The Writing of Loon: A Marine Story - Part 5

This is the last of a 5 part repost.

When I returned home from Hong Kong, the contract was waiting. The details were numbingly legal, but the bas

I was only disappointed to hear that the publication date had been set for May 19, 2009 - well over a year away. RH sought to position Loon as a beach book, a summer read. They also wanted to be certain that it didn't get caught up in the media hysteria surrounding the Presidential election.

I was assigned an executive at Random House who was to shepherd Loon from manuscript to publication. The book now belonged to them, so the first time I had someone else on my team with a financial stake in the book's success. 

This was business. 

I understood business.

What were the next steps? 

• Final editing. There were several minor areas that RH felt could be developed - a paragraph here, a chapter ending there. These were only suggestions, but they were right on every point. The changes were made.
• Permissions. This required that I have written permission from anyone that I had quoted, cited, or mentioned in a potentially libelous way ("Would Sal Martucci, or his family see your humor in watching him get shot for venereal disease?") Several of these permissions required that I personally pay a royalty to the author (Lou Reed Music, for example.)
• Cover design. I had always seen Loon as a coming of age story with broad age and gender appeal. Then again, it is a war story. How do we walk the line to create the cover we want that will be appealing to the broad segment of the market. I found the result to be incredible!
• Copyediting. I had presented what I felt was a near perfect manuscript. What came back were pages of penciled scribble in a language akin to Navajo. The (suggested) corrections were editorial, grammatical, and contextual. Remember how in school you'd turn in a paper with perhaps a couple of soft points that you thought might skate by??!! Nothing missed the copyeditor.

Now, with three months to go before publication, I've been assigned a publicist who has a PhD in English and enough experience to position the book well in the media. At every turn, I have been amazed by professionalism of all with whom I have dealt. Now we again need your help.

We are beginning to plan a book tour, media events, and the like to assure a positive launch on May 19.

So many of you have been supportive of this effort. Thanks to your pre-order purchases, Loon is #219,116 on the Amazon best seller list (A Tale of Two Cities is 604,437). We’ve been as high as 89,000 and as low as over a million. (Editor's note - Loon has risen as high as 2,300 on Amazon and currently sits at 12,300.)

I am confident that Loon will be a #1 best seller. The grand young sons of Charlie Company have earned nothing less.

Please let me know of potential book signing venues (including your house,) media and literary that may be good targets for a favorable review.

Thank you for your support.

Thank you for visiting.

Semper Fidelis.

The Writing of Loon: A Marine Story - Part 4

This is the fourth in a series of five reposts

With the Loon manuscript now in the capable hands of my agent in New York, there was little for me to do but wait. Although she felt that there could be 8 or 10 publishers with an interest, she was careful to keep my lofty expectations in check. It was now about cash, marketing, and brand creation. Was there an audience out there for a topic that had a well earned reputation as a marketing graveyard - Vietnam?

Early in February 2008, I received word that we had two declinations. Although the comments were encouraging, the decisions were not. At the end of the month, days before leaving on a three week trip to visit my daughter and her family in Hong Kong, I called to see if there was any news.

"Well, sort of. We got a nibble from Random House."

I'd been in sales long enough to know that all big catches begin with a nibble. Success comes from keeping a fish on the line and reeling it in.

"A nibble," I responded. "Nibbles are good. Yes? I mean, nibbles are better than no nibbles, right?" I needed some hope here, something positive to dream about on a sixteen hour airplane ride.

"Yes, Jack. Nibbles are better than no nibbles."

So off I went to Hong Kong filled with hope. I told friends and family that I'd had a nibble from Random House. The response was enthusiastic. I was ecstatic.

Random House!

I mean, literary insiders knew I had a great agent, but everybody in the world knew how great Random House was! Did I go through all of this just to get a nibble from Random House? No, but I had to admit that the feeling was incredible.

Three days into my trip, my cell phone rang. It was my agent informing me that Random House was going to make an offer for Loon.

The Writing of Loon: A Marine Story - Part 3

This is the third in a series of five reposts

The long flight home from my daughter's wedding in Thailand had me warmly reflecting and eagerly anticipating all at once. It was a magnificent jumble of feelings. Hours after the plane landed, I placed the Loon manuscript in the mail to my new editor in Indiana and begin a vigil by the mail slot of my Georgetown home - so eager was I for any criticism that would make me a better writer and Loon a better book.

The first third of the manuscript returned a month later. It was peppered with pencil marks, littered with arrows going from here to there, and filled with editorial and grammatical commentary. It was like the return of a so-so term paper...on steroids. I soaked up every mark and executed her every suggestion. It was incredible. She was in my head as surely as if she were a protagonist in the filmBeing John Malkovich.

We plowed forward for months and months - all by mail. She'd have an idea - I'd think it was terrific. I'd come up with something and she'd know exactly where it belonged. It was just about the most fun I'd ever had. It was an extremely satisfying process.

Meanwhile, I had gotten another job and, although determined to make this one work, my heart and soul remained in Loon. Despite honest effort, I was again shown the door a year later.

That summer, as my second daughter was being married, my editor and I knew that we were close to a finished product. She would send new comments every couple of months for my review. I'd throw them in my car and head to the Outer Banks where a Vietnam buddy had given me the use of his beach house in which to write. Many stories emerged from this editing period that taught me much about myself both as a person and as a writer.

Midway through my tour in Vietnam, for example, I was given 5 days of R&R in Singapore. I wrote detailed pages about the days leading up to it and the first several hours. I then skipped ahead three days to write about a newspaper story I'd seen. I then skipped to the flight back to Vietnam. The comment that came back from Indiana about this chapter?

"Your public AND your editor want to know exactly what happened during those first three days!"

Ouch. Why go there? Doesn't the reader have an imagination?

But, as usual, she was right. I sat down and wrote about the first three days in detail and soon found myself laughing out loud at my memories. Her suggestion ignited some of my very best writing.

Among the casualties of the editing process were my letters home. On the first pass, some were removed and others severely edited. As time went on, however, most disappeared and were replaced by prose. Although the letters were excellent source documents, my editor was clear that the reader would want more of my current writing. The manuscript that began with over 100 letters, now had but four, with three written by others.

By the end of 2007, we agreed that the manuscript was ready again for my agent. I took it to New York in January. The change from that which she had first seen exactly two years prior was palpable. She thought that there might now be a market, although Vietnam remained far off the national literary radar screen.

For the first time, Loon was out of my hands and into the marketplace. All involved agreed that it was a good story. All involved also agreed that it was very well written. It was now up to the market.

I had no job, was living full time above a friend's garage on the Outer Banks, but was at peace with both my accomplishment and my life.

Happiness is...

Having Sarah, Margaret, and John miss their Hong Kong connection from Maine and, thereby, be stranded here in 5B for a day!

Wonderful!

Here is a paparazzi shot of the happy trio returning from the requisite early morning visit to Gordberg's Bagels, caught walking across the Walgreens parking lot.

The Writing of "Loon: A Marine Story" Part 2

This is the second in a series of five blog reposts

By the summer of 2005, I had been writing what was to become Loon for nearly three years. It had been transformed from a compendium of 100 letters home into an almost-book with half as many letters and a correspondingly increasing amount of prose. I received positive feedback from friends, family, and even Washington DC military insiders. 

During that period, an incredible situation unfolded. Day by day, large thanks to the burgeoning internet, my former Vietnam buddies emerged from the woodwork. With them came floods of memories. We began to regularly get together, first in twos and threes then, over time, in greater numbers.

"Do you remember those three days in June 1968? Did that really happen?"

We listened to each other and cried, laughed, and argued.

"No, no, you shithead, that's not the way I remember it. Here's how it really happened..."

