acted on. (In fact, I’m already planning another paean to lists. I could never plow through this self-pub production process without lists — to do lists, check lists, deadlines, reminders, catalogs of lists, links to lists of lists, etc.)

Witness the first issue I discovered during my proofing tests. (Oh, yes, I tested many devices and apps. See below.)

ProofingThis is how the Library page appears in Kindle:

  • Top – That’s my computer monitor showing the FOUR versions in the Kindle app for the MacBook Pro.
  • Lower left: A Kindle White, showing a generic cover with the HOTEL CONSTELLATION title. All other books in the library show their appropriate cover.
  • Bottom row, second from the left, the iPhone: Perfect. It’s hard to see in the photo, but it’s there, just as you would want it.
  • Bottom row, second from the right, Kindle Fire. My book is a no-show in the library. It’s there, and you can find it by scrolling across the bottom of the screen, but it’s not where I would like it.
  • Finally, lower right, the Kindle app on an iPad. Same issue here as with the Kindle White. The book shows up with a generic cover.

This problem of how (and even if) the books appears in the Kindle library may, or may not, be easy to solve. Just like the issue of having the cover appear twice in every file. (But that’s a separate issue … I think. I hope. I desire it to be so.)

I don’t know, because I’m not certain whom to ask. I’m sure I’ll fall back on the patience of my designers. I’m using their files; they’re experts (and I truly believe that); they probably run into this from time to time. They’ll know.

But you begin to see the magnitude of the proofing chore. And that’s just one item I’m checking. (Makes sense, right? Start with the cover.)

You can’t check everything. That would require rereading over and over a book you’ve already been through close to 100 times. So you create a sample that will cover Here’s what I’m checking:

Check:
  • Cover —
    • Appearance in library —
  • DLH email link hot? —
  • TOC / links
    • 1
    • 15
    • 27
    • Sources
    • Back links
  • MAP 1 —
  • MAP 2 (CH. 16) —
  • CH. 16
    • Pullout quotations —
    • Footnotes
      • Format —
      • Links forward/back —
  • Photos End of CH. 17 (10) —
  • Source links: 5
    • Show as links? —
    • Links work —

Let’s see. I’m proofing this on five devices: The Kindle app on my MacBook Pro; Kindle app on my iPad; Kindle app on my iPhone; Kindle 1 and Kindle 2. I regret — really, but for this purpose only — NOT having a Windows system to test this on. You can only do so much. (Big lesson there: You can only do so much.)

So what do I do? What’s good enough? I counsel young people not to let the perfect be the enemy of the good (enough). I will try to follow my own advice. But those two cover issues HAVE to be resolved.

Meanwhile, I have the proof the printed book to proof — it arrives on Monday, maybe — and that will involve turning every page, if not rereading the entire text. In addition, I have to upload all the files to Smashwords for distribution outside the Amazon world.

It’s just getting interesting.

Authors on Proofing

I was working on the proof of one of my poems all the morning, and took out a comma. In the afternoon I put it back again.
― Oscar Wilde

Picking up your first copy of a book you wrote, if there’s one typo, it will be on the page that your new book falls open to the first time you pick it up.
― Neil Gaiman

I do my best proofreading right after I hit send.
― Anonymous