Our flowers were so beautiful the neighborhood deer snacked on them . . .

Our Asian Lillies bloomed late this year, but were as beautiful as ever. 

We have deer who browse through our neighborhood.

One liked our birdfeed. Another liked a shrub on the side of the house.

One of them ate all the Asian Lillies . . . 

Sigh. I forgot one night to use our Deer spray.

Maybe next year.

Radioactive no-man's land

In my book, Lethal Ground, published in 2018, Sgt. Dunn's main mission is to prevent the Germans from spreading nuclear material over the ground to sicken, kill, and stop the Allied advance into Germany. The story was triggered by my research, which found Operation Peppermint. It was created by the Americans in case the Germans did just that on the beaches of Normandy. The Germans didn't do it, but it was a real concern.

Fast forward to the present.

I'm reading The Korean War by military historian Sir Max Hastings. A few days ago I read the chapter about the dismissal of General Douglas MacArthur. It turns out, unbeknownst to me, that MacArthur wanted to drop atomic bombs in such number that a radioactive no-man's land would be created between the Korean peninsula and mainland China, which would made that area uninhabitable for years. 

Here's an interesting article about Truman firing MacArthur.

100th anniversary of my mom's birthday

My mom, Olga R. Munsterman, was born on this day in 1920. She passed away on 3 January 3, 1991, and is buried at the Ft. Leavenworth National Cemetery. She served as a SPAR in the United States Coast Guard, a Yeoman Second Class.

She left the family farm (near Stover, MO, about 95 miles southeast of Kansas City, Missouri) when she was 18 and moved to KC for work.

Her boot camp was in Palm Beach, Florida, where the Coast Guard had taken over the famous Biltmore Hotel. Here's a history of that period. Her assignment was at Norfolk Virginia. After the war, she went to college at Woodbury College in Los Angeles. Following that, she moved back to Kansas City.

Olga Regina Munsterman 

16 June 1920 - 3 January 1991

Happy Birthday to the United States Army!

Wishing a Happy Birthday to the United States Army, established on 14 June 1775.

Thank you to all who have and are serving.

Today is flag day

Commemorating the adoption of the flag of the United States on 14 June 1777 by resolution of the Second Continental Congress. Note that this is the same date (14 June) the U.S. Army was established 2 years prior (1775).

Remembering D-Day, 6 June 1944

On a gray Tuesday morning, 76 years ago today, Allied soldiers stormed the beaches of Normandy, the start of the end for Nazi Germany and Hitler.

Thank you to all those brave men who served, those who died and those who survived.

6 June 1944

Sgt. Dunn Novel #13, Bold Rescue, now available on Amazon!

Hi Sgt. Dunn readers!

I'm very pleased to announce the release of Bold Rescue, now available on Amazon.

The Battle of the Bulge is raging. The good news is the weather improved and the Allies’ air superiority comes back into play. The Americans have fought their way back, shrinking the bulge, but at a terrible price. The Germans, however, are resupplying the southern portion of their front line by convoys at night, when the Allied air power can’t touch them.

U.S. Army Ranger Master Sergeant Tom Dunn and his squad of deadly Rangers are assigned to parachute into Germany and destroy the last bridge available to Germans in that area. Getting in is easy . . . escape might be another matter.

British Army Commando Sergeant Major Malcolm Saunders and his men raid a Danish lighthouse used by the Germans to guide their shipping convoys. Having seen the same lighthouse on a previous mission to Sweden, Saunders is happy to go back and ruin it for the Germans.

Meanwhile, in Bologna, Italy, a twelve-year-old Jewish boy named Benjamin struggles to care for four younger Jewish children. All five are hiding from the Germans following the deportation of their parents to Auschwitz.

With the advance of the Allied Armies in Italy halted due to winter, Italian partisans take on a more and more important role. In a joint mission, Dunn and Saunders take their men to the Apennines Mountains northwest of Bologna to train an entire company of partisans. Horrifying news from Bologna arrives at the partisans’ encampment: the Gestapo is rounding up the last of the Jews in the city. Next stop by train: Auschwitz. Working together, Dunn, Saunders, and the partisans’ leaders plan a bold rescue. But can they stop the train to Auschwitz and rescue the Jews aboard?

In book thirteen of his WWII action thrillers, Munsterman reminds us of his masterful blending of real-life Nazi plans with fiction giving the reader an action-packed story in a non-stop page-turning pace. In Bold Rescue, he tackles just a small part of the single most horrific event in WWII, the extermination of the Jews in Europe, and shows us what men with integrity and who care can do.