It’s pretty interesting to me that I have grown big enough cojones to even write this post. Firstly, if you speak any negative feeling about war, people assume that you are putting down the military. Which in America these days seems to be punishable by death. Secondly, I’m not sure how I chose to read two different books in the same week which contained characters whose lives were destroyed by war.

Eye of Vengeance is the story of crime reporter Nick Mullins who is covering the story of a convicted murderer’s assassination. Over the next couple of days other criminals are gunned down in the same manner and Nick soon realizes that each of these people were the subjects of his old in-depth crime stories.

Michael Redman is an ex-cop and former military sniper who draws the distinction between being a swat team member on the police force and having to follow strict rules and regulations before killing someone. While also being a sniper in the military and being directed to kill people without knowing if they committed a crime, pissed off the wrong person, or are just someone’s mother/sister/child who lives on the wrong side of America’s enemy list and is in the right place at the wrong time.

During an interview Redman informs Nick that War is Hell. A quote that he attributes to William Tecumseh Sherman. I rated this book a five, which I very rarely give but this book more than deserved. It made you feel something. I never wanted the “villain” to get caught. I actually felt bad for him. Also anytime a book leads me to do further research it has served its purpose.

“It is only those who have neither fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded who cry aloud for blood, more vengeance, more desolation. War is hell.” 

Deadline by Sandra Brown doesn’t contain this quote in so many words but when a character describes how the person who wrote letters to the families of the deceased members of his squadron, always cheered everyone else up, always stayed positive, and was just a funny well-loved guy; gets to the point where he asks the reporter to meet him on a ridge then proceeds to blow his own brains out, I’d say that the author has definitely just described that war is indeed hell. Of course this book is another five-star rated book.

Because I may get some slack for these reviews let me just say that:

I support our troops. The ones who do their jobs without raping and torturing people. The ones who joined the military out of love for our country, because they wanted to make something of themselves, because they needed the money for school, and for whatever reason they deemed important enough to join. However, I don’t support these wars we keep embarking on. Is there a ship sitting at the port waiting to pillage, plunder, and rape our women either physically or metaphysically? I would support a war on this but with the way the politics game is being played I can’t believe any reason we’re given for going in to someone else’s home and killing their citizens while concurrently screwing up the lives of our citizens.