#so her goal is to prove to her ex-wife that HER crime is actually the good crime and she has just become a criminal with good intentions

[puddle1212]

[getvalentined]

I understand people giving Lucrecia the benefit of the doubt with regard to what she did to Vincent, just like I understand people not realizing how undeniably fucked up Gast was, but the important thing to keep in mind about these characters is that the majority of them are written as being in the throes of some pretty extreme cognitive dissonance.

It's not bad writing, it's that they're hypocrites. They reached a moral event horizon at some point, and they did what they felt they had to do when crossing it.

Gast abandoned a child because he wasn't what he wanted—even having raised Sephiroth up until that point and knowing that he was a pretty normal kid overall, as we can see from his behavior as a young teen in Ever Crisis, Gast still couldn't bear to continue to be responsible for a monster. He knew what Hojo was capable of, because he knew about what happened to Vincent, because it happened in his lab, and he left a literal child in his care anyway. Sephiroth's only crime was not being what Gast thought he was, and Gast damned him to a lifetime of torture under a "father" whose only goal was to use him to prove his own genius. Why? Because Gast had a goal, and the goal was what mattered, the ends justified any means he could devise. He was a man obsessed, driven to the verge of madness in his lust for the Promised Land. A religious zealot with the most powerful scientific team in the world at his disposal, ready to prove him right—and then he wasn't right, and the whole world fell apart underneath him. Ifalna gave him back that stability, because she was a real Ancient, and she gave him a new, better child to care for. A child that wasn't a monster, a child that was his, a child that might one day lead him to the Promised Land, if her mother didn't do so first. When Aerith was born, Gast got to be right again, and therefore all was right with the world. Sephiroth (like Genesis before him) may as well have never existed at all.

Lucrecia openly experimented on a man who loved her enough to die for her, going so far as to apparently use data from those experiments to improve her own academic standing, because she couldn't bear the guilt of being responsible for his death. It wasn't about whether it was the right thing to do, it wasn't about whether she loved him back, it wasn't even about her thesis at that point—she just couldn't continue to live having lost everything as a result of her own impatience, her own lack of regard for everyone around her. She killed her mentor through her own impatience, she gave up her son for experimentation, she didn't stop her husband from experimenting on her ex-lover, and she had nothing to show for it but crippling Jenova toxicosis and an equally crippling cowl of regret.

I could even go into Hojo here, how what he did to Sephiroth was a result of struggling to escape Gast's shadow, how what he did to Vincent was a result of him struggling to prove that he deserved his wife, how everything he did was born from the all-consuming need to do just one thing for which no one else could take credit. Hojo got the director position not because he earned it, but because Gast ran away. Hojo got Lucrecia not because he wooed her, but because he didn't have eyes like the unrequited first love that she killed. Hell, Project S only happened because Project G failed! Nothing Hojo has ever had that was worth anything was because of his work, only because the work of others failed. Why do you think he talks about "failures" the way he does? The failure of others is the only reason he's gotten so far, and he knows that any failure of his own will knock him right off that pedestal—and he's terrified.

None of these people are good people. I don't know that any of them ever were. But in their eyes, everything they did was justified, they took the right course of action, because they took the only course of action that their personal understanding of reality would allow them to take.

Were any of them actually right? Probably not. Certainly not, in some cases. But there's no going back on it now. The arrow has left the bow of the goddess, and there's no calling it back.

[piracytheorist]

Since the first thing that strikes me about re8, story-wise, is that it seems to be all over the place? Again, I’ve no idea how it ties to previous games but it feels like this parental/mother-child theme is just hanging there with no resolution at all? I mean yes, Ethan saved his daughter, presumably breaking some sort of abuse cycle, yay, congrats, but what about his wife/gf? Isn’t she supposed to be like the main protagonist of the story of a mother bereaved to the point of tyrannical madness

Or rather, this specific story is not the right choice for his character since there’s SO many ethical and philosophical issues and questions implied but never properly explored because of Ethan’s ‘fuck you, idc’ attitude (which is completely understandable in those circumstances but adds virtually nothing to the plot and arguably even ruins it a bit). Heisenberg could’ve been an excellent ally with fascinating grey morality (provided the writers wouldn’t push him to the point of absolute insanity and let freedom, not power-hunger be his main goal and motivation for rebellion).And again, aren’t the lords supposed to represent child development stages? In which case Ethan what? Kills the possibility of some evil version of Rose? Or his own chance to experience fatherhood throughout all of those stages? Either way, it seems a bit… weird to have a Parent destroy multiple people whose main relevance to the plot is that they’re children of an abusive antagonist in a storyline so extremely focused on parent/kid relationships.

I feel like the main theme of re8 is not just parenthood/motherhood, but the relationship itself of the parent to the child. There's a lot of mentions to "children being used". Miranda kidnapping people, experimenting on them and mutating them and then treating them like they're her kids; Miranda kidnapping and practically killing Rose; Dimitrescu making daughters out of reanimated corpses she experimented on; Heisenberg wanting to use Rose's powers, etc etc.

And it's important that Miranda is at the center of this. There's something very interesting she says to Ethan in her boss fight:

"Why do you interfere? Surely you have no need of Rose now, so close to death?"

And that's where her mistake was. Ethan wasn't doing all that because he needed Rose herself. He was doing it to save her, fully aware that he wasn't going to be a part of her life cause he knew he was dying. Miranda was way too dependent on her love for Eva - and like, I honestly get it that losing your child can devastate you (if anything my fear of that is one of the reasons I don't want to have kids) - so much that her life literally revolved around her child. Once Eva died, Miranda wanted to die. Once she found the Megamycete and discovered she maybe had a chance to bring Eva back, she dedicated her entire life and ruined multiple others to do just that. Her one and biggest need was to get Eva back. It wasn't a simple want or wish. It was a need. She'd get her child back, damn everyone else - including other people's children.

Miranda had no-one to blame directly; Eva had died from the influenza, it wasn't like she had any chance to change things. Ethan's case was different; he had people to blame, particularly, the one who kidnapped Rose and dismembered her, and her lackeys who kept said parts and fought him for trying to take them back.

So on one end, you have a parent who lost her child due to a tragedy, and ended up destroying other - innocent - lives in order to get her back. On the other, you have a parent who lost his child due to a crime, and ended up going after the criminals responsible in order to get the child back. Like, it wasn't even revenge, and it wasn't that he "needed" Rose in his life. He simply wanted to save her and ensure she'll be alright.

I fully agree it could have been Mia as the protagonist in re8, and that it was a wasted opportunity to simply fridge her and have her in the sidelines angsting over her husband. But whether it was Mia or Ethan as the protagonist, I feel like the theme that I explained above does offer a resolution, showing the opposites of Miranda and Ethan, and ending Miranda's tyrrany of her "need" to have her child back through Ethan's determination to ensure his child's safety and happiness - even if he doesn't get to be a part of any of that later on. Miranda showed obsession; Ethan showed dedication.

And this is how I see the abuse cycle breaking and the resolution is reached; an obsessed parent hurt a good parent's child to bring their own child back - the good parent's dedication stopped the former, allowing the former's tyrrany to end and their child to grow up safe.

Seeing as this is a horror game, I don't tend to focus on the morality issues (if I'm interpreting your second message correctly). Like, the developers are making a grant effort to put us in Ethan's shoes, first-person POV, plain character protagonist and all; our child got kidnapped and practically murdered, and we have the chance to bring her back. We'll absolutely raise hell to the people who are responsible for it and we will get our child back, fuck any moral dilemmas we might have. When someone is threatening your life, you have the ability to kill them to defend yourself. In the case of a caring parent, that ability may multiply by a lot when the threat is towards their child. And I feel that this is what the game explored in the end. Though the whole survival issue is taxing on Ethan, he doesn't give a damn about who he has to kill if it means saving his daughter - but again, it's only the responsible parties. We see how watching all the people at Luisa's house die affected him, and even before Elena died, he wanted to ensure her safety before he went searching for Rose; he is sympathetic and morally rational, but also capable of cold-blooded murder if someone is threatening his child. To a lesser extent, we saw that in re7 too. With his life on the line, he killed Jack (multiple times) and Marguerite, and at the end he recognized how they were actually victims of Eveline. But they were still actively trying to murder him so he wasn't given the chance to help them. With Zoe, he promised to send help, and he did, even wanting to talk to her once she'd been rescued by her uncle and Chris. The same applies to re8, but as I said, it's multiplied since it's his daughter who's in danger, and the end of re8 proves he cares for her safety more than his own.

Now, all that said, I think it's important to note how it's stil a Resident Evil game. I haven't actually played or watched any playthroughs of other games, but the basic concept in these games, from what I understand, is that the player shoots zombies; ex-human beings who have lost any human mentality and will just come for your throat if you don't kill them first. They're not humans anymore, they can't be reasoned or sympathized with. It's not really an issue of morality, ethics or philosophy. Your life, and the life of your child in the case of re8, are in danger. You don't give a shit. You just start shooting and hope for the best. Again, I don't know if the morality issue is explored in other RE games, but to be honest... Resident Evil doesn't sound like the kind of franchise that's thematically into going super deep into the morality of shooting zombies to save your life.

I have to admit I haven't thought of the Lords being representative of child development stages. I think they could be put as Moreau being a toddler, fully dependent on their parent - funnily enough, the Greek word for baby is "moro", pronounced almost exactly the way "Moreau" is pronounced in the game - Donna as a child, Heisenberg as a (rebellious?) teenager, and Dimitrescu as a late teen/young adult (if anything, Dimitrescu seems to behave like the eldest child of the bunch). But I'm not sure the connection that has to Ethan as a father, if anything because the bosses are fought in complete random order of age, if my analysis is correct. Like, I understand the symbolism behind the Lords' behaviours, maybe as you said they represent the obstacles Ethan had to overcome. In one single day and with his life on the line, instead of in the course of Rose's entire childhood and adolescence, but that's exactly why he hated being a protagonist of a horror game, lol.

Anyway, yeah. All in all, I don't think Resident Evil is a franchise where we should expect to sit down afterwards and ponder whether we were right to shoot the zombies that were trying to kill us. Again, I'm not the right person to ask this, since I don't know anything about other RE games, but that's the conclusion I'm making in a meta-thinking way.

[missn11]

I tried sending this question on Anon earlier (only my desktop has Tumblr and I was zoning out away from thinking of this), but what if Ming Xiao was a Cainite and Nines and LaCroix were Kuei-jin? What Clan/Dharmas would they be, and how would they feel about it, and how would it affect their storylines? Like maybe Nines rose and was taken in by the Chinatown Wu, and LaCroix has been living somewhere in China since the Napoleonic Wars? Thanks!

@badass-at-cuddling oh wow this is a big question to go into but I’ll try my best! XD

Well, I think it would be best to make changes to LaCroix’s and Nines’ backstory since as far I know Kuei-jin are made from people of Eastern or Southern Asian descent.

Now I think we can keep Nines being an American, in this case a Chinese American (he could be even be part latino as well), and it would makes he could’ve received the second breath after dying during a strike or perhaps he got caught in a cross fire, regardless, he would’ve died young and before his time. (Noooo ;_;)

Considering Nines’ clan in vtmb being a Brujah, his connection to humanity through his politcal beliefs, I feel the Dharma of the Dance of the Thrashing Dragon is likeily the one that fits him best since tbh, not only would that give him the chance to continue to fight for others but also give him a second chance to really live life to the fullest. (Honestly I was thinking of the Way of the Resplendent Crane for him as well but I think that’s too restricted for Nines’ character to be honest but I wonder what you guys might think)

I do think Nines would be quickly taken in by LA Chinatown Kuei-jin but I do think he would butt heads with the elders a lot but also perhaps more being willing to listen to them as well, provided they didn’t treat him badly that is. Although, he could end up becoming the leader of a movement within the Chinatown court that don’t want to be messed around by their elders. But while I think Nines would try to broker some peace treaty with the Anarchs in LA he could end up butting heads with some of the more rowdy Anarchs. And Nines wouldn’t feel happy with the mainland Kuei-jin taking over and saying “Hey we gotta kick or enlighten those awful Cainites to stop the Sixth Age!” but he would also be fed up with the Anarchs just leaving their shit everywhere and whoops the freaking Camarilla and the Sabbat are rolling into town as well!

So I would say that Nines is in a bind in what to do! 0_0

As for LaCroix, oh man this is a tricky one, because I’m trying to figure out if there was enough of a French Chinese presence in France at the time of Napoleon or not.

If there was and they allowed Chinese men to join the army then, I think that LaCroix could have been a French ex noble’s illegitimate son with a Chinese woman and even though there was a draft, I think he would want to prove himself to his father and country that he is worth something. (Ohhh don’t make me sad again ;_;) But he instead dies on the battle field and receiving the second breath and finding out that all of the beliefs his Chinese heritage actually are partly true and he would be super confused and likey eat some people before coming to on his own or being found by his fellow Kuei-jin and after some time he sent around europe to scope things for the Kuei-jin (not for conquering purposes per say but to see if there is any way to help the Kuei-jin in the mainlands).

However, if not then I can see him being a son of a trader in Hong Kong (obvs he isn’t going to be called LaCroix here in this case) and soon following in his father’s footsteps, perhaps even getting involved in the opium trade, (I’m going to be honest here and say that I don’t know as much about China during the 1800s at this point so if anyone has any suggestions please let me know :D) However, he would’ve died young and maybe to move his brith and death forward to from liekly 1794-1815 to 1815-1839 so he could have been involved in the first Opium War and died in the conflict. Upon receiving the second breath and being found and taken to the Hong Kong court.

Now picking LaCroix’s Dharma in either origin story was difficult for me to be honest, but I’m thinking for the first origin LaCroix might have been attracted to the Howl of the Devil-Tiger Dharma, since I can see him wanting to be a powerful demon (Yomi ain’t a nice place bro) and that could go for his second orgin too.

Buttt the other Dharmas he might also go for are the Way of the Resplendent Crane or the Dance of the Thrashing Dragon Dharma, Resplendent Crane cause he might feel guilty for not following tradition and sinning a lot when he was alive and Thrashing Dragon so he could really live his unlife to the fullest!

Now LaCroix regardless would either be sent to LA to asist the Kuei-jin in conquering the city or he would already be in LA and butting heads with Nines no matter his Dharma! XD But LaCroix would have ambitions of becoming an  Ancestor (It’s going to take a bit though) but first he’s going to do his bit to help the effort to stop the Sixth Age (it’s going to get in the way of his goal darn it!) and of course that means screwing over the Kindred through manipulative means!

Ming Xiao is a tricky one for me as I wanna say she could be a Ventrue due commanding air and her ability to be a Leader of a community, I can totally see her rock Domination and Presence easily and with Fortiude, she’s one tough lady that’s hard to kill! However, she could be a Tzimisce, maybe a Tzimisce who isn’t too into changing her image so much but is into having a kick ass war form! (either way, she’ll have some high level Vicissitude baby!!!)

Okay as for Ming Xiao’s Kindred origins, I’m thinking that while the Kuei-jin are the main undead creatures of Eastern Asia there is a tiny population of Kindred scattered around as well. and one of those Kindred (Ventrue/Tzimisce) found an interest in Ming Xiao, in my headcanon a unhappy and necglected wife to a minster of the imperial palace during the Tang Dynasty. A beautiful, intelligent, charismatic and manipulative who would do anything to get what she wanted (since her husband wasn’t going to, lol!) she quickly drew the eye of her sire and they wanted to show a fun time and have her as their companion (dominating or meatcrimes) and embraced her after ghouling her husband.

And after Ming Xiao enjoys herself and gaining herself some power in a little domain for around 400 years (I guess she got bored with her sire and ate them or something) or so, she’ll go into torpor after the Kuei-jin come a knocking to tell her to knock it off. so after like a 1000 years or so (phew that’s a long nap) Ming Xiao wakes up and sees that China had really changed, but oh boy those Kuei-jin are sure to be annoying when she tries to build a domain here again!

Rude, why won’t they let her to do meat crimes or any dominating  anyway, instead she’ll be sharing her wisdom to those who need to hear it duh. Regardless, Ming Xiao then searches for a great place to crash without these annoying Kuei-jin trying to kill her! 

So Ming Xiao’s arrival in LA is going to spook some of the Kindred cause she basically nearly at Methuselah level, but they don’t know it’s her cause she’s not advertising how old she really is. However she is real annoyed that the Kuei-jin are here as well, and well the Camarilla are too european, the Sabbat are just no and the Anarchs really need her help! So Ming Xiao starts subtly recruiting herself some pawns likemind Kindred to help her cause to get the Anarchs’ shit together.

So here you have it, Nines and LaCroix are still butting heads but are way more on the same and Ming Xiao manipulativing the Anarchs for her goals, it’s quite a difference but yet has some shades of the original plot of VTMB!

Phew this was a long post, I hope this answers your question @badass-at-cuddling I’m sorry it took so long to answer! thank you again for the ask it was really fun to think about! :D

[yourdailykitsch]

A breakdown of each of the ‘Shadowplay’ episodes to air on ZDF in October. On ZDF the series will be airing as four, two hour episodes. This is a translation from German, so forgive me if there are mistakes.

