Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome, 507 Broad Street, Lake Geneva, WI (2025)

08/10/2025

THE COWARDLY LION, Volume VI, Chapter IV

The series of disasters that overtook what started out as a simple diplomatic mission ends with the death of three people, all by violent hands and means, and the mission 'leftovers' continue to flow home after I finally get there again, A break for Christmas is again interrupted with vital contacts, rather outlandish offers and a glance once again into a future filled with coming and existing details of life itself on the planet that are as unlikely as they are unbelievable, but still right there...sitting in reality...a realty that has changed completely since I received the artifact years earlier.

Please sign up to pre-order the fifth volume by sending a check for 30 dollars to James Strauss at 507 Broad Street, Lake Geneva, WI 53147, This helps support the special effort all the readers like you who have built this special site and experience together with me. My deepest thanks.

The Galaxy was headed for Travis Air Force Base, which meant, since Travis was about sixty-five miles northeast of the airport in San Francisco, that Dave and I would have to make that trip and then fly commercial home, he to Scottsdale and me to Albuquerque. There was no way to make arrangements ab...

07/24/2025

THE COWARDLY LION, VOLUME VI, CHAPTER III

The rubber hits the road and the decision is made to risk taking the shot and not either running in the face of potential mafia pursuit or trying to negotiate a way through the conundrum of my having killed the Mafia Chief’s son. The procedure is without team support of any kind or even Agency approval but certain things must have a cap put on them or the risk to myself, my future and even my family's safety are all on the table until some kind of closure can be made.

Please purchase the Sixth volume in advance by sending a check for thirty dollars to me at 507 Broad Street, Lake Geneva, WI 53147 and I will be most appreciative and add you with your name and address to the list.

The Fletcher coasted to a complete stop in the middle of the estuary pond. Dave got hold of the poles and set them so they’d protrude out over the water, both on the hull facing away from the estate. I unlimbered the rifle from its leather case below the edge of the port gunwale so […]

07/16/2025

THE COWARDLY LION, Volume VI, Chapter II
Once again, reality overcomes the surreal make believe world of our hopes, dreams, wants and desires, as the mission to the island of Mallorca off of Spain in the Mediterranean is snuffed out only to be replaced by a new unplanned and unnounced mission, much more critical and much more violent than the supposed quiet and peaceful mission the first one had been designed to be. I take command of another outfit in combat, my rank even lower than the lieutenancy I was when in the A Shau Valley combat, my unit of only two men instead of company this time Just one other man and I. The CIA abandons us so as to distance itself for what is coming next...which they can't know is coming but are counting on.

Chapter I had to be rewritten so go back and reread that piece. Somehow the editing ended up jumbling the intent and meaning of what was going on. The rewrite, which I finished yesterday helps braid that first mission on Mallorca into the second, also on the same island. Order the new Volume V early and I'll much appreciate and inscribe your copy accordingly. And many thanks.

David White stared at me, his expression one of initial shock wearing toward unwilling acceptance. Watching him make up his mind was an exercise in patience, but also a participation in entertainment. I waited for him to move. Movement meant life. Movement meant following a decision, even if it wasn...

07/09/2025

THE COWARDLY LION, Volume VI, Chapter I
The new volume begins although it does not start out as a mission ends on the Island of Mallorca in the Mediterranean Sea.
It starts with my being recalled as awful strange stuff becomes known to the Agency and that Agency dumps it all in my lap without counsel or instructions on how to proceed. The chapter isolates and explores by active illustration just how far the 'home office' was in real mental distance from field activities in foreign countries. And the blood of the A Shau will not wash out, instead covered over with scabs and layers of more.

The new volume should be ready soon for print. If you might like to help then send a check for thirty bucks to me at 507 Broad Street, Lake Geneva, WI 53147. The first of the new issue will come to you signed and sent by Mary or I personally.

Prologue The mission on the island of Mallorca, located just off the coast of Spain in the Mediterranean, was concluded. A lot of nothing had happened, at least from a perceived observational conclusion by both Dave White, my assigned partner, and me. I’d killed a man, we’d been pursued, and we....

