Historian, author, editor, educator Remy Benoit's ongoing weblog for Veterans, writers, students, others who believe in learning from and making history. Thousands of articles and posts and a free writing seminar, Using History for Healing and Writing.
—"The best works by living writers on the heart of New Orleans." Miz' Remy is the author of Annie.
10 most recent articles out of 5,217.
Paul Buchheit: Five Facts That Put America to Shame. | What are we eating, breathing, and why? | Stephen King: Tax Me, for F@%&'s Sake! | To the Lonely Writer: Need a Review for Your Book? | Democracy or Plutocracy? | Doug Pibel: No Tax Dollars for Deadbeats. But Who are they really? | Monte Anderson: Angels and Gargoyles | Nicholas D. Kristof: A Veteran's Death, a Nation's Shame | Review: Jess E. Weiss: Warrior to Spiritual Warrior | Veterans "Make the Connection".
by Remy Benoit
At RSN Five Facts That Put America to Shame.
Yet these are only five.
There is the fact that our veterans do not get the care that they deserve.
There is the fact that our soldiers are called back for additional tours without concern for their combat or family problem stress levels.
There is the fact that many of those who run huge corporations do not care for Mother Nature, nor the next seven generations, nor do many of them pay any taxes. David Sassoon, Inside Climate News Koch Brothers' Industries Protects Their Fifty Year Stake in Canadian Heavy Oils.
We are faced with being sold genetically altered food without its being labeled, so go to Just Label It. and sign on.
There is the fact that the news is entertainment,
biased at that, and not doing in depth reporting.
There is the fact that lobbyists should not be allowed in D.C. to influence Congress which is
supposed to represent The PEOPLE not the corporations.
There is the fact that our infrastructure needs
serious work.
There is the fact that those with vested interests work much harder for war than they do for peace.
There is the fact that big banks are out of control and seek only high profits, wanting to give nothing back for all the bailouts handed to them but miniscule interest rates, high fees, and high credit card rates.
There is the fact that each and every soldier we
send to war is an individual person, not a number, not collateral damage, not just an expendable piece of munition.
There is the fact that we go to war without viable exit plans in place, or clearly stated objectives. Costs of War.
There is hunger in the world, there is hunger in America for one in every six people, one in every five children. Feeding America.
There is the fact that we allow all of this and so, so much more.
Feel free to comment and add to this list.
Monday, May 14 2012 | Permanent link | Comments (1) | Print
by Remy Benoit
There is light rain here today; the vegetable garden is enjoying it. Most of the seeds are heritage seeds, each with their own history, their own fascinating stories. The corn is not yet 'high as an elephant's eye' but it is growing...without pesticides, without genetic modified seeds.
Once upon a time, most of the people here grew their own food. That is no longer true. Now we have agro-business and have lost any control, except for not buying it, of what goes into what we eat. Yet if you have a 4x6 piece of grass, a window box, a pation you can do your own victory garden over chemical foods and outrageous produce
prices.
At RSN Russ Choma: Monsanto's Deep Roots in Washington.
At Common Dreams Monsanto, Agent Orange Creator, Returns To Vietnam
Monsanto ready to sell GM crops and weed-killing chemicals in Vietnam; Many outraged.
From the Aspen Institute Agent Orange and U.S. Veterans.
From Birth Defects for Children, Inc.Veterans.
The sky is falling and it and the ground are filled with things that are not life friendly. Yet another reason to demand an end to lobbying in D.C. Just how much more power a unified The People would have if we worked together for health; for peace; for prosperity for all, not the 1%. When you think about it, Viet Nam, like Africa, the Middle East, Afghanistan, SE Asia, Korea, Europe, etc. have forever changed as their earth is filled with American blood. How do we honor that which connects us, which tears our hearts, minds, and souls and those of so many others? If we cared for the planet, we would be caring for each other and ending endless war and pollution of our earth and ourselves. If one million signature won't get their attention, perhaps we need ten million? Get to it.