*SPOILERS* after the cut: 

Episode 1: 

In 1946, the New York police officer Max McLaughlin traveled to the divided city of Berlin to help set up a civilian police force based on the American model. Max reports to Tom Franklin, the US Vice Consul in Berlin, whose fragile and seductive British wife Claire is immediately drawn to Max. Her appearance at social events, her hatred of Germans and her uninhibited flirtations make her a colorful personality. Max is enchanted, but at the same time senses the danger she poses. On the German side, he works with Chief Inspector Elsie Garten, whose husband is interned in a Russian prisoner-of-war camp. Their task force consists mainly of women and orphans, whose chair legs serve as batons and who have moved into their territory in a disused bank. At the same time he is looking for his missing brother Moritz, with whom he is ominously connected through a traumatic experience in his childhood. But the Russians also cause problems: Max and Elsie barely manage to prevent Russian soldiers from shooting at defenseless German civilians who report to the unscrupulous Russian officer Izosimov. He also does not shy away from torture in order to snatch the information from the youngest member of the police force, the Jewish orphan Gad, which Elsie Garten can use for his purposes - and thus against the Americans. In another part of the city, Karin, who was raped by GIs, asks the Berlin doctor and criminal king Gladow, known as "the angel maker", for an illegal abortion. And for assistance in getting revenge on their tormentors. The price: the collaboration in his dangerous underground organization. Starting with the retaliatory murder of the GIs and followed by the murder of a random eyewitness, Karin gradually changes from a passive victim to an active perpetrator. But Max is not only concerned with the double murder of the GIs, but also with an anonymous tip that leads him to the corpses of an ex-Nazi and his family in an abandoned building. The gruesome act seems like a murderous staging of the first prank from the German children's book "Max and Moritz", with which the two American brothers have happy memories of their German mother. Max's brother Moritz is hiding behind the crime and is taking cruel revenge on Nazis in hiding. When Moritz reveals himself, he demands the oath of loyalty that he once wrested from his little brother: Max should go on a campaign of revenge with him against every law.

Episode 2: 

Max receives pressure from his superior and US Vice Consul in Berlin Tom Franklin to investigate the GIs murder as quickly as possible. He himself is driven by the search for his brother Moritz, who he fears that he will strike again. And Moritz actually goes to the bike shop owner Berta Spiel in her shop and kidnaps her. Berta was an overseer in the Dachau camp and Moritz wants to get information about her former backers through her. In the meantime, Max and Elsie interrogate Karin - without knowing how close they are to the GIs murderer. However, immediately after being questioned, Karin went underground in Berlin. She fled to the "angel maker" and offered him her active participation in his organization. As a first assignment, she received the task of channeling information into the eastern sector together with Marianne. There, however, the two women are attacked by Russian soldiers and Marianne is seriously injured. At the same time, the police force observes the hotel "Alt-Bayern", in which "Der Engelmacher" runs a brothel, because they hope to find Karin there. Max meets Moritz's former commander, General Wright. He tells him about the traumatic experiences during the liberation of the Dachau concentration camp, which changed Moritz forever. And again Max receives a personal message from his brother Moritz. This leads him to a warehouse where he finds Berta Spiel, who died from her burns. The procedure is fatally reminiscent of the second prank from the children's book "Max and Moritz". Elsie meets with the Russian officer Izosimov, who gives her the opportunity to see her husband Leopold again - on condition that she provides him with information about Max. Elsie agrees and begins to observe her colleague. But then Max is kidnapped by the Nakam, a secret Jewish organization which, in turn, wages a campaign of revenge against Nazis who have gone underground and wants to win Max over for this.

Episode 3: 

The two brothers' game of cat and mouse is drawing ever closer circles. Max doesn't find Moritz himself, but at least his hiding place: He has holed himself up in a boathouse where he abused his youngest victim - Oberlander, a high-ranking Nazi officer. In the meantime, the Jewish auxiliary police officer Gad has found out that Karin is actually staying in the Hotel "Alt-Bayern". When Max and Elsie want to arrest them, Karin fires an anti-aircraft gun at the police force. She manages to flee in the resulting tumult and to warn the "angel maker" about the police in good time. To protect himself, Karin persuades to kill the injured Marianne. She is too weak to flee. Karin does what the diabolical charismatic demands of her - and thereby betrays not only her only friend, but ultimately also herself. Claire visits Max in his hotel room and makes it clear to him that she wants more from him. Max still resists her charm and focuses on the search for his brother. When the two finally meet, the brothers engage in a merciless fight. They hit each other. Max remains unconscious on the floor and Moritz flees. When Max comes to, Oberlander is lying dead next to him. As if reflexively, Max disposed of the body. But he has to admit that his brother can no longer be saved and that he can no longer protect him. Since Karin and "Der Engelmacher" believe that the police have evidence against them in their hands, they plan an attack on the police station - an attack that no one should survive. Leopold in turn tries to escape from Russian captivity and is seriously injured in the process. Elsie asks Izosimov to let her husband go anyway. In return, she offers him to continue to cooperate with him. That same night Leopold tried to flee again with other prisoners. A firing squad kills all refugees. Only Leopold remains alive. At a party at Franklin's house, Max finally gives in to Claire's advances. Neither he nor Claire suspect that Franklin is watching them. And then Moritz shows up at the party - in an American uniform. None of those present took special notice of him. Moritz's goal is still to get his brother on his side. Max gives him one last chance.

Episode 4: 

Moritz has found documents in Oberlander's house that show that his superior, Consul Franklin, supports old Nazis by providing them with forged papers and thwarting their prosecution. In return, Franklin demands stolen art objects. In his fanatical love of art, he is even ready to kill for this immoral barter. Max is now supported by Claire in his investigation. She gives him access to the basement of her villa and indeed there are many important works of art there. Claire is devastated when she realizes that her husband is cooperating with Nazis who wiped out her family during the war. She decides to leave Franklin and return to London. Meanwhile, Max and Moritz argue what should happen to Franklin. Moritz wants to shoot him, while Max advocates bringing Franklin to justice. The following day Moritz disguises himself as a chauffeur and kidnaps Franklin and Claire in their car. Elsie is very concerned about her husband's health. Although Leopold was able to escape the Russian firing squad, he is still close to death, as his tuberculosis is worsening day by day. Karin and "Der Engelmacher" rehearse how to deposit the bomb in the police station. Her assistant Trude proves to be too nervous, whereupon "Der Engelmacher" kills her in cold blood. Then he urges Karin to plant the bomb herself. The perfidious plan of the "angel maker" works: The bomb goes off, the police officers flee and the followers of the "angel maker" shoot down the escaping officials. But Karin is recognized. At the last minute, she escapes police access. Max arrives just in time to put the attackers on the run with Elsie. An assassin who is badly injured on the ground reveals the whereabouts of the "angel maker" to Elsie. Max and Elsie finally track down the "angel maker" and take him to the police station for interrogation. This calls for a conversation with the high-ranking American agent Bob Travis. His demand is met and he succeeds in evading legal access. It is now a precious bargaining chip under the protection of the US government. Moritz still keeps Claire and Franklin prisoner in a farm outside Berlin where the brothers grew up with their mother. Max follows him and is able to save Claire and Franklin from their brother's care. There is a gripping showdown between the brothers.

[volantisand]

this just in - MARIANA “ MARI ” REYES has been in wickway for ( MORE THAN, BY NOW ) A MONTH. apparently SHE is a DANCER AT DRIFTWOOD and a CIVILIAN or so HER passport says. so far it’s known that SHE favors JOE AND GO, and resides at WEST PORT. SHE is also said to be LOYAL & CLEVER, but also CALCULATING & GUARDED. at the end of the day, SHE can be described as RED STAINED LIPS, DELICATE HANDS WIPING BLOOD OFF OF DAGGERS AND MISCHIEVOUS SMIRKS FOLLOWING UNDERESTIMATION.

hello again, loves !!! i bring you all the devil reincarnated herself, my baby mariana <33 her pinterest can be found anywhere here !! but it’s kinda messy

𝐁𝐀𝐒𝐈𝐂𝐒 ▸

FULL NAME: MARIANA MERCEDES REYES

NICKNAME(S): MARI

NAME MEANING / PRONUNCIATION: MARIANA MEANING OF THE SEA  OR  BITTER. MERCEDES MEANING MERCIES. REYES MEANING KINGS. ( MA-REE-AH-NAH MER-SEH-DEHS RAY-YES  )

AGE: TWENTY FIVE

DATE OF BIRTH: APRIL 18TH

RANK / TITLE: CIVILIAN, EX-LEADER OF OUTSIDE GANG FROM HER HOMETOWN

OCCUPATION: DANCER AT DRIFTWOOD

HAIR COLOR:  DARK BROWN NEARLY BLACK

EYE COLOR: HAZEL  

𝐈𝐍𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐈𝐎𝐑 ▸

POSITIVE: ATTENTIVE, ARTICULATE, CLEVER, CULTURED, DETERMINED, DRIVEN, INSIGHTFUL, LOYAL, PASSIONATE, PERCEPTIVE, PERFECTIONISTIC, PERSONABLE, SCRUPULOUS, WHIMSICAL

NEGATIVE: BLUNT, DISTRUSTING, HOT HEADED, SOMETIMES IMPULSIVE, GUARDED, METICULOUS, SARCASTIC, STOIC, STUBBORN

𝐅𝐀𝐌𝐈𝐋𝐘 ▸

FATHER: VICTOR REYES ( alive )

MOTHER: LUCIA REYES CASTILLO ( alive )

SIBLINGS: TWO OLDER BROTHERS, AN OLDER SISTER AND A YOUNGER SISTER

CHILDREN: NONE

𝐀𝐅𝐅𝐈𝐋𝐈𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍𝐒 ▸

GANG(S): ANARCHY OF ROSEWICK ( formerly, it remains active ), CURRENTLY NOT AFFILIATED.

MARK: TATTOOED BIRD ON HER RIB CAGE, IT’S ACTUALLY SMALL BUT PIC ANYWHERE HERE and a few smaller little birds, much less detailed, surrounding it

POSITION / RANK: LEADER ( formerly )

WEAPON OF CHOICE: DAGGERS RARELY HAS A GUN.

YEARS AFFILIATED: EIGHT YEARS

𝐇𝐄𝐀𝐃𝐂𝐀𝐍𝐎𝐍𝐒 / 𝐅𝐀𝐂𝐓𝐒 ▸

born and raised in a fictional town called rosewick, she’s one of my past muses that has been adapted to come into wickway <33

she was named after her paternal grandmother. and had a very good relationship with both of her parents. growing up, she was always very in touch with her hispanic culture, adoring everything about her roots and then some. she began dancing before she could even walk properly and fell in love with it instantly. 

she’s also not very tall bc frankly, i’m not either so my muses suffer with me, 5′2 at best.. however, she wears heels nearly twenty four seven. unless, y’know at home, at the beach or... idk working out. 

having been born on the 18th of april, she is an aries. 

“ Fun, free-spirited, and fiercely independent, the Aries woman is a breath of fresh air – a brightly burning candle in human form. Fire is her element, igniting all that she touches with the living spark of life. The Aries personality is creative, passionate, energetic and – at times – domineering and short-tempered. A cardinal sign ruled by the planet Mars, the Ram is great at getting things going, initiating endeavors, and infusing her enthusiasm into everything she does ”

true to herself, and her zodiac sign, mariana is a vixen. a total coquette but dangerous. we’ll get there, though !! first... lil fun fact: dance was a major part of her life, she often won competitions with flying colors and excelled in every routine taught to her.

she was seventeen when she met jacob day, captain of the college’s baseball team. their star pitcher. and eventually, her boyfriend. he was older than her, two years. but he was sweet and romantic. at least, at first. jacob day would prove to be the absolute worst thing to ever happen to her. 

a few months later, he’d become a junkie, paying other kids to take the athletic drug tests for him and eventually - he got abusive. she stuck around because he had never gotten physical, only verbal. and most days he was still the same boy she thought she’d fallen in love with. most days.

he was twenty the night he died and she was eighteen the night she killed him. he’d laid a hand on her a few weeks prior to that wretched night. they were at a party, not unlike high schoolers their age who think they’re grown when they’re absolutely not. they’d gone up to the second floor of the lake house so she could find a bathroom. he grew irritated with the young girl in the bathroom and laid hands on her once again. only this time, her temper got the best of her. he was drunk, rendered a bit slower and a lot taller than her. she was quick and agile and while she tells herself that she hadn’t meant for him to die. deep down, she knows that she did. he had laid lifeless in a pool of his own blood and she had stared, her own once pristine hands stained with the crimson of the very same blood. 

she had acted fast after having realized he was very much dead and washed the blood off of her hands. moments later, she was calling her late uncle’s wife, her lawful aunt and the woman who had taken over the gang her uncle once led. she showed up a while later and the two left the lake house, leaving behind a spotless bathroom and absolutely no evidence of mariana’s crimes.   

she took her under her wing, agreed to protect her under the promise of her joining the gang. mariana sat a few hours later, on eliana’s couch with a fresh small tattoo on her ribcage linking her to the gang. 

it didn’t take long for the leader and her to actually get to know each other, having not had any solid relationship when her uncle was alive. one year later, eliana named mariana her second in command. of course, no one understood why on earth, a girl who had just barely turned nineteen could be given such a high power. not even mariana herself understood it.

two years later, she rose to the throne following eliana’s death. by then, she had been completely molded by the late leader and had been taught everything she could possibly need. and then some. mariana was trained in combat, gang ties, suppliers and how to keep them happy as well as game plans to ensure that anarchy remain at the top. 

the gang loved her, she was an intelligent girl that had lost a lot at a young age. it toughened her up. and the suppliers loved her because... she was never late on a payment.   

when mariana became the leader, she shifted blake dietrich’s position to second in command. it only seemed fair, he was her best friend. her partner in crime and the sole person she absolutely trusted with her life as well as secrets. though, they’ve known each other for a lot longer than before she made him her right hand man. 

they kept the gang upright together. matter of fact, anarchy had never been better since they were in charge. she was young and pretty, looked anything but what she really was. it gave anarchy the upper hand because everyone else knew exactly who their leader was but did not believe it. she was hidden in plain sight without having to hide at all. 

underestimation, often drove her to do better. those who dared to be verbal with their doubts, died. she, herself, was lethal and absolutely ruthless. her middle name, mercedes meaning mercies, was the most ironic thing to have ever happened. she finds it funny and throws it in the faces of others. 

“ the only merciful thing about me is in my name. ”

she and blake have spent a few months maybe even a year, on the run, after having been walking on eggshells in rosewick. as powerful as a gang can be... it’s only as powerful as its weakest member. and because of a slip up on their end, blake and mariana were compromised. of course, she would rather die than snitch on her own kind - though had they snitched, they probably wouldn’t have had to leave their home. mariana packed her bags and even blake’s before grabbing him and all but dragging him out of rosewick.

they spent some time traveling around the states, living their best lives before mari mentioned the island and now... here they are. 

though, with power like mariana’s and blake’s, they’ve fallen under the santoro gang’s radar. they’re being watched with interest, the main goal being that they join them.

𝐖𝐀𝐍𝐓𝐄𝐃 𝐂𝐎𝐍𝐍𝐄𝐂𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍𝐒 ▸

honestly, anything !!

[somethingusefulfromflorida]

DC:IRL Gotham Rogues Gallery

My original post: https://somethingusefulfromflorida.tumblr.com/post/190712516986/dcirl

There are no super powers, no magic technology or medicine, no cartoony gimmicks, just normal people going about their lives in the big city (well, not “normal,” per se).  In the real world there are no “super villains,” so in this universe these people are just mundane criminals with varying degrees of severity.  What would be the real world implications?  Nobody wears a mask.  Nobody plays a character.  What if their mental illnesses and motivations were grounded in reality rather than fantasy comic book land where “crazy people” commit crimes for fun?  What if Gotham was just New York, a regular city, not some dystopian hellscape?

John Doe: little is known about the so-called Joker Killer, this John Wayne Gacy wannabe who murdered 37 Gothamites in the last 10 years.  He’s like the Zodiac Killer, Son of Sam, the Unibomber, always leaving calling cards for the police, daring them to track him down.  Nobody knew if he was just one guy or if there was a group of people using the Joker alias as a scapegoat to throw the police off their trails.  When the culprit was finally caught, it was revealed that he’s a phantom, he didn’t have any government records, and to this day nobody is sure how he managed to cover his tracks so well.  He was found guilty, but legally insane, so was remanded to Arkham State Psychiatric Hospital.  He doesn’t play well with the other inmates. Or the doctors. Or the guards.  He doesn’t have henchmen, he doesn’t ransom world leaders, he’s just a serial killer with a theme, not a domestic terrorist with goals.

Oswald Cobblepot: a mobbed up ex-lawyer who runs a night club as a front for his criminal activities. He’s basically Roger Stone is Roger Stone was smart enough to avoid going to prison.  He’s a public figure in Gotham, and pretends to be a philanthropist to cover for the fact that he’s very clearly corrupt.  He owns multiple buildings with his name on them, he refuses to rent apartments to black people, he molests women and brags about it on tape, and has run (unsuccessfully) for mayor, governor, senate and president of the United States on multiple occasions.  Everyone knows he’s guilty of something, but the GCPD refuses to look into his finances because some of them are on his payroll.

Harvey Dent: Gotham District Attorney known for fighting corruption, he was nearly assassinated by the mob, horribly disfigured over 50 percent of his body.  He struggles with bipolar disorder, exacerbated by his incident, but continues to fight the good fight, all the while going through therapy.  There’s a 50-50 chance he’ll recover and return to the practice as an underdog or have a mental episode and become a Howard Hughes recluse.  As a public figure he has access to all the help he needs, he is privileged not to have to suffer in silence like so many other mentally ill people.

Eduardo Dorrance: he’s this universe’s version of Fidel Castro.  A left-wing extremist from a small Caribbean island, he killed his way to head of the communist party and overthrew the government in the Santa Prisca Revolution in the 1960s.  President Kennedy instated an embargo against the island, after which the Soviet Union attempted to store chemical weapons there, which Dorrance co-opted to be used against political dissidents and human rights workers.  He is nicknamed Bane by the western world, and is one of the last holdouts of the Cold War, though he is aged and in poor health now (there are conspiracy theories that he’s actually been dead for years), and has pawned off leadership responsibilities to his brother.