07/03/2025

THE COWARDLY LION, Volume V, Chapter ###

Mallorca proves to be a totally outrageous 'play it by ear' mission with my partner David While introduced as something or someone he certainly didn't appear be by reports from my control officer. The Island in the Mediterranean comes across as idyllic but the forces gathered there demonstrate that they are not only refusing to negotiate but are also immediately and damn near successful in 'accidentally' killing me...force my first real encounter like that since the A Shau Valley nightmare of years ago. This chapter serves as the last in the Volume Five issue of the The Cowardly Lion series and will be available in book form very soon.

Order in advance now as Chuck will instruct for those so moved to do so. The first chapter of Volume VI will appear next week without a break at all. Thanks for supporting that effort while we get the fifth volume out to you *which takes editing, graphics, print and font selections and the rest of the detail that goes into publishing all on our own.

My partner, David, was likely fast asleep in the room we shared, a hundred and fifty feet up from where I played with and inside my ocean. I could not use the lobby, the elevators, or even the stairs to reach that room as the body lying on the far shore would bring an ever-expanding […]

07/03/2025

THE COWARDLY LION, Volume V, Chapter ###

Mallorca proves to be a totally outrageous 'play it by ear' mission with my partner David While introduced as something or someone he certainly didn't appear be by reports from my control officer. The Island in the Mediterranean comes across as idyllic but the forces gathered there demonstrate that they are not only refusing to negotiate but are also immediately and damn near successful in 'accidentally' killing me...force my first real encounter like that since the A Shau Valley nightmare of years ago. This chapter serves as the last in the Volume Five issue of the The Cowardly Lion series and will be available in book form very soon.

Order in advance now as Chuck will instruct for those so moved to do so. The first chapter of Volume VI will appear next week without a break at all. Thanks for supporting that effort while we get the fifth volume out to you *which takes editing, graphics, print and font selections and the rest of the detail that goes into publishing all on our own.

My partner, David, was likely fast asleep in the room we shared, a hundred and fifty feet up from where I played with and inside my ocean. I could not use the lobby, the elevators, or even the stairs to reach that room as the body lying on the far shore would bring an ever-expanding […]

06/25/2025

The trip home becomes a quick stop as another mission interrupts everything else, which was becoming normal for my experience with the Agency. Life and death comes out of nowhere and totally without either predictability or approval and once again as in the A Shau Valley, base animal instincts wedge in and replace almost all intelligent analysis for survival. There's no mission to be concerned with if you are dead performing the mission. Not for me. And the killing once again becomes more of a contagion than a solution, although both apply in this situation.

Thanks to all of you for keeping me going here with your contributions and your purchases. We are trying to get better at the immediacy of delivery for autographed copies and those requiring inscriptions. Your work in this area cannot be overstated. My thanks either.

We flew on toward the night, the oval porthole set into the curved fuselage of the plane allowing for direct view now that the craft was turned toward the west and the sun wasn’t dancing all over the plexiglass, making everything outside look like it was covered in old Christmas tinsel. I could se...

06/19/2025

THE COWARDLY LION, Volume V, Chapter XXVIII

The second mission proved to be less tactile and also less definitive as the first dive had been. Going back down to the nuclear device was now a routine, as was the accommodating the liquid breathing physiology. My purpose was clear but my knowledge about the situation was woefully tiny, and I knew that was by design. My assumption was that the device was armed, or there would have been no need for me to be there at all, but that wasn't confirmed. The phrase from a poem kept running through my mind as I went down: "Into the valley of death rode the six hundred..."

We haven't given up on the idea of the combat veteran's rendezvous just yet. Buy books and contribute to the ko-fi site what you can as we lost our ability to get the motorhome we planned to travel around the nation in. The rental will cost a lot more money. The Go Fund Me site is also still active. I think it would be terrific to do this particularly at this time. Thank you!!!

Once more, I entered the water, not of my own volition, but simply lowered down like a descending spider coming to gently land atop the relatively smooth surface of the ocean rather than the spindly intricacies of a web. The umbilical I attached to my back somehow resembled to me, in my suspended bu...

