For Heidi
It always is.
For Sandy
The Cold War lasted forty years. For the record, the West won it. But not without cost. This book is for those who spent so much of their lives in shadowed places. Those where the days, my friends.
For Shane Richard, age five, without whose loving attentions this book would have been written in half the time.
To those who know what really happened in the Gulf, and who spoke to me about it, my sincere thanks. You know who you are; let it be.
To all Press reporters.
To the men of the Special Forces of the free world.
For Frederick Stuart, who does not know yet.
'Cry Havoc and let slip the dogs of war'. WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
'That ... be not told of my death,
Or made to grieve on account of me,
And that I be not buried in consecrated ground,
And that no sexton be asked to toll the bell,
And that nobody is wished to see my dead body,
And that no mourners walk behind me at my funeral,
And that no lowers be planted on my grave,
And that no man remember me,
To this I put my name.'
THOMAS HARDY
For Girogio, and Christian and Schlee
And Big Marc and Black Johnny,
And the others in the unmarked graves.
At least we tried.