Words from different chapters: a leader’s journal from the lead element of the ground offensive in Desert Storm. A screenplay about the Thirty Years War that never found a producer. Short stories from my MFA days at San Diego State. Essays on what you can find with a metal detector, what the high desert in the Sequoias teaches, and the strange turns a life can take. Some polished, some raw, all honest reports from wherever I happened to be at the time.