Or we can do nothing and allow the chemicals to win. At RSN Alexander Cockburn:
When Half a Million Americans Died and Nobody Noticed. BTW while I was taking Crestor I developed horrid pain in my hands, which disappeared when I stopped. If you are suffering, look to your medications. As they say, read the
manual for side effects.
Saturday, May 12 2012 | Permanent link | Comment | Print
by Remy Benoit
At RSN Stephen King: Tax Me, for F@%&'s Sake!.
Mr. King tells many stories...of horror, of evil coming into its due. Each day things grow more difficult for the 99%; the banks ever asking more fees; rates for this and that going up; food prices absurdly high. Politicians are trying to buy elections with vicious campaigns. I am not young anymore. Often I do not even recognize this country. And you cannot blame it on hippies, or immigrants, or on anyone but those who will never be satisfied with the wealth, with what they wish to strip from the earth with no concern for her, for their own children and grandchildren.
And yet, as an historian, I do know that there comes a turning point where people say enough, wake up to lies, to greed, to those who will not see the wake they leave behind their plowing roads to yet another house, another dozen bathrooms with gold fixtures.
Scapegoating, placing blame on the blameless, only goes so far. What can you do in the face of all this? Help a neighbor, grow a garden this summer; vote rationally, look at campaign ads to see just how big the lies are, and ask why? If proposals do not help you, your neighbors, your great-grandchildren then they need rewriting; they need you to say, WE THE PEOPLE say UNITED WE STAND; not a handful of United Citizens with an agenda. No one should do else but pay their fair share; those who have must give back to balance the heart of the country. How do we show them to have heart? By living by ours, by teaching by deeds not words; by saying no more free rides with our votes.
Tuesday, May 1 2012 | Permanent link | Comment | Print
by Remy Benoit
To the Lonely Writer
Writing a book is sometimes the easy part of becoming an author. The real work comes in marketing your work and making enough sales to at least cover your costs.
The foundation of your marketing plan should be obtaining reviews. Reviews give you social proof that your book is worth the investment of the reader’s time and money. Reviews of a pre-published manuscript can also save the author the heartbreak of discovering his/her writing needs more tuning after the book is bound and sent to market.
Obtaining reviews beyond friends and family is a frustrating and sometimes expensive endeavor. Readers say they will write and post a review, but many times the task goes wanting.
Writer’s Review was conceived to bring authors together to read, review, and post reviews. This syndicate will also benefit from marketing tips, outstanding ways to get your book noticed, and other important information and services.
Please visit Writer's Review. for more information. You will find a sign up form and complete description of what the effort is all about.
To your writing success.
CW Standiford
BURY ME WITH SOLDIERS
TRAIL OF BONES
THE HARD TRUTH ABOUT THE AMERICAN VISA EXPERIENCE
SURVIVAL SKILLS, The Art of Your Survival
And other titles
Thursday, April 19 2012 | Permanent link | Comment | Print
by Remy Benoit
Will this country belong to The People or to the 1%?
From Jim Hightower at RSN The Citizens United Gang.
Thursday, April 19 2012 | Permanent link | Comment | Print
by Remy Benoit
From Yes Magazine No Tax Dollars for Deadbeats.
Also at Yes Chuck Collins Putting Corporate Tax Dodging on the Table.
Jon Stewart Wait. Who's Greedy?
How much help our veterans need is obvious. Corporate taxes would help them re-adjust to civilian life.Tuesday, April 17 2012 | Permanent link | Comment | Print
by Remy Benoit
Meet author, Monte Anderson. You may read his delightful novellette Angels and Gargoyles. at no cost to you! Enjoy it, I did!
And a challenge to his brothers for whom No Task Too Great from Miz' Remy. There is an enormous amount of writing talent in this Class of '68, so, to start, I would like to see at least a dozen novels, chapbooks, non-fiction from some of you this year.
"Yes, Sir. No excuse, Sir."
Love to all of you!
Again, meet Monte Anderson.
As a second generation military man, Monte had seen quite a bit of the world and the United States by the time he entered high school. He carried on the family tradition by attending the Military Academy at West Point, New York where he earned his BS in Engineering, and, upon graduation in 1968, was commissioned a 2LT in the U.S. Army.