As each former comrade-in-arms emerged, the tears, the laughs, and the arguments continued anew. But over time the stories became clearer - even lucid. We gained access to unseen unit diaries, found actual rosters of the wounded, and poured over the names of the dead.

Oh, so many dead.

As I shared my letters with the new arrivals, I realized that I had created a record of our time in Vietnam. Few of the boys wrote letters home with content relevant to our actual activities. More often than not, this was intentional so as not to upset their families.

The letters found their way to the mother of one of our boys. She wrote to emotionally tell me that this was her first knowledge of the details of her son's life in Vietnam. That blew me away and reinforced my determination to keep writing, despite having neither a job nor a clue as to how such a book might become published.

I'd already been well introduced to one agent and, after a year of trying, struck out. I'd spent months working with a major military publisher and struck out again. But for the reinforcement of family, friends, and fellow Marines, I'm certain I could not have gone forward.

Seeing my discouragement during a down moment, a marine buddy laid it out.

"Listen to me Jack, this ain't just your story, this is our story. It belongs to all of Charlie Company and it must be told. You can write it. We can't. Get it? Now get off your ass and get this thing done."

I wonder if my writing career might have launched earlier had my mother ever given me such an admonition.

So, I kept writing and I kept networking. I wrote to publishers, agents, and authors. Most were around Washington where I was living at the time, but I also made several trips to New York. Soon I realized that it was important to have an agent and really important that she have a 212 area code.

My break came early in 2007.

Friends arranged a breakfast for me to meet a local newspaper reporter who was not only a former marine, but also the author of a well received book about the Vietnam era. I subsequently sent him excerpts of my writing which he then offered to share with his agent in New York.

Wow!

It still took nearly a year for me to wangle an appointment with the agent and even then she offered little encouragement. That being said, however, there I was on Bleaker Street in Greenwich Village talking with the head of one of New York's legendary literary agencies. We parted after 20 minutes. She asked that I send her the manuscript. She'd take a look when she had time.

No airplane was required for my return flight home to Washington.

Weeks passed. Months passed. No word.

My phone finally rang in early April. I was in Thailand attending my daughter's wedding.

"Jack? Have you considered retaining an editor? It may cost you."

An editor?

"Can you suggest someone?"

"Yes, I have someone in mind."

The editor suggested was a freelancer who had worked for Random House, had solid experience with war writing, was willing to take a look at the manuscript, and understood the big idea. Loon had evolved from a series of letters into a book about America in the mid 1960's. I was left to wonder how it was that my cell phone worked in Thailand.

And, the times were changing. As the population aged, there was increasing interest both the Vietnam War and America in the late 1960's. After five long years, it appeared that I might be in the right place at the right time.

The book needed help to get the interest of a major publisher. I was on the road.

It would take two more years to bring Loon to market, but in April 2007, I knew we had crossed the Rubicon.

The Writing of "Loon: A Marine Story" Part I

This is the first in a series of five blog reposts on the writing of Loon

From earliest memory my mother said that I would write the Great American Novel - not should, not could, but would. I’d laugh.

She’d laugh.

Over time I noted that, beneath her smile, she was serious. Yet, no endeavor could have been nearer to my heart or further from my reality than that of being an author. Our lively back and forth on this subject continued until her death in March 1987.

Years later, I came upon a box of letters home that I’d written during my time in the United States Marine Corps from 1966 to 1968. My mother had saved them, but I’d never read even one.

Between jobs and looking for a distraction, I began to carefully transcribe the letters. Then I cried – for several days. So many of those boys with whom I served in Vietnam were still dead, still wounded, or lost off in the world. I continued to write. I was creating a gift for my daughters. I was putting our microcosm of history on paper.

There was some satisfaction when I finished the project a month later. Closure? I continued my job hunt and tried to get on with my life, but the letters gnawed at me. I’d succeeded in recreating 107 different photographs, in the form of individual letters, of my life over a two-year span. They needed an album to assure that someone other than I would know the full story.

I began to write again, this time telling stories. Who was this friend I mentioned several times, what was my family like, my upbringing. The letters had been honest, but were protective of my family. I had to be more direct about what had actually happened and my feelings at the time.

I finally got a job, but found that I was soon spending every free moment writing filler stories. My body was there, it was a good job, but my soul was in Vietnam. The job lasted a year after which I really began to write and realized for the first time that I might actually have a book on my hands. I was so wonderfully engaged. I’d write all day and into the night. I had a 1,000-piece jigsaw puzzle on my hands and I was putting it together piece by piece.

I looked for another job, but mostly wrote. I was introduced to a Pulitzer Prize winning writer who had just completed a book about the Vietnam War. He liked what he read and (long time passing with each excruciating step) referred me to his agent. He liked it (sort of.) Another year passed, the agent struck out in his attempts to find a publisher, as I did with my attempts.

No one wanted to read about Vietnam.

No one wanted to read military memoirs (particularly ones from Vietnam.)

Vietnam was dead, and the American public had elected with their wallets to keep it that way.

And what was my big idea, anyway?

But, the times were changing.

I knew I had a good book.

I knew it needed work.

I knew I needed help.

"And it's 1,2,3 what are we fight'n for...

Whoopie I don't give a damn, next stop is Vietnam..." 
Country Joe & the Fish - I Feel Like I'm Fixin' to Die Rag

Robert McNamara died yesterday and has now finally shuffled off to join LBJ and Dick Nixon in the 7th level of Hell - author Joe Galloway

I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure - Clarence Darrow 

Robert McNamara

AKA Robert Strange McNamara
Born: 9-Jun-1916
Birthplace: San Francisco, CA
Died: 6-Jul-2009
Location of death: Washington, DC
Cause of death: unspecified
Gender: Male
Race or Ethnicity: White
Sexual orientation: Straight
Occupation: Government
Nationality: United States
Executive summary: US Secretary of Defense, 1961-68
Military service: US Army Air Corps (1943-46)

Robert McNamara said that his earliest memory dated to 1918, when he was two years old. He remembered the shouts, music, and joyous celebrations of peace on Armistice Day, the end of the Great War -- then called "the war to end all wars", now called the First World War. His middle name is Strange, his mother's maiden name, and perhaps it was appropriate for the life McNamara would lead.

He was a statistical control officer in the Army Air Forces during World War II, entering the service as a Captain and leaving as a Lieutenant Colonel. He worked beside General Curtis LeMay in planning almost a thousand pre-atomic firebombings of 67 Japanese cities, calculating in advance the number of Japanese civilians who would die. "In a single night," McNamara remembered, "we burned to death 100,000 civilians -- men, women, and children in Tokyo." 

He said that LeMay once told him, "If we'd lost the war, we'd all have been prosecuted as war criminals."

McNamara's way with numbers yielded great success while he was an executive at Ford Motor Company. He was hired to oversee planning and financial analysis, scrutinizing details to increase efficiency, and eventually became the first man outside the Ford family to head the business. He became President of the company in 1960, but his tenure was brief, as he became Secretary of Defense under President John F. Kennedy in 1961.

In his time at the Pentagon, McNamara was credited with making the military more efficient, eliminating waste and redundancy (a claim made by most Secretaries of Defense). In the 2003 Errol Morris documentary The Fog of War, McNamara described himself as trying to help Kennedy avoid war with Russia during the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, but the historical record clearly shows that for most of that tense October, McNamara was advising Kennedy to bomb Cuba, which almost certainly would have led to World War III.

As Secretary of Defense, McNamara publicly announced what he called a "no cities" nuclear strategy, meaning that if the US was attacked by Soviet nuclear weapons, America's retaliation would not target the enemy's civilian populations, but would instead target their military bases and installations. In private counsel with the President, however, he argued for the well-remembered "MAD" -- mutual assured destruction -- Cold War retaliation plans calling for first-exchange destruction of 20 to 25 percent of the Soviet Union's population and about half its industrial capacity. Of course, the USSR's "MAD" plans were similar.