06/11/2025

THE COWARDLY LION, Volume V, Chapter XXVII

The second dive comes at me with surprise as I get to join my wife and children at the Princeville Resort on Kauai, my wife not happy but the kids loving it. My poor judgment in having them exposed there at all not going down well with Mary and the dangers of the dive rising in unknown ways making me wonder, since there's apparently nobody else who can bet ad to do the dive, about whether could bail out if I wanted to. Marcinko disappears once again but not without leaving a stain to mar his spot, like what Harley Davidson motorcycles usually do...to the same macho effect. The device at the bottom of the ocean once again awaits treatment by the only one who seems qualified to do it or at least so it seems.

Thanks for all the commas and the book purchases. Much appreciated and helps keep this grand an oh so different literary experience going...please by some books. The boy in hardcover is also still available and that will soon debut as a full length movie (by Looking Glass and Amazon).

I stopped at the edge of the parking lot, the dust and debris from the departing CH-53 helicopter downdraft settling around me. Marcinko stood in front of me, looking like some kind of imitation Marlin Brando kind of Harley guy, his hair in a bun at the back of his head, unshaven and wearing riding....

06/04/2025

THE COWARDLY LION, Volume V, Chapter XXIV

I resurface from the bottom of the Pacific Ocean just off of Waikiki Beach. The mission was too technically shocking to be anything but temporarily shocked and trying to take the actual participation in the mission and then its results on my mind and body and process it was delayed. Plus, as second mission right on top of the first is planned and, once again, my services are needed and expect...although the importance to and of me somehow totally minimized. Marcinko refuses to disappear from my, or my wife's life and surfacing from the mission will only be interrupted with a very short stay on Kauai and then back to the bottom of the sea.

Thanks most sincerely to all those who have purchased books following these last chapters as that, along with wonderful comments by readers, has motivated me to get back into my regular rhythm of laying the story down chapter by chapter on here. Please stick with me and respond to whatever great special Chuck Bartok come up with next!

I felt the slightest of tugs against my back, as if little nudges to let me know that more pulling was to come, which I knew to be true, although the oxygenation of the liquid I was breathing wasn’t completely compatible with clear thinking. Mentally, I asked myself how one could possibly isolate ...

05/27/2025

THE COWARDLY LION, Volume V, Chapter XXV
The intensity of this new mission coming out of nowhere and returning me to where I was raised in Hawaii comes as an explosive shock to my system, one that causes me to go robotic and do what I was told. Doing that takes me to a place of science fiction I'd never considered could be predictively real...but it all was and remains so today. Dive into this chapter because you are going to go 'down there' with me.

I am having Chuck Bartok, once again appearing in this last chapter, offer you a bargain deal on my signed and commented upon books. We need the cash and you need to have and hold these close as well as for posterity. Not for right now but the time is indeed coming when you will be glad you bought everything you could when you still could. Oh, and thanks from the bottom of my heart.

The training began immediately, but it wasn’t real training. There were no calisthenics or any of what was so common to Marine training, but there was running, not in the outside, racing through the wondrous areas of conditioned and well-managed tropical paradise. No, the running was on a machine,...

05/22/2025

THE COWARDLY LION, Volume V, Chapter XXIV

The new mission, following straight not he heels of the Los Alamos visit, begins on Oahu at the UDT training center on Fort Island, and the critical part of the mission, the dive to be trained for, becomes ever more trepidatious as the details are provided not by the Navy or even the UDT staff but by a flown in representative of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission itself . My outsize importance once again increases but unexplainably and without a lot of support in putting it together.

Please buy the books on sale now as I have them all together again and unpacked from my move. It helps me immensely to keep this writing adventure going. And I thank you from the bottom of my heart.

I was running only on conjecture and suspicion as I walked up the angled cargo hatch of the Starlifter. Trying to accommodate such an abrupt change in my life and direction was proving more mentally taxing than I’d ever imagined. My wife had been surprisingly excited about leaving for Hawaii with ...

Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome

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