His twenty-two years career carried him to many parts of the world including Viet Nam, Korea, and Germany. He became a student of history, particularly military history. As an Infantry officer, Monte developed an understanding of military tactics and strategy. This knowledge was put to good use when he was assigned as an instructor at the Army Command and General Staff College where he taught tactics to the Army’s future staff officers and generals for three years. He also studied the martial arts, earning a second degree black belt in Tae Kwon Do, and taught wrestling, self-defense, and coached the West Point Karate club at the Military Academy.
Although he has written many things for the military, and has been published in Army magazine and the Corps of Engineers Journal, Archimedes of Syracuse: The Chest of Ideas. if his first novel. Archimedes is the first time Monte has been able to combine all the things he loves; engineering, tactics, strategy, mathematics, history, food, martial arts, and of course, romance. Monte published his first ebook Angels and Gargoyles. in April of 2012. He has a second novel, The Clone Murders, that is ready to be published.
Monte resides in Elmira, New York with his wife, Kathryn and their two rescued greyhounds. Between Monte and Kathryn, they have six children and four grandchildren..
Monday, April 16 2012 | Permanent link | Comment | Print
by Remy Benoit
AT the NY Times A Veteran's Death, A Nation's Shame.
Monday, April 16 2012 | Permanent link | Comment | Print
by Remy Benoit
World War 11 was war, total war of the world. It was not an alien invasion starting on the air waves in New Jersey, but was rooted in a punitive peace from another total war. World War 1 was supposed to end all wars. It was grounded in retribution, in avarice, in fear. And like all fear it fed upon itself in economic depression, in failures of diplomacy, in greed, in scapegoat, in hate, in murder, and in totalitarianism.
The armistice period between these two world wars came to an end on September 1, 1939 with the German Wehrmacht invading Poland; tanks, infantry against cavalry. On that day the tentative and false peace came to an end.
The Blitzkrieg began on May 10, 1940 against Belgium and the Netherlands; Paris was occupied on June 14th; the armistice between France and Germany signed on June 22.
On June 22, 1941, the night of the “white lights” the night of the midnight sun in Petrograd, Operation Barbarous went into operation with Germany invading the Soviet Union.
Here at home in the States the dilemma of war bred discussion, dissention, and political unrest. With the European war spreading there came the demise of the German American Bund, Pulley's Silver Shirts. The reprimand of Father Coughlin by the Vatican for his reranting had already come in 1936. The America Firsters wanted no involvement in the European conflict. But the German submarines; the possibilities of trans-Atlantic flight; the alliances between the Axis powers of Germany, Japan, and Italy were quite apparently going to bring the war to the United States.
The American Japanese were interred in prison camps; the racism obvious as this was not done to Italian or German Americans. With the attack on Pearl Harbor, the United States was at war, in shock, despite the historical fact that the Japanese had done the same thing in 1904 at Port Arthur to the Russians.
Despite the horrific losses of soldiers in World War I, despite the shell shock of veterans, untreated for the most part, sometimes treated with electric shock, despite the incredible monetary costs, the world was at war again, learning nothing from the war to end all wars.
Battle names became as common place as victory gardens. Love letters went back and forth, highly censored. Combat in North Africa, in Sicily was known to Jess Weiss; Normandy came next for him. What can be said about the horrors of the landing on the five beachheads at Normandy? That the tides ran red with blood; that wave after wave of soldiers left landing craft, many to never even make it to shore, cut down as one might take a scythe to trim off high weeds? Total war, but who could even begin to compare that to the “sacrifices” at home with food, fuel rationing; with shortened shirts to save material; with my Granny Eva sewing parachutes, while Granny Agnes served as an air raid warden; where kids gave their pennies to buy victory bonds? Where landing craft were being built down here in New Orleans; where U-boats cruised the Atlantic and Gulf Coast lines? Those in combat knew hell. Those here at home knew doing without this and that. Those at home waited, dreaded the knock on the door; dreaded the telegram-We regret to inform you...
