Taking a Page out of Gus Hasford's Book

“Guns tell the truth. Guns never say, "I'm only kidding." War is ugly because the truth can be ugly and war is very sincere.”

- Gustav Hasford


I figured I'd write-up a quick update. It is my intention to update this blog frequently enough to not let it die. I'm going to do this by quickly covering the books I've been reading, those I can remember. I've bought so many books it's going to be difficult to remember the multitudes I've gone through in the last few months. Gustav Hasford stole so many books over the years he cruised through the literary world he ended up doing jail time. I may be afflicted by the same irrepressible urge to collect books, to the point where I swear I'll make myself bankrupt picking up dog-eared paperbacks from the dime-aisles. I love Hasford's writing - it comes from the gut and has a heartbeat and is black and oppressive. He paints a picture of war that is real in the same way shadows cast at oblique angles are real - bigger and more monstrous but still there and still honest. I'm talking about The Short-Timers and The Phantom Blooper, specifically. Ugly books, beautiful in their ugliness.


I tore apart Last of the Amazons, another of Steven Pressfield's operatic Classical-Age ballets a few months ago. Once again, written in his frenetic, visceral prose, a red canvas made up of the violent brush-strokes of paragraphs catapulting the story forward. And what a tale, adventure, romance, Heroic. Also read The Hunter by Richard Stark, a blistering novel about crime and revenge more recognizable as Mel Gibson's Payback: Director's Cut. Tim O'Brian's The Things They Carried and If I Die in a Combat Zone a tore through as well, brilliantly written, and Stephen King's On Writing I re-read. I'm reading Elmore Leonard's Rum Punch right now, another crime novel (Jackie Brown on the silver screen). Also L. A Confidential and American Tabloid by the esteemed James Ellroy. A man who tells stories in sentences that make better punctuation marks, like foliages stripped down to the bark. The man doesn't write, he whittles, it's crazy.


I expect I'll start writing soon - I'm two weeks from the end of this damn Leadership course. All that's left is the Defensive portion, that part of warfare essentially unchanged since the First World War. Trenches, OverHead Protection, rivetting, wire, mines. Direct and command. I'm enjoying the core components of the course, leading the working elements of Patrolling, Urban Patrolling/Assaulting, and the theory which just looks good on a resume.


I have stories brewed up. And waiting.