Pamela Isley: environmental activist, conservationist, speaks out against climate change and deforestation, wanted by Interpol because she killed a few of the billionaires responsible for the Amazon fires.  She’s labeled a terrorist by the US government, with conservatives going so far as to call her the female Osama bin Laden.  Whether or not she really is a terrorist is up for debate, but either way she’s nowhere near bin Laden, they just want the association to stick so nobody can defend her actions without defending bin Laden’s (”see, this is what happens when socialism and radical feminism are left unchecked,” they say).  She can’t control plants or hypnotize people, but she’s not just a hemp loving hippy, she’s a revolutionary who may or may not have worked with the Dorrance regime to promote anti-government movements throughout South and Central America.

Victor Fries: his wife Nora was diagnosed with early-onset McGreggor’s disease, a degenerative neurological disorder which is invariably fatal within 10 years.  He has dedicated his life to finding a cure, but has recently come under federal investigation when a whistle blower revealed that he has been performing unethical medical experiments to test his research.  Some media outlets campaign for him, others against him; he’s fighting for a good cause, but his results are invalid because the tests were performed under suspicious circumstances outside a controlled laboratory environment.  He is at risk of losing his medical license, and his funding is being slashed as he is under review.

Edward Nygma: a local nobody, he suffers from antisocial personality disorder and OCD.  When the Joker Killer rose to prominence, he was compelled to try and outdo him, inspired by his notes taunting Gotham police.  Also like the Zodiac Killer, Nygma has resorted to cryptograms and ciphers, trying to prove his intelligence and his ability to evade detection.  So far he has done a much better job than the joker, as he is still at large, with no known suspects.  He can’t not commit crimes, he is drawn to them, he can’t stop himself no matter how hard he tries and he can’t afford medication to keep himself in check.  He secretly hopes he’ll get sloppy one day and the cops will be able to trace him, but his superiority complex prevents him from doing anything that would be personally disadvantageous.  He would benefit from therapy, should he ever find himself in Arkham State Psychiatric Hospital.  He’s resentful of men like Harvey Dent who he thinks can just make their problems go away with money (he doesn’t realize that Dent has just as many problems as he does and that mental illness can effect anyone regardless of status)

Selina Kyle: she lives in the slums outside the city proper, the sprawling crime ridden suburban cesspool that is Upstate Gotham.  She subsists as a petty thief, breaking and entering into super-rich apartment buildings and selling the goods to pay her bills.  She’s not a bad person, she’s just in a bad situation, born into poverty in a country with no class mobility.  She’s troubled, abused, and on the brink of homelessness at any given moment, she does what she needs to do to get by.  She’s not a maser jewel thief, she doesn’t break into museums or banks, her scores have much lower stakes than that.

Jonathan Crane: a doctor at Arkham State, he was arrested and tried for criminal misconduct.  He would regularly torture the patients, withholding basic necessities, making them live in filth, locking many of them up in solitary confinement for months on end to see how they would react.  He wanted to prove that his patented “isolation therapy” was the most effective treatment for any number of mental illnesses (in reality, he was just a sadist who had authority over people and wanted to show it).  He drove dozens of patients mad, making them question their own sanity by making them stay awake for long periods of time and playing audio recordings in their rooms which he denied he could hear.  He played on their greatest fears, using information they gave to their therapists against them, and would then punish them if they stopped talking.  He was sentenced to 5 years in prison, but was not labeled a flight risk because he was a celebrity (think Dr. Oz or Dr. Phil), and subsequently fled the country before he was to report to Black Gate.

Harleen Quinzel: also a doctor at Arkham State, her goal was to make as much money as possible by writing a tell-all book about one of the patients and charging exorbitant amounts of money for therapy sessions.  She honed in on John Doe, the Joker Killer, because he was the biggest name in the hospital and had refused to talk to any doctors before her (he killed one and has seriously injured seven, but he already has multiple life sentences in a state without the death penalty, so they can’t get rid of him).  They both think they are smarter than the other and can play them like a fiddle, Doe by pretending to be receptive to her, and Quinzel by treating him like he’s a victim of circumstance.  Over the years, he ends up manipulating her, having her smuggle contraband for him which he eventually uses to escape, for which she is fired and arrested.  No clown theme, no sexual relationship with her client, just your run of the mill criminal misconduct.

[thecaffeinebookwarrior]

Internal Conflict:  Five Conflicting Traits of a Likable Hero.

1.  Flaws and Virtues 

I’m sure you’ve heard this before, but characters without flaws are boring.  This does not, as many unfortunate souls take it to mean, imply that good, kind, or benevolent characters are boring:  it just means that without any weaknesses for you to poke at, they tend to be bland-faced wish fulfillment on the part of the author, with a tendency to just sit there without contributing much to the plot.

For any character to be successful, they need to have a proportionate amount of flaws and virtues.

Let’s take a look at Stranger Things, for example, which is practically a smorgasbord of flawed, lovable sweethearts.

We have Joyce Byers, who is strung out and unstable, yet tirelessly works to save her son, even when all conventional logic says he’s dead;  We have Officer Hopper, who is drunken and occasionally callous, yet ultimately is responsible for saving the boy’s life;  We have Jonathan, who is introspective and loving, but occasionally a bit of a creeper, and Nancy, who is outwardly shallow but proves herself to be a strong and determined character.  Even Steve, who would conventionally be the popular jerk who gets his comeuppance, isn’t beyond redemption.

And of course, we have my beloved Eleven, who’s possibly the closest thing Stranger Things has to a “quintessential” heroine.  She’s the show’s most powerful character, as well as one of the most courageous.  However, she is also the show’s largest source of conflict, as it was her powers that released the Demogorgon to begin with.  

Would Eleven be a better character if this had never happened?  Would Stranger Things be a better show?  No, because if this had never happened, Stranger Things wouldn’t even be a show.  Or if it was, it would just be about a bunch of cute kids sitting around and playing Dungeons and Dragons in a relatively peaceful town.

A character’s flaws and mistakes are intended to drive the plotline, and if they didn’t have them, there probably wouldn’t even be a plot.

So don’t be a mouth-breather:  give your good, kind characters some difficult qualities, and give your villains a few sympathetic ones.  Your work will thank you for it.

2.  Charisma and Vulnerability

Supernatural has its flaws, but likable leads are not one of them.  Fans will go to the grave defending their favorite character, consuming and producing more character-driven, fan-created content than most other TV shows’ followings put together.

So how do we inspire this kind of devotion with our own characters?  Well, for starters, let’s take a look at one of Supernatural’s most quintessentially well-liked characters:  Dean Winchester.

From the get-go, we see that Dean has charisma:  he’s confident, cocky, attractive, and skilled at what he does.  But these qualities could just as easily make him annoying and obnoxious if they weren’t counterbalanced with an equal dose of emotional vulnerability. 

As the show progresses, we see that Dean cares deeply about the people around him, particularly his younger brother, to the point of sacrificing himself so that he can live.  He goes through long periods of physical and psychological anguish for his benefit (though by all means, don’t feel obligated to send your main character to Hell for forty years), and the aftermath is depicted in painful detail.

Moreover, in spite of his outward bravado, we learn he doesn’t particularly like himself, doesn’t consider himself worthy of happiness or a fulfilling life, and of course, we have the Single Man Tear(TM).

So yeah, make your characters beautiful, cocky, sex gods.  Give them swagger.  Just, y’know.  Hurt them in equal measure.  Torture them.  Give them insecurities.  Make them cry.  

Just whatever you do, let them be openly bisexual.  Subtext is so last season.

3.  Goals For the Future and Regrets From the Past

Let’s take a look at Shadow Moon from American Gods.  (For now, I’ll have to be relegate myself to examples from the book, because I haven’t had the chance to watch the amazing looking TV show.) 

Right off the bat, we learn that Shadow has done three years in prison for a crime he may or may not have actually committed.  (We learn later that he actually did commit the crime, but that it was only in response to being wronged by the true perpetrators.)  

He’s still suffering the consequences of his actions when we meet him, and arguably, for the most of the book:  because he’s in prison, his wife has an affair (I still maintain that Laura could have resisted the temptation to be adulterous if she felt like it, but that’s not the issue here) and is killed while mid-coital with his best friend.

Shadow is haunted by this for the rest of the book, to the point at which it bothers him more than the supernatural happenings surrounding him.  

Even before that, the more we learn about Shadow’s past, the more we learn about the challenges he faced:  he was bullied as a child, considered to be “just a big, dumb guy” as an adult, and is still wrongfully pursued for crimes he was only circumstantially involved in.

But these difficulties make the reader empathize with Shadow, and care about what happens to him.  We root for Shadow as he tags along with the mysterious and alternatively peckish and charismatic Wednesday, and as he continuously pursues a means to permanently bring Laura back to life.

He has past traumas, present challenges, and at least one goal that propels him towards the future.  It also helps that he’s three-dimensional, well-written, and as of now, portrayed by an incredibly attractive actor.

Of course (SPOILER ALERT), Shadow never does succeed in fully resurrecting Laura, ultimately allowing her to rest instead, but that doesn’t make the resolution any less satisfying.  

Which leads to my next example...       

4.  Failure and Success 

You remember in Zootopia, when Judy Hopps decides she wants to be cop and her family and town immediately and unanimously endorse her efforts?  Or hey, do you remember Harry Potter’s idyllic childhood with his kindhearted, adoptive family?  Oh!  Or in the X-Files, when Agent Mulder presents overwhelming evidence of extraterrestrial life in the first episode and is immediately given a promotion?  No?

Yeah, me neither.  And there’s a reason for this:  ff your hero gets what they want the entire time, it will be a boring, two-dimensional fantasy that no one will want to read.  

A good story is not about the character getting what they want.  A good story is about the character’s efforts and their journey.  The destination they reach could be something far removed from what they originally thought they wanted, and could be no less (if not more so) satisfying because of it.

Let’s look at Toy Story 3, for example:  throughout the entire movie, Woody’s goal is to get his friends back to their longtime owner, Andy, so that they can accompany him to college.  He fails miserably.  None of his friends believe that Andy was trying to put them in the attic, insisting that his intent was to throw them away.  He is briefly separated from them as he is usurped by a cute little girl and his friends are left at a tyrannical daycare center, but with time and effort, they’re reunited, Woody is proven right, and things seem to be back on track.

Do his efforts pay off?  Yes -- just not in the way he expected them to.  At the end of the movie, a college-bound Andy gives the toys away to a new owner who will play with them more than he will, and they say goodbye.  Is the payoff bittersweet?  Undoubtedly.  It made me cry like a little bitch in front of my young siblings.  But it’s also undoubtedly satisfying.      

So let your characters struggle.  Let them fail.  And let them not always get what they want, so long as they get what they need.  

5.  Loving and Being Loved by Others

Take a look back at this list, and all the characters on it:  a gaggle of small town kids and flawed adults, demon-busting underwear models, an ex-con and his dead wife, and a bunch of sentient toys.  What do they have in common?  Aside from the fact that they’re all well-loved heroes of their own stories, not much.

But one common element they all share is they all have people they care about, and in turn, have people who care about them.  

This allows readers and viewers to empathize with them possibly more than any of the other qualities I’ve listed thus far, as none of it means anything without the simple demonstration of human connection.

Let’s take a look at everyone’s favorite caped crusader, for example:  Batman in the cartoons and the comics is an easy to love character, whereas in the most recent movies (excluding the splendid Lego Batman Movie), not so much. 

Why is this?  In all adaptions, he’s the same mentally unstable, traumatized genius in a bat suit.  In all adaptions, he demonstrates all the qualities I listed before this:  he has flaws and virtues, charisma and vulnerability, regrets from the past and goals for the future, and usually proportionate amounts of failure and success.  

What makes the animated and comic book version so much more attractive than his big screen counterpart is the fact that he does one thing right that all live action adaptions is that he has connections and emotional dependencies on other people.  

He’s unabashed in caring for Alfred, Batgirl, and all the Robins, and yes, he extends compassion and sympathy to the villains as well, helping Harley Quinn to ultimately escape a toxic and abusive relationship, consoling Baby Doll, and staying with a child psychic with godlike powers until she died.

Cartoon Batman is not afraid to care about others.  He has a support network of people who care about him, and that’s his greatest strength.  The DC CU’s ever darker, grittier, and more isolated borderline sociopath is failing because he lacks these things.  

 And it’s also one of the reasons that the Lego Batman Movie remains so awesome.

God willing, I will be publishing fresh writing tips every week, so be sure to follow my blog and stay tuned for future advice and observations! 

[pelnaxkhara]

Somehow the word of Pelna being a talented medic had made it way past the borders of Meldacio. And medics were on high demand in these dark days. Broken bones, flesh wounds, burns, all kinds of injuries needed to be taken care of. Daemons, beasts and sometimes humans themselves causing pain. But there was one thing no medic could heal: the Starscourge itself. But a father would believe in a miracle till the very last moment. Pleading eyes looking up to Pelna as the man held his infected child.

it wasn’t a hospital. not in the insomnian sense of the word - no wide corridors, no gleaming floors, no background chatter of monitors or alarms ringing out. no sterile stench of antiseptic. but it wasn’t that small clinic from lestallum either. that had been the goal, a small clinic - enough to treat wounds, to stitch the hunters back together after a rough hunt. to help those who managed to make it as far as meldacio, the refugees fleeing from the endless night. 

less and less time spent organising hunts and passing intel on to the other outposts in this dark world - more and more of his time seeing to the battered and bruised - teaching what he knew to others. in a world like this, with limited curatives, the only antibiotics and drugs they had were the ones they managed to salvage from the shattered crown city - an infection could prove anyone’s downfall. a virus could leave an outpost crippled. if the hunters fell, then the rest of eos would follow.

a broken femur. a dislocated shoulder reset. lacerations stitched back together. burns tended to and wrapped. the list of maladies and ailments went on and on, but it had been another normal day - a long day. and he’d been just about to hand things over to the kid he’d been teaching for the last few months - he knew what to do. he’d know to call pelna if something were to happen during the night - sleep called to him, eyes itching and his responses dragging just a split second too slow. shoulders ached and a constant ache in his leg had been enough for pelna to toss in the proverbial towel.

what good could he do if he was dead on his feet? what help could he offer if he couldn’t focus? a few hours on the couch and a mug of coffee and he’d give round two a go.

waving goodbye to the youngster who’d once called taelpar home, pelna was stopped in his tracks on the steps leading up to the medical hut - vivid green eyes pinning him in place. wide. pleading. begging. his own dark gaze lingered on the man’s face for a long moment before dropping down to the small frame cradled in his arms … sleep would have to wait.

back up the steps and an arm holding the door open for the traveler and his son; malnutrition? infection? virus? what about the more insidious possibilities? no sunlight, no vitamin d. muscle weakness? bone pain? the boy was young - more susceptible to this changing world than the adults.

settling the little boy on one of the beds, pelna forced a smile - his father hovering at the side of the bed as he checked the lad’s temperature … way too high. moving the light above the bed closer, he watched the flinch the little guy gave, cringing against the white glow of the bulb before he let out a pained whine. the ex-glaive reached for one of the cardboard vomit bowls just a little too late as the boy sat up and retched, not the first kid to chuck his lunch up on the medic’s lap, it came with the job … and pelna’s blood ran cold.

he’d been right. it was an infection. but not one he could treat. the only one capable of treating this was the oracle … and she was long dead.

staring down at the putrid black gunge the boy had heaved up, pelna felt his throat tightening - five? five or six. the boy was only a kid, an innocent little mite that should be running around outside playing football with the other kids. he wasn’t a hunter or a glaive, he hadn’t been on a hunt and caught out by the swipe of the a daemon’s talon … the boy’s only crime was being born into this world of ruin. a glance from the whimpering boy to his father found those same acidic green eyes still pleading - kids made prisoners of their parents. how responsible did that poor guy feel? no wife in tow, he’d probably lost her to this hell already, his only hope in the endless night being his son. fuck … what would he do in the man’s place?

what if it was his little girl sitting on that bed instead?

patting the boy’s shoulder, he forced another soft smile as he stood, ‘ hey, it’s okay … no tears, alright? you’re not the first person to get sick on me - kinda comes with the job, okay little man? ’ key from his pocket, pelna stepped out of the small curtained cubicle for a moment, undoing the lock for the drugs cabinet and grabbing some supplies.

a steadying breath and pelna had to steel himself. pushing his own personal life to the side - he had to step back. he had to separate himself from this. it wasn’t asha sitting on that bad. he wasn’t the oracle. he couldn’t cure starscourge. he couldn’t treat it. he couldn’t slow it and he couldn’t halt it. the boy would succumb to the plague and he would turn into one of those horrors that stalked the endless night. ignorance was bliss. he couldn’t save the boy, and it was better to give the man false hope than soul-shattering honesty. 

hooking his foot around the bottom of an iv stand and wheeling it over to the side of the bed, pelna reached into his pocket when he noticed the boy’s scared glance to the iv line - sliding across the apps until he found the game he wanted, some random thing about birds, slingshots and pigs. he handed the phone over to the scared child, ‘ you ever play this game? my little girl loves it, but i’m crap at it … i always lose. think you can teach your dad how to play it? ’ 

kids were fantastic. resilient. forgiving. they could light up a room with the brightest of smiles on the darkest of days … and so easily distracted. not even the slightest of flinches when he found a vein and put in the iv line. a giggle - an actual giggle when hooked up the morphine drip.

tugging the curtain shut with a promise to check up on them in a little while, pelna scrubbed a hand over his face - sleep would have to wait. there was no way he was going to leave tonight. this would be his situation to handle when the inevitable played out. no one else. he wouldn’t put that weight on anyone else’s shoulders or conscience. pushing out through the door of the medical clinic, pelna sat down heavily on the wooden steps, eyes lifting to the starless sky above. the creak of the boards gave away someone else’s approach - a mug of coffee thrust into his hands before he could argue … his own protege, with an unspoken question on his face.

‘ sometimes the kindest thing we can do is take away the cruelty of choice. he’d do all he could to save his son. i’d do the same for my daughter - this is least cruel outcome. it’s not nice. it will never be nice. i don’t expect you to make that call. if something like this happens again, call me. ’

@loqis

[whatscoolaccordingtodom]

June 2018

June is the beginning of summer in the Northern hemisphere. American artists traditionally begin touring around this time with many of them even kicking off their world tours with a new album to promote because it just makes marketing sense. Initially I was going to write only about the G.O.O.D Music releases and how interesting this 7-song album every week for 5 weeks concept is, but “Conspiracy Theory” Dom could not ignore the spice brought in by The Carters, or the instant classic by AKA. June produced a definite shift in the way albums are released with many of the bigger artists opting for fewer songs. Select artists are also shying from promoting runaway bubblegum singles and then putting them on their albums in the name of sales; a more cohesive amount of plays-per-song is being favoured, proving artistry beyond the ability to make radio bangers bringing Tyler the Creator and Mashayabuqe to mind.

Starting on the 25th of May with Pusha T’s – Daytona. The G.O.O.D music President who has crafted a respectable roster, most recently signing Valee and 070 Shake who both released their debut tapes under G.O.O.D Music earlier this year, titled GOOD Job You Found Me and Glitter respectively. 070 Shake features on “Santaira”, singing the chorus, which is almost haunting. Push has built a career off his dark braggadocio cocaine inspired raps, almost every song is layered with references to or stories about cocaine, he also happens to be a top-tier lyricist with a respectable stash of flows. Daytona saw him stay very much in his lane on top of crisp Kanye produced beats, definitely falling in the top half of his discography, yet really left me wondering what King Push would’ve sounded like? “What Would Meek Do” is a highlight as well as “Hard Piano”, but it’s “Infrared” that landed the Drake publicity assist. He was baited, causing him to release the “Duppy Freestyle” where he attacked Kanye and Push’s fiancé, “The Story Of Adidon” in response held no punches. It is said Drake recorded a career ending reply, which he was advised to not release, it was then hinted the song would be released on Scorpion, but we never got it; a disappointing end to entertaining beef.

Same day as Daytona, New York’s favourite son and leader of the A$AP Mob, A$AP Rocky released his released third official album titled Testing. In my mind’s eye it’s less of Rocky trying new sounds and exploring the boundaries of rap, and more of him putting in an honest effort and staying true to the sounds of Harlem. A$AP Rocky is a rapper’s rapper who dabbles in fashion and takes on the fulltime gig of being his New York based mob’s front man. His influence pool has grown expanding his signature style. He’s been forced to grow up over the past few years, on “Changes” he speaks about exes moving on, getting married and having kids and on the album addresses sexual harassment which various mob members have been accused of. Anyone who’s been paying attention must have noticed that Rocky really gets along with OF frontmen Tyler and Frank, and of late him and Frank Ocean have collaborating quite a bit with “Purity” as a fitting addition to their growing joint catalogue. “Praise Da Lord” is the albums highlight, following the trend of featuring Skepta -as if the UK has no other fire rappers- Rocky crafts a banger that’s well worth the listen.

June 1st saw Kanye West his release his 8th solo album. Starting with the haunting “I Thought of Killing You”, the song/album is in line with his experimental journey with Hip-Hop and his influence, a journey which has seen him gain and lose millions of fans in waves. The ebbs and flows of public acceptance every changing, in his most recent efforts however has without doubt been the most controversial and most irreversible with millions vowing to boycott Ye after his slavery statement on TMZ. The album is filled with what seems to be snapshots of Kanye’s life in 2018 much like TLOP did in ’16. It is the snapshot of a rebellious boy with white in his beard, three kids, a supermodel wife, and a company destined to be worth $1bn dollars (in his own words). Kanye is no longer the weird beat making kid who wanted a chance, he has grown into an attention grabbing, outspoken erratic who is learning to apologise for his mistakes. “Violent Crimes”, one of the most talked about songs on the album is just a father trying to give his daughter a relevant song in 2018 that hides none of the truths. This made Ye come off as questionable, wishing his daughter has a terrible figure so niggers won’t ogle her. Ye is the story of Spider Man, except he never listened when uncle Ben told him “With great power, comes great responsibility”, he’s had to learn that for himself the hard way. Now at 41 years old, the artist seems to be settling into his place in the world, but is it too late for the black guy who shares dragon energy with Donald Trump? TLOP’s most underrated song was “Highlights”, here too the beautiful “Butterfly” goes almost unnoticed.

One week later on the 8th of June, every G.O.O.D Music fans most impossible dream came true. Most of the original dream team and a plethora of others came together for an unforgettable classic where they also addressed mental health issues. Laying confidently on top of obscure samples and Kanye’s over the top production is a project with simple lyrics but a strong message. Kid Cudi sees his return to G.O.O.D Music, of course he has appeared on every Kanye album since the 808 album, but this is more. The Kudi Sees Ghosts album, in typical Ye fashion was a credit mess, no doubt a law suit or two will spring from the 2018 G.O.O.D Fridays after wave. Mos Def features in the title song and gives a striking verse which is very relevant in the African context; “Civilisation without society” is a dream many Africans have, but would never dare to say out loud.

On this side of the pond, Potchefstroom based creative collective, The Faculty dropped their debut tape What Do We Call This released exclusively on Soundcloud June 8th. Find them on Youtube and Soundcloud @TheFacultyWorldWide.

Future released his soundtrack for the movie Superfly. This project highlights his talent beyond making songs, it saw him craft a playlist where you can almost imagine the movie even if you hadn’t seen the trailer.

June 15 was heavy with releases starting with the North’s favourite son, uBaba kaKairo released his 4th and final album Touch My Blood an interesting take on long projects. AKA gave us 16 enjoyable songs. The Supa Mega’s biggest irk is his need to place outdated runaway singles on his albums in the name of sales, to his credit the rest of the songs on this particular album were not mere fillers, they bang. “Fela in Versace” is a definite highlight. “Jika” will eventually find it’s place in the South African Wedding Song Hall of Fame alongside legends like “Marry Me”, sidenote on how AKA is actually fixated on making songs for this strange demographic. It’d be nice to hear what Touch My Blood would’ve been without “Caiphus Song” and “The World is Yours��. In true bitch with long nails fashion, AKA dragged and mocked his enemies the whole way through his project. Relief came in the form of his many features, picking and choosing from the elite few from home and giving us his now to be expected Nigerian fire feature from Kiddominant; anyone remember Burna Boy’s big local break? I must also note that L-Tido was better than decent on “Amen”, it wasn’t earth moving or anything, just didn’t dislike it. Stogie T is a solid rapper, but he failed to show it in the “Star Signs” music video, it kind of makes the song hard to like now since the video was ruined by his awkward visuals.

The spirit of the youth going independent and doing things their own way is best embodied by The Wrecking Crew Collective. A Reece brought it and 2 of his friends for L3 (Long Lost Letters), with his Wrecking Crew mates Ecco and Wordz, they deliver a compact project, filled with jabs at exes and haters. B T P H a graphic ode to P**y,[NDW1]  is so smooth and sees the rappers trade lines almost like a freestyle session. A-Reece takes time out to throw jabs at Nasty C, and we’ll absolutely see them returned on Friday the 6th of July when he releases his album. “Better Daze” is a stand out track for it’s message, it’s really just a group of friends who are happy their Youtube page hit 1 million views, a relatable goal currently being pursued by many African youths in the hopes that Youtube will give them the income the job market so clearly won’t

Jay Rock released his 3rd album, titled Redemption saw the TDE artist who is currently on tour with his label mates release a Kendrick assisted album. As usual Kendrick handed him his single with a bow tied, and even a memorable Future feature in the form of “Kings Dead”. This album is filled with enjoyable tracks though, the title song sees SZA and Kendrick come through while the clever “OSOM” features J Cole. But “WIN” takes the cake, the track is infectious and easy to remember but doesn’t come off as a pop single. The album is well structured paying homage to the traditional album layout, but it is carried by Rocks talent and the Kendrick assists.

Nasir had one job. Be better than 4:44, that’s all. In many ways Nas achieved this goal, the production was tailored to let him shine and his lyrics were well thought out, if at times a bit conspiracy theory-ish, somebody can somebody say not for radio? Nas has refreshed himself, we are given a similar message but we do not get bogged down in the typical patterns of his previous works. The disappointing release of this album reflects how men with abuse allegations are treated in current times, showing quite fairly that women are no longer sitting on the side lines and that abuse in the music industry can no longer be tolerated. The album didn’t do so well in the first week but the core fan base came through allowing many of the artists in this category enjoy Gold and Platinum status for their latest releases, it seems we can only be outraged and boycott when the hashtag agrees not when it actually matters.

My favourite by far in the pettiness series is from House Carter, directly from King Beyonce when she said “HOVA, BEYZUS. WATCH THE THRONE”, I shouldn’t have to explain how petty this line is. These jabs saw The Carters rain on Kanye’s G.O.O.D Fridays roll-out and Nas’ album by releasing their project on Saturday the 16th of June, the day after Nasir was released. Some sort of pleasure was found in the fact that their album with all its drama was still not able to secure the Number 1 spot that week. Everything is Love is the final chapter of a ‘true’ story we all lived out with The Carters as they threw stones in their glass house. If Lemonade opened the can of worms, 4:44 let us know that Jay was owning his situation; Everything is Love is their victory lap around Tidal subscribers and ticket purchaser’s cheque books. I mean, releasing a joint album while already on tour, they could potentially redo venues with a different show. Talk about the dream team. “I want you to come inside right now, so you know just how I feel”, B always uses lyrics that her more innocent listeners can sing along to in oblivious abandon, but on this album,  she also finds time to make Jay-z a bitch not just at that cringe worthy moment on “Love Happy”, the rest of the song more than makes up for it, but still. In terms of delivery, her rap game is fire. On “Nice”, the Jay-Z verse is him at his usual braggadocio self, it’s the pleasant feature from Pharrell that tells on how his voice has improved over the years, it’s only that high note that separated them; where Beyoncé took it in her stride. Skateboard P had to bring in the autotune; she managed to out rap Jay and to no one’s surprise, out sing Pharrell, on one song. Jigga Boo is upset that the faceless award givers now consider him too old for consideration, perhaps it’s time for him to join their ranks. I mean, how many Grammy’s is enough Grammy’s? He’s also tired of being famous which also gets him sued, Hov is so tired infact, that he shows up now to court without a suit, that’s when he does show up to court.

Keep That Same Energy, a line seemingly borrowed from Ye’s Wouldn’t Leave, really showed what the team at G.O.O.D Music had to go through to finish the series off strong, after Kanye took it upon himself to bite off more than they could collectively chew. Mike Dean, Ye’s producer of choice went on a drip after KTSE was released, exhaustion we’ll assume. Teyana’s album was the one I feared for most, having never heard an album from her before, but loving all of her contributions since joining G.O.O.D, notably the songs she appeared on for Cruel Winter; I was ready for Kanye to be tired and bring out a less than great album, and at first listen I thought I was right. The 7-song structure was bumped up to 9, and the songs themselves are generally quite low energy. BUT boy was I wrong, KTSE is RnB, it manages to house tracks with interesting messages like “No Manners” and “Hold On” while sexually inspired ballades like “3 Ways” ft Ty Dollar $ign make one reminisce on old RnB. It’s a fitting coming out party for the mother of one and wife of Iman, the 2 characters who feature quite prominently in her work, it’s almost as if she made the songs for them. I don’t know her personally, but I feel like Teyana has a lot of faith in Kanye, waiting all these years to bring out her album, I’d say it was worth it. As she herself says on “Young Love”, she isn’t just a musician, and I mean come on; who hasn’t enjoyed watching her dance? The album stays true to Kanye’s theme of Love, “Self-Love” focuses more on telling people that you have to love yourself first.  

Like G.O.O.D Fridays all grown up, but this is experimental Kanye, one who changes his entire album the week before release because he upset every black person, he tweaks tracks just before release and changes track names after release. Kanye West, formerly but still Yeezy, now Ye did his best to surround his releases with the theme of love but in true Kanye fashion he made a complete mess of things. From his affiliation with Donald Trump to the headline grabbing slavery comments, his version of the press-run before the album did not go well, nor did the actual album roll-outs. The game has been hinting at this faster roll out strategy for years now. Music culture has been speeding up and becoming more exciting, but what does this mean for the longevity of the art? Also, can an album reach classic status anymore in a time when they have only one month to live, where the first week basically decides the albums fate.

On the 29th of June, Drizzy Drake released his 5th studio album titled Scorpion. It has his face featured prominently on the cover, so an emotional album is to be expected. His brave attempt to give us two albums paid off, Disc 1 is for his rap fans and it is laden with good songs, “8 Out Of 10” is first to mind. Disc 2 is for his singing fans, and they received what they had been waiting for in spades. Drake shares his love for putting break away singles on his albums with AKA and here no fewer than 3 of those songs appear, the truth is anyone listening to the album must skip “God’s Plan” and “Nice For What” because at this stage there is no need to play these songs in your own company. “Talk Up” see’s his pettiness feature Jay z so the 2 of them can send subliminal shots at the G.O.O.D Music crew, Jay z manages to give one of his most disappointing verses this year on a song he really didn’t need to rap on. “Don’t Matter To Me” signals where Drake is in his career, the top of the rap game, he’s figured out longevity and now he’s fulfilled his obligations according to his Cash Money contract; the Michael Jackson feature is a flex. Scorpion is an addition to Drakes catalogue and stays true to the playlist format of his previous album, it plays like a rap playlist from him and then an RnB one, there is no true cohesion or album theme other than his trademark complaining and emotional whining. BUT what does it matter what I think? His Editors Note on Apple Music mocked, silenced and uppercut the critics and haters before they could say anything. The man is an obvious legend who will go down as one of Hip Hops greatest, even if he never releases another album or chooses to never rap again, his place in the history books is cemented.

S/O Ty Dollar $ign and Jeremih for taking the baton from The Dream and running with it. Such artists are often under valued for their independent projects, but the value they have collectively added to a plethora of other artists albums this year cannot be understated. These 2 artists have contributed in a massive way and it wil culminate in a joint album later this year.

S/O  the artists Nasty C – Stings and Bling, Zakwe – Cebisa and Future – Beast Mode 2 all released on Friday the 6th of July.

Also, who knew Jay z could cook?

Love Dom

[ethelbertpaul444-blog]

The Untold Story of Robert Mueller’s Time in Combat

One day in the summer of 1969, a young Marine lieutenant listed Bob Mueller arrived in Hawaii for a rendezvous with his wife, Ann. She was hovering in from the Eastern coast with the couple’s babe daughter, Cynthia, a child Mueller had never fulfilled. Mueller had made a plane from Vietnam. After nine months at war, he was finally due for a few short daylights of R& R outside the battle zone. Mueller had seen intense action since he last replied goodbye to his wife. He’d received the Bronze Star with a distinction for spirit for his actions in one combat, and he’d been airlifted out of the jungle during another firefight after being killed in the thigh. He and Ann had told only twice since he’d left for South Vietnam. Despite all that, Mueller admitted to her in Hawaii that he was thinking of increasing his deployment for another six months, and maybe even making a career in the Marines. Ann was understandably ill at ease about the prospect. But as it turned out, she wouldn’t has become a Marine wife for much longer. It was standard practice for Marines to be rotated out of duel, and later that time Mueller determined himself to be given to a table undertaking at Marine headquarters in Arlington, Virginia. There he discovered something about himself: “I didn’t relish the US Marine Corps absent combat.” So he headed to law institution with the goal of dishing his country as a prosecutor. He went on to hold high positions in five presidential administrations. He produced the Criminal Division of the Justice Department, overseeing the US investigation of the Lockerbie bombing and the federal prosecution of the Gambino crime family boss John Gotti. He became director of the FBI one week before September 11, 2001, and stayed on to become the bureau’s longest-serving administrator since J. Edgar Hoover. And yet, throughout his five-decade vocation, that time of duel experience with the Marines has tower huge in Mueller’s mind. “I’m most proud the Marines Corps deemed me are worth heading other Navals, ” he told me in a 2009 interview. June 2018. Subscribe to WIRED. Illustration by Jules Julien; Source Photo: Gerald Herbert/ AP Today, the face-off between Special Counsel Robert Mueller and President Donald Trump stands out, amid the pitch-black humor of Trump’s Washington, as an epic fiction of differing American nobilities: a fib of two men–born really two years apart, raised in similar affluent backgrounds in Northeastern cities, both deeply influenced by their leaders, both wizard prep school players, both Ivy League educated–who now find themselves frisking most varied roles in a riveting national theatre about political corrupt practices and Russia’s interference in the 2016 election. The two men have lived their lives in pursuit of virtually diametrically opposed goals–Mueller a life of patrician public service, Trump a life of private profit. Those diverging routes beginning with Vietnam, the conflict that cried the country apart just as both men graduated from college in the 1960 s. Despite having been developed at an nobility private armed academy, Donald Trump famously attracted five sketch deferments, including information for bone stimulant in his paws. He would later joke, frequently, that his success at forestalling genital herpes while dating several women in the 1980 s was “my personal Vietnam. I feel like a great and very brave soldier.” Mueller, for his part , is not simply volunteered for the Marines, he spent a year waiting for an injured knee to regenerate so he could act. And he has said little about his time in Vietnam over the years. When he was preceding the FBI through the disasters of 9/11 and its aftermath, he would brush off the crush stress, pronouncing, “I’m getting a lot more sleep now than I ever did in Vietnam.” One of the only other periods his staff at the FBI ever heard him mention his Marine service was on a flight residence from an official international junket. They were watching We Were Soldiers , a 2002 film starring Mel Gibson about some of the early clashes in Vietnam. Mueller gazed at the screen and saw, “Pretty accurate.” His reticence is not rare for the generation that served on the front line of a campaign that the two countries never actually embraced. Many of the veterans I spoke with for this story said they’d evaded speak about Vietnam until very recently. Joel Burgos, who served as a corporal with Mueller, told me at the end of our hour-long speech, “I’ve never told anyone most of this.” Yet for almost all of them–Mueller included–Vietnam observed the primary formative experience of their lives. Practically 50 year later, countless Marine ex-servicemen who served in Mueller’s unit have email addresses that reference their time in Southeast Asia: gunnysgt, 2-4marine, semperfi, PltCorpsman, Grunt. One Marine’s email handle even references Mutter’s Ridge, the area where Mueller firstly fronted large-scale combat in December 1968. The Marines and Vietnam instilled in Mueller a sense of restraint and a relentlessness that have driven him ever since. He once told me that one of the things the Marine taught him was to determine his plot every day. I’d written a work about his time at the FBI and was by then very well known his severe, straitlaced demeanor, so I giggled at the time and pronounced, “That’s the least surprising situation I’ve ever learned about you.” But Mueller persisted: It was an important small-time daily gesture epitomizing follow-through and hanging. “Once you think about it–do it, ” he told me. “I’ve ever became my bunk and I’ve ever scraped, even in Vietnam in the jungle. You’ve positioned money in the bank in terms of discipline.” Mueller’s onetime Princeton classmate and FBI chief of staff W. Lee Rawls withdrew how Mueller’s Marine leadership style carried through to the FBI, where he had little perseverance for subjects who interviewed his decisions. He expected his line-ups to be executed in the Hoover building just as they had been on the battleground. In finds with subjects, Mueller had a dres of quoting Gene Hackman’s gruff Navy submarine captain in the 1995 Cold War thriller Crimson Tide : “We’re now to perpetuate republic , not to practice it.” Related Stories Andy Greenberg The White House Warns on Russian Router Hacking, But Muddles the Message Garrett M. Graff A Guide to Russia’s High Tech Tool Box for Subverting US Democracy Garrett M. Graff Robert Mueller Likely Knows How This All Ends Discipline must really been a defining aspect of Mueller’s Russia investigation. In a government era of extreme TMI–marked by rampant White House seeps, Twitter outbursts, and an administration that disgorges jilted cabinet-level officials as rapidly as it can appoint new ones–the special counsel’s part has been a fastened entrance. Mueller has remained an serene cypher: the stoic, speechless representation at the centre of America’s government gyre. Not once has he expressed publicly about the Russia investigation since he took the job in May 2017, and his carefully picked squad of prosecutors and FBI negotiators has proved leakproof, even under the most intense of media spotlights. Mueller’s spokesperson, Peter Carr, on lend from the Justice Department, has generally had one thing to tell a media horde devouring for informed of the Russia investigation: “No comment.” If Mueller’s discipline is reflected in the silence of his team, his relentlessness has been abundantly evident in the gait of indictments, stoppages, and law tactics coming out of his office. His investigation is proceeding on several breasts. He is excavating into Russian report functionings carried out on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and other social media platforms. In February his office impeached 13 people and three entities connected to the Internet Research Agency, the Russian organization that allegedly masterminded awareness-raising campaigns. He’s too following those responsible for cyber interferences, includes the hacking of the email system at the Democratic National Committee. At the same time, Mueller’s researchers are probing the business dealings of Trump and his associates, great efforts that has furnished arraignments for tax fraud and plot against Trump’s former safarus chair, Paul Manafort, and a guilty plea on business fraud and lying to researchers by Manafort’s deputy, Rick Gates. The squad is also looking into the countless bilateral relations between Trump’s people and Kremlin-connected chassis. And Mueller is questioning evidences in an effort to establish whether Trump has inhibited justice by actually attempting to squelch the investigation itself. Almost each week wreaks a amaze developed as police investigations. But until the next accusation or seize, it’s difficult to say what Mueller knows, or what he thinks. Before he grew special admonish, Mueller freely and repeatedly told me that his attires of brain and person is very much influenced by his time in Vietnam, a interval “hes also” the least explored section of his biography. This first in-depth history of his time at war is based on several interviews with Mueller about his time in combat–conducted before he became special counsel–as well as hundreds of pages of once-classified Marine combat accounts, official notes of Marine involvements, and the first-ever interrogations with eight Navals who served alongside Mueller in 1968 and 1969. They cater the best new window we have into the mind of the man conducting the Russia investigation. Mueller volunteered for the Marine in 1966, right after move away from Princeton. By late 1968 he was a lieutenant passing a action squad in Vietnam. Dan Winters; Archival Photo Courtesy of National Archives Robert Swan Mueller III, the first of five children and the only son, grew up in a stately stone house in a wealthy Philadelphia suburb. His father was a DuPont executive who had commanded a Navy submarine-chaser in World War II; he expected his children to abide by a strict moral code. “A lie was the worst blasphemy, ” Mueller remarks. “The one thing you didn’t do was to give anything less than the truth to my mother and father.” He accompanied St. Paul’s prep school in Concord, New Hampshire, where the all-boys classifies accentuated Episcopal principles of modesty and manliness. He was a ace on the lacrosse force and played hockey with future US senator John Kerry on the school unit. For college he choice his father’s alma mater, Princeton, and entered the class of 1966. The expanding war in Vietnam was a frequent topic of discussion among the elite students, who spoke of the war–echoing earlier generations–in terms of duty and service. “Princeton from ’6 2 to ’6 6 was a completely different life than ’6 7 onwards, ” supposed Rawls, a lifelong friend of Mueller’s. “The anti-Vietnam push was not on us yet. A year or two subsequently, the campus was transformed.” On the lacrosse province, Mueller matched David Hackett, a classmate and jock who would profoundly affect Mueller’s life. Hackett had already enlisted in the Marines’ version of ROTC, expending his Princeton times training for the escalating campaign. “I had one of the finest role model I could have asked for in an upperclassman by the epithet of David Hackett, ” Mueller recalled in a 2013 pronunciation as FBI director. “David was on our 1965 lacrosse team. He was not undoubtedly the best on the team, but he was a identified and a natural leader.” After he graduated in 1965, Hackett embarked training to be a Marine, giving top reputations in his officer nominee class. After that he carried out to Vietnam. In Mueller’s seeings, Hackett was a shining example. Mueller “ve decided that” when he graduated the subsequent year, he too would recruit in the Marines. On April 30, 1967, shortly after Hackett had signed up for his second tour in Vietnam, his unit was ambushed by more than 75 camouflaged North Vietnamese armies “whos” burning down from bunkers with weapons that included a. 50 -caliber machine gun. According to a Marine history, “dozens of Marines were killed or wounded within minutes.” Hackett set the source of the incoming burn and charged 30 grounds across open soil to an American machine gun team to tell them where to shoot. Times later, as he was moving to facilitate direct a neighboring team whose captain had been wounded, he was killed by a sniper. Posthumously apportioned the Silver Star, Hackett’s commendation explained that he died “while pressing the abuse and encouraging his Marines.” By the time word of Hackett’s death filtered back to the US, Mueller was already making good on his pledge to follow him into military service. The information merely enhanced his resolve to become an infantry policeman. “One would have thought that the life of a Marine, and David’s death in Vietnam, would argue strongly against following in his footsteps, ” Mueller said in that 2013 speech. “But many of us attended in him the person or persons we wanted to be, even before his death. He was a lead and a role model on their areas of Princeton. He was a ruler and a role model on the fields of engagement as well. And a number of his pals and teammates joined the Marine Corps because of him, as did I.” In mid-1 966, Mueller underwent his armed physical at the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard; this was before the preparation of the proposed programme gamble began and before Vietnam became a divisive cultural watershed. He echoes sitting in the waiting room as another nominee, a buckling 6-foot, 280 -pound lineman for the Philadelphia Eagles, was regulated 4-F–medically unfit for military service. After that this organization is Mueller’s turn to be rejected: His years of intense sportings, including hockey and lacrosse, had left him with an injured knee. The military announced that it had a duty to heal before he would be allowed to deploy. In the meantime, he married Ann Cabell Standish–a graduate of Miss Porter’s School and Sarah Lawrence–over Labor Day weekend 1966, and they moved to New York, where he gave a master’s degree in international relations at New York University. Once his knee had regenerated, Mueller went back to the military physicians. In 1967 — just before Donald Trump received his own medical deferment for heel spurs–Mueller started Officer Candidate School at Quantico, Virginia. For high school, Mueller attended St. Paul’s School in Concord, New Hampshire. As a senior in 1962, Mueller (# 12) dallied on the hockey team with future US senator John Kerry (# 18 ). Dan Winters; Archival Photo by Rick Friedman/ Getty Images Like Hackett before him, Mueller was a star in his Officer Candidate School discipline class. “He was a cut above, ” recollects Phil Kellogg, who had followed one of his frat friends into the Navals after graduating from the College of Santa Fe in New Mexico. Kellogg, who went through schooling with Mueller, recollects Mueller scooting another campaigner on an obstacle course–and suffer. It’s the only period he can remember Mueller being bested. “He was a natural jock and natural student, ” Kellogg does. “I don’t think he had a hard date at OCS, to be honest.” There was, it turned out, exclusively one thing he was bad at–and it was a flunking that would become familiar to legions of his subordinates in the decades to succeed: He received a D in delegation. During the time Mueller spent in training, from November 1967 through July 1968, the context of the Vietnam War changed significantly. The vicious Tet Offensive–a series of arranged, widespread, surprise attack across South Vietnam by the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese in January 1968 — stupefied America, and with public opinion souring on existing conflicts, Lyndon Johnson said he wouldn’t run for reelection. As Mueller’s improving class graduated, Walter Cronkite proclaimed on the CBS Evening News that the fighting could not be earned. “For it seems now more particular than ever, ” Cronkite told his billions of onlookers on February 27, 1968, “that the vicious ordeal of Vietnam is to end in a stalemate.” The country seemed to be descending into chaos; as the spring unfolded, both Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy were assassinated. Municipalities erupted in rampages. Antiwar dissents feelings. But the shifting tide of public opinion and civil unrest just registered with the patrolman campaigners in Mueller’s class. “I don’t retain anyone having anxieties about where we were or what we were doing, ” Kellogg says. That spring, as Donald J. Trump graduated from the University of Pennsylvania and began working for his father’s real estate company, Mueller finished up Officer Candidate School and received his next duty: He was to attend the US Army’s Ranger School. Arriving in Vietnam, Mueller was well trained, but he was also afraid. “You were scared to death of the unknown, ” he mentions. “More afraid in some ways of omission than death.” Mueller knew that simply the best young men went on to Ranger training, a strenuous eight-week advanced the competences and lead planned for the military’s society at Fort Benning, Georgia. He would be spend weeks practising patrol tactics, homicide goals, assault approaches, and attacks staged in submerges. But the aftermath of the duty were also sobering to the newly minted detective: Many Marines who progressed such courses were designated as “recon Marines” in Vietnam, a chore that are typically moved with a life expectancy measured in weeks. Mueller approvals the training he received at Ranger School for his existence in Vietnam. The coaches there had been through forest combat themselves, and their fibs from the front line schooled the candidates how to avoid several mistakes. Ranger trainees often had to function on time two hours of respite a nighttime and a single daily banquet. “Ranger School more than anything learns you about how you react with no sleep and nothing to gobble, ” Mueller told me. “You hear who you require on spot, and who you don’t want anywhere near point.” After Ranger School, he also accompanied Airborne School, aka jumping clas, where he learned to be a parachutist. By the autumn of 1968, he was on his action to Asia. He boarded a flight from Travis Air Force Base in California to an embarkation item in Okinawa, Japan, where there was an approximately tangible current of dread among the distributing troops. From Okinawa, Mueller headed to Dong Ha Combat Base near the so-called demilitarized zone–the dividing line between North and South Vietnam, launched after the collapse of the French colonial regiman in 1954. Mueller was determined and well trained, but he was also afraid. “You were scared to death of the unknown, ” he articulates. “More afraid in some ways of default than extinction, more afraid of being found wanting.” That kind of nervousnes, he announces “animates your unconscious.” For American corps, 1 968 was the deadliest time of the crusade, as they beat back the Tet Offensive and opposed the combat of Hue. All told, 16,592 Americans were killed that year–roughly 30 percent of total US fatalities in the fighting. Over the course of the conflict, more than 58,000 Americans succumbed, 300,000 were wounded, and some two million South and North Vietnamese died. Just 18 months after David Hackett was felled by a sniper, Mueller was being sent to the same part as his officer-training classmate Kellogg, who had arrived in Vietnam three months earlier. Mueller was assigned to H Company–Hotel Company in Marine parlance–part of the 2nd Battalion of the 4th Marine Regiment, a storied infantry contingent that traced its parentages back to the 1930 s. The regiment had been fighting almost nonstop in Vietnam since May 1965, making the nickname the Magnificent Bastards. The grueling action made its fee. In the precipitate of 1967, six weeks of duel reduced the battalion’s 952 Marine to just 300 is suitable for duty. During the Tet Offensive, the 2nd Battalion had received acrimonious and bloody battle that never let up. In April 1968, it campaigned in the fight of Dai Do, a days-long booking that killed virtually 600 North Vietnamese soldiers. Eighty members of the 2nd Battalion died in the fight, and 256 were wounded. David Harris, who arrived in Vietnam in May, affiliated the depleted legion just after Dai Do. “Hotel Company and all of 2/4 was devastated, ” he reads. “They were a skeleton gang. They were haggard, they were pummel to fatality. It was just pitiful.” By the time Mueller was set to arrive 6 months later, the human rights unit had rehabilitated its grades as its wounded Marines recovered and filtered back into the field; they had been experimented and surfaced stronger. By co-occurrence, Mueller was to inherit leadership of a Hotel Company platoon from his acquaintance Kellogg. “Those kids that I had and Bob had, half of them were ex-servicemen of Dai Do, ” Kellogg speaks. “They were field-sharp.” A corpsman of Company H facilitates a wounded Leatherneck of 2nd Battalion, 4th Marines, during Operation Saline II in the Quang Tri Province of Vietnam in 1968. Dan Winters; Archival Photo Courtesy of National Archives Second Lieutenant Mueller, 2 4 years and 3 months old, joined the regiment in November 1968, one of 10 brand-new officers assigned to the unit that month. He knew he was arriving at the so-called pointy mission of the American impale. Some 2.7 million US troops served in Vietnam, but the great majority of fatalities were suffered by those who defended in “maneuver battalions” like Mueller’s. The conflict along the demilitarized zone was far different than “its been” elsewhere in Vietnam; the primary antagonist was the North Vietnamese army , not the infamous Viet Cong guerrillas. North Vietnamese armies generally operated in bigger units, become better studied, and were more likely to engage in maintained fighting rather than melting apart after placing an waylay. “We pushed regular, hard-core army, ” Joel Burgos says. “There were so many of them–and they were really good.” William Sparks, a private first class in Hotel Company, recalls that Mueller get off apache helicopters in the midst of a rainstorm, wearing a raincoat–a telltale sign that he was new to the crusade. “You figured out somewhat fast it didn’t help to wear a raincoat in Vietnam, ” Sparks answers. “The humidity time compressed for the purposes of the raincoat–you were just as humid as you were without it.” As Mueller marched up from the operations zone, Kellogg–who had no idea Mueller would be inheriting his platoon–recognized his OCS classmate’s gait. “When he came marching up the hill, I chortled, ” Kellogg alleges. “We started joking.” On Mueller’s first night in the field, his brand-new tent was destroyed by the wind. “That thing evaporated into thin breeze, ” Sparks suggests. He didn’t even get at spend one night.” Over the coming days, Kellogg progressed along some of his wise from the field and interpreted the procedures for calling in artillery and air strikes. “Don’t be John Wayne, ” he said. “It’s not a movie. Navals tell you something’s up, listen to them.” “The lieutenants who didn’t rely their Marines went to early deaths, ” Kellogg says. And with that, Kellogg told their commander that Mueller was ready, and he hopped aboard the next helicopter out. Today, military units usually teach together in the US, deploys together for a placed sum of term, and return home together. But in Vietnam, rotations began–and ended–piecemeal, driven by the vagaries of harms, illness, and individual action tours. That made Mueller acquired a legion that mingled combat-experienced ex-servicemen and relative newbies. A platoon consisted of approximately 40 Navals, generally led by a lieutenant and divided into three crews, each was presided over by a sergeant, which were then divided into three four-man “fire teams” led by corporals. While the lieutenants were technically in charge, the sergeants operated the show–and could stimulate or undermine a new patrolman. “You land, and you’re at the pity of your staff sergeant and your radioman, ” Mueller says. Marines in the field knew to be dubious of brand-new young second lieutenants like Mueller. They were scoffed as Gold Brickers, after the single amber saloon that signified their rank. “They might have had a college education, but they sure as hell didn’t have common sense, ” suggests Colin Campbell, who was on Hotel Company’s mortar squad. Mueller knew his guys panicked he might be incompetent or worse. “The platoon was stupefied, ” he remembers. “They wondered whether the brand-new light-green lieutenant was going to jeopardize “peoples lives” to boost his own career.” Mueller himself was evenly terrified of acquiring land command. As he settled in, talk spread about the strange brand-new platoon commander who had gone to both Princeton and Army Ranger School. “Word was out real fast–Ivy League guy from an affluent clas. That set off fears. The affluent chaps didn’t go to Vietnam then–and they certainly didn’t finish up in a rifle team, ” announces VJ Maranto, a corporal in H Company. “There was so much talk about’ Why’s a guy like that out here with us? ’ We weren’t Ivy Leaguers.” Indeed , none of his fellow Hotel Company Marines had written their college thesis on African territory spats before the International Court of Justice, as Mueller had. Most were from rural America, and few had any formal education past senior high school. Maranto spent his youth on a small farm in Louisiana. Carl Rasmussen, a lance corporal, grew up on a farm in Oregon. Burgos was from the Mississippi Delta, where he was raised on a cotton plantation. After graduating from high school, David Harris had gone to work in a General Engine mill in his home mood of Ohio, then attached the Marines when he was set to be drafted in the summer of 1967. Many