How does any of that compare to body parts being blown asunder on five beaches with the Germans high up firing relentlessly? Where personal survival became the order of the day? Where as Jess so eloquently puts it, one has buddies here today gone tomorrow; not friends, friends last, friends imply long term relationships.
Into France; Jess is welcomed by wine, the French, the celebration of freedom again spreading. On to Germany, more battles, endless blood seeping into French, Dutch, Belgian, German soil again, were changing the earth for ever. Blood of enemies becoming part of the soil; seeping into food growing, cattle grazing, over the years making us who feud even more connected. Making us all one in the midst of slaughter.
Where does the mind stop being able to cope with this by doing anything but storing it in mental compartments; compartments feared to be opened again; compartments aside from anything one who has not been there can even begin to understand? And yet communicate with our veterans we must.
Home again, after years apart; home again, get on with it. No name for it then. No name for the things that made soldiers walk the streets at night; made soldiers unable to relate to diapers, grocery lists, the mundane when during their service life was on such an easily broken thread. Bombs falling from the sky, droning on and on were worse even than the long range Big Bertha had been in World War 1. Bombs causing fires; bombs falling as babies were born in the underground in London. Bombs eating French, Dutch, Belgian, German, Polish, Austrian, Italian, Russian, Estonian, Latvian, Finnish farms, homes, cities. Special units, Einsatzgruppen death squads of SS. Huge holes with limed over bodies full of bullet holes. As decorate Viet Nam veteran John Cory says, “War is holes. “ War Holes.
Concentration camps liberated.
War is insanity set loose. Jess kept a diary from Omaha Beach D-Day; to the day he was wounded. Day by day death and war is there for you. Home again, hair triggered just as are our veterans now; just as those of my generation of Viet Nam veterans. Veterans of all wars asking: WHY? WHY was all that I saw? Why was all that I knew? Veterans of all wars asking: Who am I now, who am I now, after all that I have seen, after all that I have known; after all that I had to do to stay alive? WHY did I live when my buddies met such terrible deaths? WHY is there such evil, such real evil that I have seen in the world? AND WHERE WAS GOD IN ALL THIS?
Jess Weiss was there: in North Africa, in Sicily, at Normandy, into Germany. He knew it all, brought all of it home with him; struggled with it; was plagued by all of it. And then he found peace; spiritual peace that brought him to write this book that can be life changing for veterans. I am not one to say that easily. Warrior to Spiritual Warrior can change lives. It doesn't matter which war was your war; it does matter if you are seeking answers. It does matter if you are seeking peace.
Jess is 96 now. He is still there for you; still trying to share his long journey home with you. Read this book, change your life; change the lives of those who love you by taking a spiritual journey to peace. Plow the road of all that has remained to be a constant mine field for you, and replace those residual mines, those Bouncing Betties, those IEDs with peace. Take a walk to peace with this incredible World War II veteran who knew it all, learned something from it, and offers you his findings, his peace, his mentorship page by page, pain by pain, to peace. Become a Spiritual Warrior and then pass that knowing along to others. Jess has your back; you can do for others what he can do for you with this book. Read it, now.
*****
Friday, April 13 2012 | Permanent link | Comment | Print
by Remy Benoit
Thursday, February 9 2012 | Permanent link | Comment | Print
Continue to Archive
Both Sides of the Wall: Reflections of the West Point Class of 1968 (Edited by Remy Benoit).
Read Jerry Wenstrom's review of Loving.
Rhea and Jordan Devereaux had it all: undying devotion, a tender love, and a grand passion. And then the Vietnam War separated them. Follow the course of their love across time and space. Journey with them through the steaming jungle; dance with the Mardi Gras revelers while revolution unseats Louis XVI and protestors on the Washington Mall scream, Hell, NO. We won't Go. Sail with Laffite's pirates into Devil's Isle and rejoice as an unconditional and timeless love emerges victorious.
Purchase a signed first edition of Loving for $20 including S&H:
