Pulling Weeds, A guest post from Chris Kennedy

Here's a guest post from former Naval Aviator and current science fiction and fantasy author Chris Kennedy. As you might imagine, he has strong opinions about burning aviators alive.

I’d like to thank Shaun for the opportunity to post here. When he contacted me yesterday, I took a look at the blog and it really took me back in time. Like many folks who have been out of the Navy a while, I had a lot of common memories. Pigs in Space? Been there; done that. I even have a similar scar from an Achilles surgery of my own. I got nostalgic looking at it. Even though I feel no desire to go back and do it again, it was a good time of my life, when things made a little more sense.

What the world looked like from Chris' office chair when he was an A-6E Bombardier/Navigator with the Blue Blasters of VA-34. From the Intruder Association, this image dates from slightly before his time with the Blasters.

How much sense? If someone had been burning aviators in cages back then, we would have strapped on our trusty A-6E Intruders (see below) and gone to show them what happens when you do stupid things like that.

LT Chris “Teddy” Kennedy (left) and LT Greg “Torch” Buck in front of a KA-6D (1992) Author's image.

If you had read my story in “Riding the Red Horse,” you’d know I’m all for pulling out the weeds of society, and ISIS is certainly a weed that needs pulling. What did they say in “Aliens?” “I think we should haul off and nuke them from orbit; it’s the only way to be sure.” Okay, that’s a little excessive, perhaps; maybe the repeated application of 15,000 pounds of explosives (an A-6’s “full load”) would be more appropriate. If the Navy wants to pull some of them out of the boneyard, I’d be awfully happy to man one up. I think I could probably still run the weapons systems, even if I don’t look as cool as Jordan’s King Abdullah as he went to war today.

Abdulla II of Jordan pilots his helo while touring Jordanian military bases. S

Bestselling Science Fiction/Fantasy author and speaker Chris Kennedy is a former naval aviator with over 3,000 hours in the A-6E Intruder (300 traps) and EP-3E Aires II. Now retired from the Navy, he works as an Instructional Systems Designer for the Navy Department and is an advisory board member of Hampton Roads Writers. His full length novels include the "Occupied Seattle" military fiction duology, the "Theogony" science fiction trilogy and the "War for Dominance" fantasy trilogy. His latest book is "Self-Publishing for Profit: How to Get Your Book Out of Your Head and Onto the Shelves," and he is working on "The Search for Gram," the fourth book set in the Theogony universe.

Chris’ website is chriskennedypublishing.com. He’s on Facebook at  https://www.facebook.com/chriskennedypublishing.biz and you can follow him on Twitter at @ChrisKennedy110