Something that I wanted to mention, is there is some “sailor talk” in this book. I know, shocking right? My editor Tina and I talked about this for a while. I think she wanted me to put more Sailor Talk in the book! She’s pretty cool. So, by Sailor Talk, there is some swearing, some name calling, and talking about being on liberty in port. The stuff we don’t tell our families about.
Anyway, I was like 24, 25 when I wrote the original diary, during Desert Storm. I’d been in the Navy since I was 18, so I talked like a sailor. When I wrote the diary, it was usually at the end of my shift, and I was sometimes tired and cranky. So a lot of what I wrote at the time was just blowing off steam.
Fast forward to now, 2009 (Desert Storm was 1990, 1991) so I’m a bit older, and maybe a bit wiser. I don’t really talk like that as much. Although after reading the old posts and rewriting the book this last winter, I’ve caught myself swearing more again.
I actually did clean up the book a lot, but at the same time I wanted it to be “authentic” too. Then I had an idea, just before I sent the book in for printing. And I’d like to get your feedback, as my readers.
It would be fairly easy, now that its finished, since I wrote it and edited it on a computer, to do a revised edition that would be family friendly. I’ve even thought I could change the cover art to reflect the “kinder, gentler” version. The bombs on this cover now are Yellow Striped, meaning High Explosive. I would make the family version with Blue “Smurf” bombs, blue is non explosive “inert” for practice.
Then I could have both versions of the book available, and people would have a choice. I could have a book my parents would be proud of, a book I could probably even promote to schools, and a book that to me was the way it really was. And no, I’ve decided against releasing the original diary. That was something I had thought of in the beginning, but after reading it, no, I won’t do that to you!
So, if you could email me at carlin.comm@gmail.com and put a subject line with Desert Storm Diaries, then let me know what you liked, what you didn’t, and if you’d like the idea of a cleaned up family friendly version. I can’t promise anything right now, but I think its worth making at least a short run of the second version. And if I get a lot of response, I’ll probably do it sooner rather than later!
Thanks, you have no idea how much this has meant to me!
Carlin
—-
Carlin Comm Photographer, Author, Creative Genius Renaissance Man, All around Great Guy 
http://carlincomm.com My main website hub
http://twitter.com/carlincomm Follow me on Twitter!
is the first book I’ve written, and as you can imagine, I didn’t even know what I didn’t know yet! I’d never used an editor before, or a ghost writer, in fact normally I prefer to work alone.