of the Marines under Mueller’s command had been wounded at least once; 19 -year-old corporal John C. Liverman had arrived in Vietnam merely four months from a neighbor of his from Silver Spring, Maryland, had been killed at Khe Sanh–and had heard heavy combat much of the year. He’d beset by shrapnel in March 1968 and then again in April, but after recovering in Okinawa, he had agitated to return to combat. Hotel Company quickly came to understand that its new squad chairwoman was no Gold Bricker. “He wanted to know as much as he had been able to as fast as he could about the terrain, what we did, the waylays, everything, ” Maranto says. “He was all about members of the mission, the mission, the mission.” Second Battalion’s mission, as it turned out, was straightforward: Probe and destroy. “We stayed out in the bush, out in the mountains, precisely below DMZ, 24 hours a day, ” David Harris pronounces. “We was exactly enticement. It was the same meeting: They’d touched us, we’d stumbled them, they’d disappear.” Frequent deaths and injuries meant that turnover in the field was constant; when Maranto arrived at Hotel Company, he was issued a flak jacket that had dehydrated blood on it. “We were always low on servicemen, ” Colin Campbell says. Mueller’s unit was constantly on patrol; the battalion’s preserves described it as “nomadic.” Its undertaking was to keep the foe off-kilter and disrupt their supplying words. “You’d march all day, then you’d burrow a foxhole and devote all night altering going on watch, ” announces Bill White, a Hotel Company ex-serviceman. “We were always tired, always starving, always thirsty. There were no showers.” In those first weeks, Mueller &# x27; s confidence as a captain developed as he triumphed his men’s confidence and respect. “You’d felt his nervousness, but you’d never see that in his behaviour, ” Maranto says. “He was such a professional.” The members of the platoon soon got acquainted with a better quality that would be familiar to everyone who is dealing with Mueller later as a prosecutor and FBI director. He asked a great deal and had little fortitude for malingering, but he never asked for more than he was willing to give himself. “He was a no-bullshit kind of chap, ” White recalls. Sgt. Michael Padilla( left) with Cpl. Agustin Rosario( right ), who was killed in action on December 11, 1968, during the operation at Mutter’s Ridge . div> Dan Winters; Archival Photo Courtesy of Michael Padilla Mueller’s unit began December 1968 in related silent, to protect the security for the primary military cornerstone in the field, a glorified campsite known as Vandegrift Combat Base, about 10 miles south of the DMZ. It was one of the only planned outposts nearby for Marines, a region for resupply, a rain, and red-hot food. Lance Corporal Robert W. Cromwell, who had celebrated his 20 th birthday shortly before beginning his tour of duty, entertained his compatriots with stories from his own reporting period R& R: He’d matched his wife and parents in Hawaii to be introduced to his newborn daughter. “He was so happy to have a child and wanted to get home for good, ” Harris says. On December 7 the battalion boarded helicopters for a new operation: to retake control of a mountain in an loathsome neighbourhood known as Mutter’s Ridge. The strategically important piece of ground, which rolled along four mountains on the countries of the south boundary of the DMZ, had been the scene of fighting for more than two years and had been overrun by the North Vietnamese months before. Artillery, air strikes, and cistern strikes had long since denuded the bank of vegetation, but the circumventing hillsides and depressions were a forest of trees and vines. When Hotel Company touched down and fanned out from its landing zones to support a bound, Mueller was arriving to what would be his first full-scale battle. As the American contingents boosted, the North Vietnamese withdrew. “They were all drawing back to this big bunker complex, as it turned out, ” Sparks mentions. The Americans could see the signs of past combats all around them. “You’d view shrapnel openings in the trees, bullet punctures, ” Sparks says. After three days of patrols, isolated firefights with an elusive enemy, and several nighttimes of American shelling, another division in 2nd Battalion, Fox Company, received the lineup to make some high ground on Mutter’s Ridge. Even nearly 50 years later, the date of the operation abides burned into the recollections of those who pushed in it: December 11, 1968. None of Mueller &# x27; s fellow Marines had written their college thesis on African territory conflicts before the International Court of Justice, as Mueller had. That morning, after a darknes of air strikes and cannon blast “ve been meaning to” faded the antagonist, the men of Fox Company moved out at first light. The attack vanished smoothly at first; they confiscated the countries of the western portions of the crest without resistance, evading simply a handful of mortar rounds. Yet as they continued east, heavy small-arms fire started. “As they fought their practice forwards, they came into intensive and deadly fuel from bunkers and at the least three machine guns, ” the regiment later reported. Because the vegetation was so dense, Fox Company didn’t realize that it had stumbled into the centre of a bunker complex. “Having crusaded their nature in, the company ascertained it extremely difficult to maneuver its way out, due both to the fuel of the antagonist and the problem of carrying their wounded.” Hotel Company was on a neighboring mountain, still feeing breakfast, when Fox Company was attacked. Glint remembers that he was drinking a “Mo-Co, ” C-rations coffee with cocoa gunpowder and sugar, heated by igniting a golf-ball-sized segment of C-4 plastic explosive.( “We were ahead of Starbucks on this latte bullshit, ” he jokes .) They could hear the gunfire across the valley. “Lieutenant Mueller called,’ Saddle up, saddle up, ’” Sparks pronounces. “He called for first squad–I was the grenade launcher and had two bags of ammo buckled across my chest. I could just stand up.” Before they could even reach the antagonist, they had to fight their route through the dense cover of the depression. “We had to go down the hill and come up Foxtrot Ridge. It took hours.” “It was the only locate in the DMZ I remember meeting botany like that, ” Harris reads. “It was thick-skulled and entwining.” When the platoon lastly crested the highest level of the crest, they confronted the repugnance of the battlefield. “There were wounded parties everywhere, ” Sparks recalls. Mueller said everyone to quit their jam-packs and preparations for a fight. “We assaulted right out across the top of the crest, ” he says. It wasn’t long before the unit came under ponderous fervor from small arms, machine guns, and a grenade launcher. “There were three North Vietnamese soldiers right in front of us that rushed right up and scattered us with AK-4 7s, ” Sparks says. They reverted fervor and advanced. At one point, a Navy corpsman with them threw a grenade, only to have it bounce off a tree and explode, wounding one of Hotel Company’s corporals. “It just got worse from there, ” Sparks says. In the next few minutes, several followers went down in Mueller’s unit. Maranto remembers being impressed that his relatively lettuce lieutenant was able to stay calm while under criticize. “He’d been in-country less than a month–most of us had been in-country six, eight months, ” Maranto says. “He had remarkable equanimity, targeting fervor. It was sheer terror. They had RPGs, machine gun, mortars.” Mueller realise rapidly how much hassle the patrol was in. “That daytime was the second heaviest barrage I received in Vietnam, ” Harris mentions. “Lieutenant Mueller was guiding commerce, outlook parties and calling in air strikes. He was standing upright, moving. He probably saved our hide.” Cromwell, the lance corporal who had just become a papa, was shooting in the thigh by a. 50 -caliber bullet. When Harris encountered his wounded sidekick being hustled out of harm’s action, he was funnily relieved at first. “I discovered him and he was alive, ” Harris does. “He was on the stretcher.” Cromwell would ultimately be able to deplete some time with his wife and new child, Harris figured. “You lucky chump, ” he concluded. “You’re going home.” But Harris had miscalculated the seriousness of his friend’s harm. The missile had nicked one of Cromwell’s arteries, and he bled to demise before he reached the field hospital. The death destroyed Harris, who had sold weapons with Cromwell the darknes before–Harris had taken Cromwell’s M-1 4 rifle and Cromwell took Harris’ M-7 9 grenade launcher. “The next day when we punched the crap, they called for him, and he had to go forward, ” Harris remarks. Harris couldn’t shake the be thought that he should have been the one on the stretcher. “I’ve only told two people this story.” The battle atop and around Mutter’s Ridge feelings for hours, with the North Vietnamese barrage received from the smothering jungle. “We got hit with an ambush, plain and simple, ” Harris suggests. “The brush was so thick, you had perturb hacking it with a machete. If you got 15 meters away, you couldn’t consider where you came from.” As the fighting resumed, the Marines atop the crest began to run low on quantities. “Johnny Liverman hurled me a handbag of ammo. He’d been ferrying ammo from one surface of the ridge to the other, ” Sparks withdraws. Liverman was already wounded, but he was still contend; then, during one of his runs, he came here under more shell. “He got hit right through the pate, right when I was looking at him. I get that ammo, I crawled up there and got his M-1 6 and told him I’d be back.” Sparks and the other Marine protected behind a dead tree stump, trying to find any defence amid the firestorm. “Neither of us had any ammo left, ” Sparks remembers. He slithered back to Liverman to try to expel his love. “I get him up on my shoulder, and I got shot, and I went down, ” he does. As he was lying on the dirt, he listened a shout from atop the ridge, “Who’s that down there–are they dead? ” It was Lieutenant Mueller. Sparks called back, “Sparks and Liverman.” “Hold on, ” Mueller answered, “We’re coming down to get you.” A few minutes later, Mueller seemed with another Marine, known as Slick. Mueller and Slick slipped Sparks into a missile crater with Liverman and kept a battle dress on Sparks’ wound. They waited until a helicopter gunship passed overhead, its grease-guns clattering, to amuse the North Vietnamese, and hustled back toward the top of the hill and comparative safety. An OV-1 0 criticize airplane overhead plunged smoke grenades to facilitate shield the Marines atop the ridge. Mueller, Sparks reads, then went back to retrieve the mortally wounded Liverman. The extinctions organized. Corporal Agustin Rosario–a 22 -year-old father and husband from New York City–was shot in the ankle, and then, while he tried to run back to safety, was kill again, this time fatally. Rosario, extremely, lived waiting for a medevac helicopter. Finally, as the hours transferred, the Marines coerced the North Vietnamese to rescind. By 4:30 pm, the battlefield had hushed. As his eulogy for the Bronze Star eventually predicted, “Second Lieutenant Mueller’s courage, vigorous initiative and unwavering devotion to job at great personal gamble is also contributing in the overcome of the enemy force and were in keeping with the highest institutions of the Marine Corps and of the United States Naval Service.” As night precipitated, Hotel and Fox held the anchor, and a third busines, Golf, was brought forward as added buttres. It was a brutal era for both sides; 13 Americans vanished and 31 were wounded. “We framed a pretty good hurt on them, but not without enormous expenditure, ” Sparks suggests. “My closest pals were all killed there on Foxtrot Ridge.” As the Americans searched the field around the ridge, they weighed seven enemy dead left behind, in addition to being able to seven others killed in the course of the clash. Intelligence reports afterward revealed that the duel had killed the commander of the 1st Battalion, 27 th North Vietnamese Army Regiment, “and had practically decimated his staff.” For Mueller, the engagement had proved both to him and his gentlemen that he could lead. “The minute the shit stumbled the fan, he was there, ” Maranto says. “He performed outstandingly. After that night, there were a lot of guys who would’ve sauntered through walls for him.” That first major revelation to combat–and the loss of Marines under his command–affected Mueller deeply. “You’re standing there consider,’ Did I do everything I could? ’” he answers. Afterward, back at camp, while Mueller was still in startle, a major came up and swiped the young lieutenant on the shoulder, saying, “Good job, Mueller.” “That vote of confidence helped me get through, ” Mueller told me. “That gesture pushed me over. I wouldn’t follow out life guilty for fastening up.” The heavy toll of the casualties at Mutter’s Ridge shook up the whole legion. Cromwell’s death reached extremely hard; his laughter and good nature had tied the human rights unit together. “He was happy-go-lucky. He appeared after the new people when they came in, ” Bill White withdraws. For Harris, who had often shared a foxhole with Cromwell, the death of his best friend was devastating. White also took Cromwell’s death hard-bitten; overcome with sorrow, he stopped scraping. Mueller tackled him, telling him to refocus on members of the mission ahead–but eventually accommodated more consolation than punish. “He could’ve applied me punishment hours, ” White announces, “but he never did.” Robert Mueller receives an honor from his regimental officer Col. Martin “Stormy” Sexton in Dong Ha, South Vietnam in 1969. Dan Winters; Archival Photo Courtesy of the place of Robert Mueller Decades later, Mueller would tell me that nothing he ever confronted in his profession was as challenging as conducting workers in duel and watching them be cut down. “You realize a great deal, and every day after is a commendation, ” he told me in 2008. The remembering of Mutter’s Ridge positioned everything, even terror investigations and showdowns with the Bush White House, into view. “A lot is going to come your behavior, but it’s not going to be the same intensity.” When Mueller ultimately did leave the FBI in 2013, he “retired” into a hectic life as a top spouse at the existing legislation house WilmerHale. He learnt some first-class in cybersecurity at Stanford, he investigated the NFL’s handling of the Ray Rice domestic violence case, and he provided as the so-called colonization captain for the Volkswagen Dieselgate scandal. While in the midst of that assignment–which required the kind of delicate give-and-take ill-suited to a hard-driving , no-nonsense Marine–the 72 -year-old Mueller received a final call to public service. It was May 2017, just days into the twirling blizzard start out by the firing of FBI director James Comey, and deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein wanted to know if Mueller would serve as the special counselor in the Russia investigation. The job–overseeing one of the most difficult and sensitive investigations ever undertaken by the Justice Department–may simply graded as the third-hardest of Mueller’s career, after the post-9/ 11 FBI and after resulting those Marine in Vietnam. Having accepted the job as special counselor, he retreated into his prosecutor’s bunker, cut off from the rest of America. In January 1969, after 10 epoches of rain showers and cold weather, the unit got a three-day R& R break-dance at Cua Viet, a nearby brace locate. They listened to Super Bowl III on the radio as Joe Namath and the Jet-blacks defeated the Baltimore Colts. “One touch of actuality was listening to that, ” Mueller says. In the field, they get little information about what was happening at home. In fact, later that time, while Mueller was still deployed, Neil Armstrong made his first step on the moon–an incident that people around the world watched live on Tv. Mueller wouldn’t find out until daylights afterward. “There was this whole segment of autobiography you missed, ” he says. R& R breaks is likewise rare opportunities to imbibe alcohol, though there was never often of it. Campbell says he drink just 15 brews during his 18 months in-country. “I can retain drinking warm beer–Ballantines, ” he pronounces. In tent, the three men traded publications like Playboy and mail-order automotive catalogs, dreaming the cars they are able to soup up when they returned back to Position. They guided the time toy wino or pinochle. For the most part, Mueller bounced such activities, though he was into the era’s music( Creedence Clearwater Revival was–and is–a particular favorite ). “I retain several times strolling into a bunker and feeling him in a corner with a notebook, ” Maranto says. “He read a lot, every opportunity.” Throughout the rest of the month, they patrolled, meeting little linked with the enemy, although abundance of clues of their spirit: Hotel Company often radioed into allegations of concluding descended the organizations and disguised ply caches, and they are usually made incoming mortar rounds from unseen enemies. Command under such conditions wasn’t easy; drug use is an issue, and racial hostilities guided high. “Many of the GIs were draftees; they didn’t want to be there, ” Maranto says. “When new people revolved in, they imparted what happens in the United States with them.” Mueller recalls at times struggling to get Marines to follow orders–they already felt that the beating of serving in the infantry in Vietnam was as bad as it could get. “Screw that, ” they’d reply sharply when was necessary to do something they didn’t wishes to do. “What are you going to do? Route me to Vietnam? ” Yet the Marines were bonded through the constant danger of being subjected to duel. Everyone had close calls. Everyone knew that luck in the combat area was finite, fate hurtful. “If the good Lord diverted over a placard up there, that was it, ” Mueller says. Nights particularly were fitted with horror; the enemy elevated sneak assaults, often in the hours before dawn. Colin Campbell recalls a night in his foxhole when he turned around to find a North Vietnamese soldier, armed with an AK-4 7, right behind him. “He’d get inside our bound. He had our back, ” Campbell suggests. “Why didn’t he kill me and another chap in the foxhole? ” Campbell roared, and the infiltrator bolted. “Another Marine down the line shot him dead.” Mueller was a constant existence in the fields, regularly reviewing the code signals and passwords that marked friendly contingents to each other. “He was quiet and reserved. The plan was meticulous and detailed. He knew at night where every place was, ” Maranto recalls. “It wouldn’t be peculiar for him to come out and make sure the volley crews were correctly placed–and that you two are awake.” The souls I talked to who performed alongside Mueller, adults now in their seventies, largely had strong recollections of the kind of captain Mueller had been. But numerous didn’t know, until I told them, that the man who led their team was now the special guidance probing Russian interference in the election. “I had no idea, ” Burgos told me. “When you’ve been in action that long, you don’t remember appoints. Appearances you recollect, ” he says. Maranto says he only put two and two together recently, although he’d thought for years if that person who was the FBI director had served with him in Vietnam. “The name would ring a bell–you know that’s a familiar name–but you’re so busy with daily life, ” Maranto says. At the makeshift landing zone getting briefed before being airlifted to join the rest of the operation. Mueller is standing on the right with his back to the camera . div> Dan Winters; Archival Photo Courtesy of VJ Maranto April 1969 recognized a stark American milestone: The Vietnam War’s engagement death toll transcended the 33,629 Americans killed while campaigning in Korea. It too drew a brand-new menace to Hotel Company’s region: a laid of powerful. 50 -caliber machine gun nests that the North Vietnamese had set up to harass helicopters and low-flying airliners. Hotel Company–and the battalion’s other units–devoted much of the middle-of-the-road of the month to shooting down the lethal artilleries. Until they were found, resupply helicopters were limited, and flights were vacated when they came under direct flame. One Marine was even killed in the landing zone. Ultimately, on April 15 and 16, Hotel Company overran the enemy firearm and action a departure, uncovering 10 bunkers and three firearm positions. The next day, at around 10 am, Mueller’s platoon was attacked while on patrol. Facing small-arms ardour and grenades, they called for breath assist. An hour later four assault rolls thumped the North Vietnamese position. Five days later, on April 22, one of the 3rd Platoon’s garrisons reached under same attack–and the situation abruptly grew frantic. Glints, who had returned to Hotel Company that winter after healing from his wound at Mutter’s Ridge, was in the waylaid garrison. “We lost the machine gun, jammed up with shrapnel, and the radio, ” he recalls. “We had to pull back.” Nights especially were filled with frightful; the adversary wished sneak onslaughts, often in the hours before dawn. With radio contact lost, Mueller’s platoon was called forward as buttres. American artillery and mortars pounded the North Vietnamese as the team boosted. At one point, Mueller was engaged in a close firefight. The incoming fervour was so intense–the stress of the moment so all-consuming, the adrenaline pumping so hard–that when he was shot, Mueller didn’t instantly notice. Amid the combat, he glanced down and recognized an AK-4 7 round had overtaken clean through his thigh. Mueller prevented fighting. “Although seriously wounded during the course of its firefight, he resolutely maintained his position and, aptly guiding the volley of his squad, was instrumental in demolishing the North Vietnamese Army force, ” reads the Navy Commendation that Mueller received for his action that day. “While approaching the designated area, the team emanated under a heavy loudnes of enemy burn from its right flank. Skillfully soliciting and directing corroborating Marine artillery fire on the opponent outlooks, First Lieutenant Mueller ensured that burn superiority was gained during the hostile unit.” Two other members of Hotel Company were also wounded in the fight. One of them had his leg blown off by a grenade; it was his first day in Vietnam. Mueller’s eras in duel ended with him being lifted out by helicopter in a sling. As the aircraft peeled away, Mueller withdraws reviewing he might at least get a good dinner out of the harm on a infirmary carry, but he was delivered instead to a field hospital near Dong Ha, where “hes spent” three weeks recovering. Maranto, who was on R& R when Mueller was wounded, retains returning to camp and hearing oath that their commandant had been shot. “It could happen to any one of us, ” Maranto says. “When it has come to him, there was a lot of sadness. They experienced his company.” Mueller recovered and returned to active office in May. Since most Marine detectives spent only six months on a combat rotation–and Mueller had been in the combat zone since November–he was sent to serve at bidding headquarters, where he became an aide-de-camp to Major General William K. Jones, the head of the 3rd Marine Division. By the end of 1969, Mueller was back in the US, his engagement tour accomplish, working at the Marine barracks near the Pentagon. Soon thereafter, he cast off an application to the University of Virginia’s law school. “I consider myself extraordinarily lucky to have constructed it out of Vietnam, ” Mueller announced years later in a discussion. “There were many–many–who did not. And perhaps because I did survive Vietnam, I have always experienced compelled to contribute.” Over the years, a few of his former chap Marines from Hotel Company recollected Mueller and have watched his busines unfold on the national theatre over the past two decades. Sparks cancels dining lunch on a July day in 2001 with the story on: “The TV was on behind me.’ We’re going to introduce the new FBI director, Robert … Swan … Mueller . ’ I slowly switched, and I appeared, and I belief,’ Golly, that’s Lieutenant Mueller.’” Sparks, who speaks with a thick Texas accent, says his first thought was the running gag he’d had with his former captain: “I’d always announce him’ Lieutenant Mew-ler , ’ and he’d mention,’ That’s Mul-ler . ’” More lately, his former Marine comrade Maranto says that after devoting six months in fighting with Mueller, he has watched the coverage of the special advise investigation progress and chortled at the news reports. He says he knows Mueller isn’t sweating the pressure. “I watch people on the word talking about the distractions getting to him, ” he alleges. “I don’t think so.” Garrett M. Graff ( @vermontgmg) is a lending writer at WIRED and scribe of The Threat Matrix: Inside Robert Mueller’s FBI and the War on Global Terror . He can be reached at garrett.graff @gmail. com . em> Such articles is displayed in the June issue. Subscribe now . em> Listen to this story, and other WIRED features, on the Audm app . em> More Great WIRED Stories If Trump is laundering Russian fund now &# x27; s how it would work Spot the illegal in these airport baggage x-rays How a DNA transfer virtually imprisoned an innocent being of murder PHOTO ESSAY: Ominous view Read more: https :// www.wired.com/ narration/ robert-mueller-vietnam / http://dailybuzznetwork.com/index.php/2018/07/01/the-untold-story-of-robert-muellers-time-in-combat/