McNamara was Kennedy's key military advisor as American involvement in the Vietnam war escalated dramatically in 1961 and '62, and after Kennedy's assassination he was a consistent advocate of escalation under Lyndon B. Johnson. At McNamara's urging, America's involvement in Vietnam grew from thousands of American soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines to almost half a million. The death toll climbed, the protests grew louder, and alongside Johnson and later Richard M. Nixon, McNamara came to represent the war in people's minds.

He abruptly left the Johnson administration in 1968, and later became President of the World Bank. He dallied with the Trilateral Commission and Brookings Institution, and for decades generally played the role of elder statesman. In his writings and speaking engagements, he always remained silent about his concerns regarding the Vietnam war, until writing his 1995 book In Retrospect. Reconsidering his role, he acknowledged not only that the war was "wrong, terribly wrong," but that he had believed it was a mistake, even while he was Secretary of Defense. McNamara said he began having doubts in the mid-1960s, never about the morality of the war, but about whether it could be won.

The book's revelation made McNamara again as controversial as he had been in the 1960s. Pundits and ordinary people wondered, how could a Secretary of Defense send soldiers to a war he did not believe could be won? The war's legacy was 58,000 Americans killed, somewhere between two million and four million Vietnamese dead, and chaotic political protest and unrest at home, while McNamara had enjoyed sinecure at the World Bank and quiet retirement. Those who had opposed his policies wondered why it took him so many years to speak out, while former colleagues who were still alive saw him as a Benedict Arnold for ever expressing his doubts. In an editorial, the New York Times wrote that McNamara's book amounted to "stale tears, three decades late."

In a 2004 interview with Toronto's Globe & Mail, he was asked to comment on America's occupation of Iraq. Although he had been asked the question numerous times before, he had always demurred, but for some reason, this time the question triggered an angry response. "We're mis-using our influence," McNamara said. "It's just wrong what we're doing. It's morally wrong, it's politically wrong, it's economically wrong."

He also offered his advice on how to prevent future Vietnam-like wars, arguing that the US should submit to the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court to govern wartime behavior and prevent atrocities, and that the details of US nuclear strategy should be publicly discussed and debated. "You'd be shocked if you knew what it was," he said.

Father: Robert James McNamara (shoe sales manager)
Mother: Clara Nell Strange
Wife: Margaret Craig (m. 13-Aug-1940, d. 1981, one son, two daughters)
    High School: Piedmont High School, Piedmont, CA (1933)
    University: BA Mathematics and Philosophy, University of California at Berkeley (1937)
    University: MBA, Harvard Business School (1939)
    World Bank President (1968-81)
    US Secretary of Defense (1961-68)
    Ford Motors President (1960-61)
    Ford Motors VP Car and Truck Divisions (1957-60)
    Ford Motors (1946-57)
    Member of the Board of Ford Motors (1957-60)
    America Abroad Media Advisory Board
    American Academy of Diplomacy Charter Member
    American Philosophical Society 1981
    Aspen Institute
    Atlantic Council Honorary Director
    Bretton Woods Committee
    Brookings Institution
    Center for Global Development Honorary Member
    Council on Foreign Relations
    Economists for Peace and Security Trustee
    Enterprise Foundation Board of Trustees
    National Committee on US-China Relations Board of Directors
    National Council for Science and the Environment Board of Directors
    Phi Beta Kappa Society
    Phi Gamma Delta Fraternity
    Urban Institute Trustee
    Presidential Medal of Freedom 29-Feb-1968
    Distinguished Service Medal 29-Feb-1968
    Funeral: Katharine Graham (2001)
    Irish Ancestry
    Risk Factors: Polio
    
FILMOGRAPHY AS ACTOR
    The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara (21-May-2003) Himself

Rotten Library Page:
Robert McNamara

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