AN AUTHOR’S SPECIAL THANK YOU TO SOME SPECIAL PEOPLE WHO MADE OVERKILL POSSIBLE, AND WHO HAVE DONE SO MUCH MORE THAN THAT

If you’ve read Overkill, you know that an Abrams tank figures in the story. If you haven’t read Overkill, then you should, so you’ll know what you’ve been missing, because it’s pretty cool. 

 

If you’ve read all of Overkill you also know that fitting an Abrams into a story set  light years in distance and a hundred years in time from here and now, and doing it accurately, requires more than an author’s vivid imagination.

So, I want to say thanks, again, to all the soldiers of 3^rd Heavy Brigade Combat Team, 3^rd Infantry Division, the Sledgehammer of the Rock of the Marne, who took time out from preparation for deployment to the Republic of Iraq, to bring this last-century intel puke and tanker’s son up to date on what makes a modern tank, like the 3rd HBCT Abrams shown below right, thundering across the red clay of Ft. Benning, Georgia.

Even more special thanks to my host, 3^rd HBCT’s Cpt. Charlie Barrett, at left (looking even spiffier in his Class A uniform than in pixillated camo).



Also thanks to SFC. Stephen Burden (above) and Staff Sgt. Joseph Maughon who showed me how an Abrams gets prepped for a long journey.  Although Iraq is closer – a lot closer – than where Overkill’s Abrams winds up.

Thanks also to Harry Sarles and Brenda Donnell of the Department of the Army Office of the Chief of Public Affairs, and to MAJ Lon Widdicombe, USA, for making it all possible.

Any errors regarding tanks and tankers are mine, not any of theirs.

But I, and all Americans, owe 3^rd HBCT, and all those who serve, thanks for far more than that. Not just for their courage in navigating the fog of war, though certainly for that.

But also for the way they represent our better nature to the world, like this 3^rd HBCT soldier.

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