[nikotortorella]

“we are not to simply bandage the wounds of victims beneath the wheelsof injustice, we are to drive a spoke into the wheel itself.”

in this small transparent small town, tomas fiorello was a fresh-faced, respected rookie officer. his only career goals were to serve and protect this community; while someday becoming the sheriff of this quaint town. if he was a lucky man, maybe he’d settle down after seeking out a beautiful wife and aide her in squeezing out a few kids. these were just a few aspirations the man shared amongst his comrades and he never expected to find love in this wicked dangerous world.

that’s when he realized he spoke too soon.

isabella fiorello was the sort of woman who can enamor an entire room with just one glance. everyone adored the woman and she never entertained enemies. how could she? those attractive lips, always spoke words of kindness. those lovely eyes, always sought out the good in people. that slim figure was always there to share food with the hungry. that beautiful amber hair was there to let children run their fingers through it as she comforted them. her poise - well that was the most comforting thing about her. it reminded men that they’d never walk alone.

she was the one.

the woman who hung stars in his eyes and made him see reason when there was none. loving her would never become obsolete. that’s when the officer decided to chase her to the ends of the earth; ultimately winning her hand in marriage.

“there is an innocence in admiration: it occurs in one who has not yet realized that they might one day be admired.”

brandt was the singular child born unto tomas and isabella fiorello. as their son, he was born into a circle of colorful warmth and tender love. this was how every child should be welcomed into this world. it made him feel special. maybe even untouchable.

as he grew into his features and took his first steps, brandt developed a close relationship with his father. he admired him on so many levels and that was expected. how was his father not cool? the man was a police officer! someone who tackled crime and protected those who couldn’t help themselves.

sadly, others (especially adults) struggled desperately with fiction, demanding constantly that it conform to the rules of everyday life. they demand to know how superman can possibly fly, or how batman can possibly run a multibillion-dollar business empire during the day and fight crime at night? what was humorous about this topic of conversation was that it was obvious to even the smallest child: it’s not real.

there was no such thing as a damn superhero! the closest thing we’d ever experience to an actual superhero is that of normal hero. someone like tomas fiorello, who patrolled these streets at night and protected this town from those who wanted to see it burn. that was the kind of person that brandt could emulate and truthfully, he wanted to.

“if you have a wife and she dies, do you stop saying that you have one? or are you always married, even when the other half of the equation is gone?”

it’s the saddest thing one could experience in this world.

he remembered watching as his mother took her last breathe in the hospital. her untimely end coming far too soon and robbing them from a lifetime of memories together. brandt remembered how incomplete he felt and how depressing it was to watch his father weep. this wasn’t fair = then again when was life ever fair?

the funeral was worse and he remembered how he felt as the coffin was lowered into the ground. it hit him hard. he’d never be able to see her again. not in person.

his father squeezed his hand; reminding him to stop whining as his free hand smeared the tears from his eyes. brandt was no fool. his father was drunk and the smell of whiskey radiated from his pores. this was not the man that raised him. the man who made him feel safe, secure, and proud.

tomas fiorello was broken and there was nothing that brandt could do to fix him.

“the human race tends to remember the abuses to which it has been subjected rather than the endearments. what’s left of kisses? wounds, however, leave scars.”

brandt was the teenager that everyone gravitated towards. his presence easily reminded others of his mother. her grace, her kindness, and her looks. in some ways, one could easily think that her presence was felt here upon this hallowed ground.

he was after all her spitting image.

unlike his mother - his optimism was beaten down by his father. maybe it wasn’t right to remind the drunken man of the woman who had passed away so soon? it was inhumane to think that someone once so proud would hurt their son; however there were a few scars that proved such dangerous accusations were possible.

thankfully, brandt had friends who kept him sane and level-headed. then again, maybe friends weren’t the right term? these boys were like brothers to him. individuals who were like-minded and balanced him out in the right ways. hell. they didn’t even mind that he was a bit whimsical and benevolent.

it was the support system that he needed; especially when his initial framework fell apart. they’d never realize how thankful he was and mostly because he was too proud.

“for what it’s worth: it’s never too late to be whoever you want to be. i hope you live a life you’re proud of, and if you find you’re not, i hope you have the strength to start over again.”

they had to be kidding?

it took him almost a month to realize that they weren’t fooling around. his friends wanted him to become a police officer and serve beside them. the trio was really considering on making a big move and showing everyone that they were wrong about them.

most importantly - they fed his ego.

this was brandt fiorello’s last chance! he could become a police officer, make his drunk-bastard father proud and truly make a difference in this world. it was a scary transition but with some support from his friends - he could achieve this.

so he enlisted.

then he graduated.

lastly, brandt fiorello was fired.

along with his friends.

“so we can’t start a fire. we can’t fly. we can’t create a force field. we are the most bullshit superheroes.”

he liked the night.

without the dark in their miserable lives, they’d never see the stars. or the cosmic justice in the works. when the three boys were fired from their jobs, they were forced to consider the many reasons as to why this transpired? it could have had something to do with brandt accidentally cuffing himself to a pole; or the one time his friend punched their captain in the face and the other wrecking a police cruiser.

they were decent cops - rough around the edges - but overall decent.

what they hadn’t counted on was brandt’s father coming into the station and asking that all three officers be terminated. they also didn’t think the man’s word still held so much power and that’s ultimately what ruined them.

speaking of cosmic justice - tomas fiorello died. one month later from liver failure. brandt didn’t take this so hard. not like he took the death of his mother. eventually the man he once admired; was merely gone and all that he would take from him was the scars created by his abuse.

brandt did put his great mind to work though.

he decided to use his newly obtained police officer skills to create a private investigation firm with his best friends. the kind they made movies about! where agents were paid to follow cheating husbands around and find those who had gone missing. oddly enough, business was good in madison cove, texas.

and it appeared that he became his own personal hero.

FRIENDSHIPS

brandt has lived in madison cove, his entire existence and everyone seems to know his parents. his father was once a respected police officer; while his mother was an activist who nurtured those around town who were less fortunate. most know brandt as a failed cop (due to his father) and now he’s a private investigator. he’s sort of a troublemaker but most of his pranks and jokes are in good fun. he’s a grown adult who always wants someone to help him; even with the simplest of tasks. bran is also the sort of person who will accept almost anything as normal, especially once it’s been explained to him. by nature - he’s extremely positive, bubbly, and loves constant positive feedback. he’s the sort of friend whose emotionally clingy and will always find a way to make someone socialize with him. he’s usually very naive and can be exceptionally warm. however - it’s not uncommon for him to be brash or moody. he loves this life and though his youth was somewhat troublesome; he’ll attempt to make the most of any situation. he���s just that that chill man whose sometimes led into some risky trouble and has way too much fun for a responsible adult. there will soon be a request about his friends.

ROMANCE

bran can find happiness with any lover. gender doesn’t really stress him out and he’s always been attracted towards personality. looks aren’t really important to him and he’d rather focus on someone’s heart in the end. maybe that’s his very naive nature at work? anyone who dates him - will need to be ready for a full force commitment because he needs validation in almost anything that he does. he’s always sought approval from those he’s closest to and sometimes that can get messy? maybe that’s why his relationship are a little complicated and he tends to avoid them. brandt likes to think he can control his emotions and act in others best interests but that’s not always true. all he wants is passion, excellent sex, and many cuddle sessions. there are no future romances planned for him. however - the drama is always fun!

EXTRA

it’s very possible that brandt has made his fair share of enemies. as a terrible ex-cop and now a private investigator; he’s been involved in many conflicts. he’s had a many of fist fights, someone stole his handcuffs and used them against him, and he’s exposed the secrets of others. also during his youth - he was sort of troubled and his friends got him involved in some risque situations. nothing that caused much harm but it’s still an annoyance. in addition - it would be neat to write out some private investigator scenarios. if any writer has any ideas; feel free to suggest them to me!

[volantisand]

this just in - MARIANA “ MARI ” REYES has been in wickway for A MONTH. apparently SHE is a DANCER AT DRIFTWOOD and a CIVILIAN or so HER passport says. so far it’s known that SHE favors JOE AND GO, and resides at WEST PORT. SHE is also said to be LOYAL & CLEVER, but also CALCULATING & GUARDED. at the end of the day, SHE can be described as RED STAINED LIPS, DELICATE HANDS WIPING BLOOD OFF OF DAGGERS AND MISCHIEVOUS SMIRKS FOLLOWING UNDERESTIMATION.

hello again, loves !!! i bring you all the devil reincarnated herself, my baby mariana <33 her pinterest can be found anywhere here !! but it’s kinda messy

𝐁𝐀𝐒𝐈𝐂𝐒 ▸

FULL NAME: MARIANA MERCEDES REYES

NICKNAME(S): MARI

NAME MEANING / PRONUNCIATION: MARIANA MEANING OF THE SEA  OR  BITTER. MERCEDES MEANING MERCIES. REYES MEANING KINGS. ( MA-REE-AH-NAH MER-SEH-DEHS RAY-YES  )

AGE: TWENTY FIVE

DATE OF BIRTH: APRIL 18TH

RANK / TITLE: CIVILIAN, EX-LEADER OF OUTSIDE GANG FROM HER HOMETOWN

OCCUPATION: DANCER AT DRIFTWOOD

HAIR COLOR:  DARK BROWN NEARLY BLACK

EYE COLOR: HAZEL  

𝐈𝐍𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐈𝐎𝐑 ▸

POSITIVE: ATTENTIVE, ARTICULATE, CLEVER, CULTURED, DETERMINED, DRIVEN, INSIGHTFUL, LOYAL, PASSIONATE, PERCEPTIVE, PERFECTIONISTIC, PERSONABLE, SCRUPULOUS, WHIMSICAL

NEGATIVE: BLUNT, DISTRUSTING, HOT HEADED, SOMETIMES IMPULSIVE, GUARDED, METICULOUS, SARCASTIC, STOIC, STUBBORN

𝐅𝐀𝐌𝐈𝐋𝐘 ▸

FATHER: VICTOR REYES ( alive )

MOTHER: LUCIA REYES CASTILLO ( alive )

SIBLINGS: TWO OLDER BROTHERS, AN OLDER SISTER AND A YOUNGER SISTER

CHILDREN: NONE

𝐀𝐅𝐅𝐈𝐋𝐈𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍𝐒 ▸

GANG(S): ANARCHY OF ROSEWICK ( formerly, it remains active ), CURRENTLY NOT AFFILIATED.

MARK: TATTOOED BIRD ON HER RIB CAGE, IT’S ACTUALLY SMALL BUT PIC ANYWHERE HERE and a few smaller little birds, much less detailed, surrounding it

POSITION / RANK: LEADER ( formerly )

WEAPON OF CHOICE: DAGGERS RARELY HAS A GUN.

YEARS AFFILIATED: EIGHT YEARS

𝐇𝐄𝐀𝐃𝐂𝐀𝐍����𝐍𝐒 / 𝐅𝐀𝐂𝐓𝐒 ▸

born and raised in a fictional town called rosewick, she’s one of my past muses that has been adapted to come into wickway <33

she was named after her paternal grandmother. and had a very good relationship with both of her parents. growing up, she was always very in touch with her hispanic culture, adoring everything about her roots and then some. she began dancing before she could even walk properly and fell in love with it instantly. 

she’s also not very tall bc frankly, i’m not either so my muses suffer with me, 5′2 at best.. however, she wears heels nearly twenty four seven. unless, y’know at home, at the beach or... idk working out. 

having been born on the 18th of april, she is an aries. 

