The journey CONTINUES. . .
On New Year’s Day 2017, as I hiked up Under Mountain Trail to the AT (Appalachian Trail) and on to the peak of Bear Mountain, Connecticut’s highest point, the concept of a journey began. I was finally feeling well enough to attempt this modest climb, and my mind was bouldering from thought to thought. The day was overcast but warm for the first day of the year, conditions which reflected my mood. The preceding year had been fraught with flare-ups and remissions, and with nasty political turmoil. If news reports are to be believed our country was, and is, more divided, and its people more polarized, than at any other point in my life… a state I found (and find) deeply disturbing.
How does one go about rediscovering America? As I slipped on an icy spot on the trail, John Steinbeck came to mind—I don’t know why. I had not read one of his books in decades, but what I was conjuring up—a trip to gauge the pulse of the nation, to rediscover America, and to challenge and reconnect to self—was something in the vein of Travels With Charley...perhaps with more of a bite.
How to do it? How to rediscover this land, this nation, from purple mountain majesty and from sea to shining sea… from original ethos to the essence of its people a dozen generations later? More than a quarter century ago I told a reporter I believed the basic American character was one of integrity and honesty, altruism and a belief that we could help other people and other nations.
Now, in late 2020, after years of coerced diversity instead of our natural unity; and in the midst of a pandemic of questionable origin and even more questionable coerced public policies, rediscovering this land, this nation, our national character, is more paramount than ever.
Our Mission is still Peaking and Paradigm Shifts, but the landscape has changed… now as much swamp as mountain with the attack media sowing booby traps across many fields. Hopefully we will still climb (maybe Rainier in 2021), but our mission of discovery must now refocus. I still believe in the basic American character… but I fear many people are now fearful of letting it show.
Simmering below the current turmoils, beneath the current fears, under skewed narratives, I have a feeling we’ll still find that the amazing place called America. The new question is: Can we keep it?
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
““Public officials’ overreaction to the novel coronavirus put American cities into a coma; those same officials’s passivity in the face of wide spread rioting threatens to deliver the coup de grace. These back-to-back government failures will transform the American polity and cripple urban life for decades.
Heather MacDonald, Manhattan Institute, In Imprimis May/June 2020”
Over 1.3 Million Copies in Print
John M. Del Vecchio is the best-selling author of The 13th Valley and other historical novels on war and the veteran home coming experience. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Psychology from Lafayette College. Drafted in 1969 he volunteered for Viet Nam where he served as a combat correspondent for the 101st Airborne Division (Airmobile); he was awarded a Bronze Star with V device. He is a managing member of Charlie Foxtrot Entertainment, LLC, and a director for The Freedom Angel Foundation.
Books & Papers
DEMISE: A Novel of Race, Culture Wars, and Falling Darkness: This is a story of the late 1990s, but it is, if anything, more relevant today. A penetrating novel of a man struggling with his demons in a town struggling with tragedy
The 13th Valley: A national bestseller and runner up for The National Book Award (Best first novel) 1982.
For The Sake Of All Living Things: The story of a Cambodia family during the years leading up to, and through the holocaust.
Carry Me Home: A story of veteran homecoming spanning initial return and the following fifteen tumultuous years.
Code Word: Geronimo: (Afterword only) This is the story of the raid by SEAL Team 6 into Abbotabad, Pakistan to take out bin Laden. Story written by Dale and Julia Dye.
The Bremer Detail: Protecting the Most Threatened Man in the World: Frank Gallagher's memoir of being in charge of the protection detail for Ambassador Bremer in Iraq 2003-4.
Viet Nam Veterans: On The Road To Recovery: (forward only)
The Importance of Story: Individual and Cultural Effects of Skewing the Realities of American Involvement in Southeast Asia for Social, Political and/or Economic Ends. Delivered in conference at Texas Tech University.
Image provided by Wild Perspectives Photography