“ Fun, free-spirited, and fiercely independent, the Aries woman is a breath of fresh air – a brightly burning candle in human form. Fire is her element, igniting all that she touches with the living spark of life. The Aries personality is creative, passionate, energetic and – at times – domineering and short-tempered. A cardinal sign ruled by the planet Mars, the Ram is great at getting things going, initiating endeavors, and infusing her enthusiasm into everything she does ”

true to herself, and her zodiac sign, mariana is a vixen. a total coquette but dangerous. we’ll get there, though !! first... lil fun fact: dance was a major part of her life, she often won competitions with flying colors and excelled in every routine taught to her.

she was seventeen when she met jacob day, captain of the college’s baseball team. their star pitcher. and eventually, her boyfriend. he was older than her, two years. but he was sweet and romantic. at least, at first. jacob day would prove to be the absolute worst thing to ever happen to her. 

a few months later, he’d become a junkie, paying other kids to take the athletic drug tests for him and eventually - he got abusive. she stuck around because he had never gotten physical, only verbal. and most days he was still the same boy she thought she’d fallen in love with. most days.

he was twenty the night he died and she was eighteen the night she killed him. he’d laid a hand on her a few weeks prior to that wretched night. they were at a party, not unlike high schoolers their age who think they’re grown when they’re absolutely not. they’d gone up to the second floor of the lake house so she could find a bathroom. he grew irritated with the young girl in the bathroom and laid hands on her once again. only this time, her temper got the best of her. he was drunk, rendered a bit slower and a lot taller than her. she was quick and agile and while she tells herself that she hadn’t meant for him to die. deep down, she knows that she did. he had laid lifeless in a pool of his own blood and she had stared, her own once pristine hands stained with the crimson of the very same blood. 

she had acted fast after having realized he was very much dead and washed the blood off of her hands. moments later, she was calling her late uncle’s wife, her lawful aunt and the woman who had taken over the gang her uncle once led. she showed up a while later and the two left the lake house, leaving behind a spotless bathroom and absolutely no evidence of mariana’s crimes.   

she took her under her wing, agreed to protect her under the promise of her joining the gang. mariana sat a few hours later, on eliana’s couch with a fresh small tattoo on her ribcage linking her to the gang. 

it didn’t take long for the leader and her to actually get to know each other, having not had any solid relationship when her uncle was alive. one year later, eliana named mariana her second in command. of course, no one understood why on earth, a girl who had just barely turned nineteen could be given such a high power. not even mariana herself understood it.

two years later, she rose to the throne following eliana’s death. by then, she had been completely molded by the late leader and had been taught everything she could possibly need. and then some. mariana was trained in combat, gang ties, suppliers and how to keep them happy as well as game plans to ensure that anarchy remain at the top. 

the gang loved her, she was an intelligent girl that had lost a lot at a young age. it toughened her up. and the suppliers loved her because... she was never late on a payment.   

when mariana became the leader, she shifted blake dietrich’s position to second in command. it only seemed fair, he was her best friend. her partner in crime and the sole person she absolutely trusted with her life as well as secrets. though, they’ve known each other for a lot longer than before she made him her right hand man. 

they kept the gang upright together. matter of fact, anarchy had never been better since they were in charge. she was young and pretty, looked anything but what she really was. it gave anarchy the upper hand because everyone else knew exactly who their leader was but did not believe it. she was hidden in plain sight without having to hide at all. 

underestimation, often drove her to do better. those who dared to be verbal with their doubts, died. she, herself, was lethal and absolutely ruthless. her middle name, mercedes meaning mercies, was the most ironic thing to have ever happened. she finds it funny and throws it in the faces of others. 

“ the only merciful thing about me is in my name. ”

she and blake have spent a few months maybe even a year, on the run, after having been walking on eggshells in rosewick. as powerful as a gang can be... it’s only as powerful as its weakest member. and because of a slip up on their end, blake and mariana were compromised. of course, she would rather die than snitch on her own kind - though had they snitched, they probably wouldn’t have had to leave their home. mariana packed her bags and even blake’s before grabbing him and all but dragging him out of rosewick.

they spent some time traveling around the states, living their best lives before mari mentioned the island and now... here they are. 

though, with power like mariana’s and blake’s, they’ve fallen under the santoro gang’s radar. they’re being watched with interest, the main goal being that they join them.

𝐖𝐀𝐍𝐓𝐄𝐃 𝐂𝐎𝐍𝐍𝐄𝐂𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍𝐒 ▸

honestly, anything !!

[ethelbertpaul444-blog]

The Untold Story of Robert Mueller’s Time in Combat

One day in the summer of 1969, a young Marine lieutenant listed Bob Mueller arrived in Hawaii for a rendezvous with his wife, Ann. She was hovering in from the Eastern coast with the couple’s babe daughter, Cynthia, a child Mueller had never fulfilled. Mueller had made a plane from Vietnam. After nine months at war, he was finally due for a few short daylights of R& R outside the battle zone. Mueller had seen intense action since he last replied goodbye to his wife. He’d received the Bronze Star with a distinction for spirit for his actions in one combat, and he’d been airlifted out of the jungle during another firefight after being killed in the thigh. He and Ann had told only twice since he’d left for South Vietnam. Despite all that, Mueller admitted to her in Hawaii that he was thinking of increasing his deployment for another six months, and maybe even making a career in the Marines. Ann was understandably ill at ease about the prospect. But as it turned out, she wouldn’t has become a Marine wife for much longer. It was standard practice for Marines to be rotated out of duel, and later that time Mueller determined himself to be given to a table undertaking at Marine headquarters in Arlington, Virginia. There he discovered something about himself: “I didn’t relish the US Marine Corps absent combat.” So he headed to law institution with the goal of dishing his country as a prosecutor. He went on to hold high positions in five presidential administrations. He produced the Criminal Division of the Justice Department, overseeing the US investigation of the Lockerbie bombing and the federal prosecution of the Gambino crime family boss John Gotti. He became director of the FBI one week before September 11, 2001, and stayed on to become the bureau’s longest-serving administrator since J. Edgar Hoover. And yet, throughout his five-decade vocation, that time of duel experience with the Marines has tower huge in Mueller’s mind. “I’m most proud the Marines Corps deemed me are worth heading other Navals, ” he told me in a 2009 interview. June 2018. Subscribe to WIRED. Illustration by Jules Julien; Source Photo: Gerald Herbert/ AP Today, the face-off between Special Counsel Robert Mueller and President Donald Trump stands out, amid the pitch-black humor of Trump’s Washington, as an epic fiction of differing American nobilities: a fib of two men–born really two years apart, raised in similar affluent backgrounds in Northeastern cities, both deeply influenced by their leaders, both wizard prep school players, both Ivy League educated–who now find themselves frisking most varied roles in a riveting national theatre about political corrupt practices and Russia’s interference in the 2016 election. The two men have lived their lives in pursuit of virtually diametrically opposed goals–Mueller a life of patrician public service, Trump a life of private profit. Those diverging routes beginning with Vietnam, the conflict that cried the country apart just as both men graduated from college in the 1960 s. Despite having been developed at an nobility private armed academy, Donald Trump famously attracted five sketch deferments, including information for bone stimulant in his paws. He would later joke, frequently, that his success at forestalling genital herpes while dating several women in the 1980 s was “my personal Vietnam. I feel like a great and very brave soldier.” Mueller, for his part , is not simply volunteered for the Marines, he spent a year waiting for an injured knee to regenerate so he could act. And he has said little about his time in Vietnam over the years. When he was preceding the FBI through the disasters of 9/11 and its aftermath, he would brush off the crush stress, pronouncing, “I’m getting a lot more sleep now than I ever did in Vietnam.” One of the only other periods his staff at the FBI ever heard him mention his Marine service was on a flight residence from an official international junket. They were watching We Were Soldiers , a 2002 film starring Mel Gibson about some of the early clashes in Vietnam. Mueller gazed at the screen and saw, “Pretty accurate.” His reticence is not rare for the generation that served on the front line of a campaign that the two countries never actually embraced. Many of the veterans I spoke with for this story said they’d evaded speak about Vietnam until very recently. Joel Burgos, who served as a corporal with Mueller, told me at the end of our hour-long speech, “I’ve never told anyone most of this.” Yet for almost all of them–Mueller included–Vietnam observed the primary formative experience of their lives. Practically 50 year later, countless Marine ex-servicemen who served in Mueller’s unit have email addresses that reference their time in Southeast Asia: gunnysgt, 2-4marine, semperfi, PltCorpsman, Grunt. One Marine’s email handle even references Mutter’s Ridge, the area where Mueller firstly fronted large-scale combat in December 1968. The Marines and Vietnam instilled in Mueller a sense of restraint and a relentlessness that have driven him ever since. He once told me that one of the things the Marine taught him was to determine his plot every day. I’d written a work about his time at the FBI and was by then very well known his severe, straitlaced demeanor, so I giggled at the time and pronounced, “That’s the least surprising situation I’ve ever learned about you.” But Mueller persisted: It was an important small-time daily gesture epitomizing follow-through and hanging. “Once you think about it–do it, ” he told me. “I’ve ever became my bunk and I’ve ever scraped, even in Vietnam in the jungle. You’ve positioned money in the bank in terms of discipline.” Mueller’s onetime Princeton classmate and FBI chief of staff W. Lee Rawls withdrew how Mueller’s Marine leadership style carried through to the FBI, where he had little perseverance for subjects who interviewed his decisions. He expected his line-ups to be executed in the Hoover building just as they had been on the battleground. In finds with subjects, Mueller had a dres of quoting Gene Hackman’s gruff Navy submarine captain in the 1995 Cold War thriller Crimson Tide : “We’re now to perpetuate republic , not to practice it.” Related Stories Andy Greenberg The White House Warns on Russian Router Hacking, But Muddles the Message Garrett M. Graff A Guide to Russia’s High Tech Tool Box for Subverting US Democracy Garrett M. Graff Robert Mueller Likely Knows How This All Ends Discipline must really been a defining aspect of Mueller’s Russia investigation. In a government era of extreme TMI–marked by rampant White House seeps, Twitter outbursts, and an administration that disgorges jilted cabinet-level officials as rapidly as it can appoint new ones–the special counsel’s part has been a fastened entrance. Mueller has remained an serene cypher: the stoic, speechless representation at the centre of America’s government gyre. Not once has he expressed publicly about the Russia investigation since he took the job in May 2017, and his carefully picked squad of prosecutors and FBI negotiators has proved leakproof, even under the most intense of media spotlights. Mueller’s spokesperson, Peter Carr, on lend from the Justice Department, has generally had one thing to tell a media horde devouring for informed of the Russia investigation: “No comment.” If Mueller’s discipline is reflected in the silence of his team, his relentlessness has been abundantly evident in the gait of indictments, stoppages, and law tactics coming out of his office. His investigation is proceeding on several breasts. He is excavating into Russian report functionings carried out on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and other social media platforms. In February his office impeached 13 people and three entities connected to the Internet Research Agency, the Russian organization that allegedly masterminded awareness-raising campaigns. He’s too following those responsible for cyber interferences, includes the hacking of the email system at the Democratic National Committee. At the same time, Mueller’s researchers are probing the business dealings of Trump and his associates, great efforts that has furnished arraignments for tax fraud and plot against Trump’s former safarus chair, Paul Manafort, and a guilty plea on business fraud and lying to researchers by Manafort’s deputy, Rick Gates. The squad is also looking into the countless bilateral relations between Trump’s people and Kremlin-connected chassis. And Mueller is questioning evidences in an effort to establish whether Trump has inhibited justice by actually attempting to squelch the investigation itself. Almost each week wreaks a amaze developed as police investigations. But until the next accusation or seize, it’s difficult to say what Mueller knows, or what he thinks. Before he grew special admonish, Mueller freely and repeatedly told me that his attires of brain and person is very much influenced by his time in Vietnam, a interval “hes also” the least explored section of his biography. This first in-depth history of his time at war is based on several interviews with Mueller about his time in combat–conducted before he became special counsel–as well as hundreds of pages of once-classified Marine combat accounts, official notes of Marine involvements, and the first-ever interrogations with eight Navals who served alongside Mueller in 1968 and 1969. They cater the best new window we have into the mind of the man conducting the Russia investigation. Mueller volunteered for the Marine in 1966, right after move away from Princeton. By late 1968 he was a lieutenant passing a action squad in Vietnam. Dan Winters; Archival Photo Courtesy of National Archives Robert Swan Mueller III, the first of five children and the only son, grew up in a stately stone house in a wealthy Philadelphia suburb. His father was a DuPont executive who had commanded a Navy submarine-chaser in World War II; he expected his children to abide by a strict moral code. “A lie was the worst blasphemy, ” Mueller remarks. “The one thing you didn’t do was to give anything less than the truth to my mother and father.” He accompanied St. Paul’s prep school in Concord, New Hampshire, where the all-boys classifies accentuated Episcopal principles of modesty and manliness. He was a ace on the lacrosse force and played hockey with future US senator John Kerry on the school unit. For college he choice his father’s alma mater, Princeton, and entered the class of 1966. The expanding war in Vietnam was a frequent topic of discussion among the elite students, who spoke of the war–echoing earlier generations–in terms of duty and service. “Princeton from ’6 2 to ’6 6 was a completely different life than ’6 7 onwards, ” supposed Rawls, a lifelong friend of Mueller’s. “The anti-Vietnam push was not on us yet. A year or two subsequently, the campus was transformed.” On the lacrosse province, Mueller matched David Hackett, a classmate and jock who would profoundly affect Mueller’s life. Hackett had already enlisted in the Marines’ version of ROTC, expending his Princeton times training for the escalating campaign. “I had one of the finest role model I could have asked for in an upperclassman by the epithet of David Hackett, ” Mueller recalled in a 2013 pronunciation as FBI director. “David was on our 1965 lacrosse team. He was not undoubtedly the best on the team, but he was a identified and a natural leader.” After he graduated in 1965, Hackett embarked training to be a Marine, giving top reputations in his officer nominee class. After that he carried out to Vietnam. In Mueller’s seeings, Hackett was a shining example. Mueller “ve decided that” when he graduated the subsequent year, he too would recruit in the Marines. On April 30, 1967, shortly after Hackett had signed up for his second tour in Vietnam, his unit was ambushed by more than 75 camouflaged North Vietnamese armies “whos” burning down from bunkers with weapons that included a. 50 -caliber machine gun. According to a Marine history, “dozens of Marines were killed or wounded within minutes.” Hackett set the source of the incoming burn and charged 30 grounds across open soil to an American machine gun team to tell them where to shoot. Times later, as he was moving to facilitate direct a neighboring team whose captain had been wounded, he was killed by a sniper. Posthumously apportioned the Silver Star, Hackett’s commendation explained that he died “while pressing the abuse and encouraging his Marines.” By the time word of Hackett’s death filtered back to the US, Mueller was already making good on his pledge to follow him into military service. The information merely enhanced his resolve to become an infantry policeman. “One would have thought that the life of a Marine, and David’s death in Vietnam, would argue strongly against following in his footsteps, ” Mueller said in that 2013 speech. “But many of us attended in him the person or persons we wanted to be, even before his death. He was a lead and a role model on their areas of Princeton. He was a ruler and a role model on the fields of engagement as well. And a number of his pals and teammates joined the Marine Corps because of him, as did I.” In mid-1 966, Mueller underwent his armed physical at the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard; this was before the preparation of the proposed programme gamble began and before Vietnam became a divisive cultural watershed. He echoes sitting in the waiting room as another nominee, a buckling 6-foot, 280 -pound lineman for the Philadelphia Eagles, was regulated 4-F–medically unfit for military service. After that this organization is Mueller’s turn to be rejected: His years of intense sportings, including hockey and lacrosse, had left him with an injured knee. The military announced that it had a duty to heal before he would be allowed to deploy. In the meantime, he married Ann Cabell Standish–a graduate of Miss Porter’s School and Sarah Lawrence–over Labor Day weekend 1966, and they moved to New York, where he gave a master’s degree in international relations at New York University. Once his knee had regenerated, Mueller went back to the military physicians. In 1967 — just before Donald Trump received his own medical deferment for heel spurs–Mueller started Officer Candidate School at Quantico, Virginia. For high school, Mueller attended St. Paul’s School in Concord, New Hampshire. As a senior in 1962, Mueller (# 12) dallied on the hockey team with future US senator John Kerry (# 18 ). Dan Winters; Archival Photo by Rick Friedman/ Getty Images Like Hackett before him, Mueller was a star in his Officer Candidate School discipline class. “He was a cut above, ” recollects Phil Kellogg, who had followed one of his frat friends into the Navals after graduating from the College of Santa Fe in New Mexico. Kellogg, who went through schooling with Mueller, recollects Mueller scooting another campaigner on an obstacle course–and suffer. It’s the only period he can remember Mueller being bested. “He was a natural jock and natural student, ” Kellogg does. “I don’t think he had a hard date at OCS, to be honest.” There was, it turned out, exclusively one thing he was bad at–and it was a flunking that would become familiar to legions of his subordinates in the decades to succeed: He received a D in delegation. During the time Mueller spent in training, from November 1967 through July 1968, the context of the Vietnam War changed significantly. The vicious Tet Offensive–a series of arranged, widespread, surprise attack across South Vietnam by the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese in January 1968 — stupefied America, and with public opinion souring on existing conflicts, Lyndon Johnson said he wouldn’t run for reelection. As Mueller’s improving class graduated, Walter Cronkite proclaimed on the CBS Evening News that the fighting could not be earned. “For it seems now more particular than ever, ” Cronkite told his billions of onlookers on February 27, 1968, “that the vicious ordeal of Vietnam is to end in a stalemate.” The country seemed to be descending into chaos; as the spring unfolded, both Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy were assassinated. Municipalities erupted in rampages. Antiwar dissents feelings. But the shifting tide of public opinion and civil unrest just registered with the patrolman campaigners in Mueller’s class. “I don’t retain anyone having anxieties about where we were or what we were doing, ” Kellogg says. That spring, as Donald J. Trump graduated from the University of Pennsylvania and began working for his father’s real estate company, Mueller finished up Officer Candidate School and received his next duty: He was to attend the US Army’s Ranger School. Arriving in Vietnam, Mueller was well trained, but he was also afraid. “You were scared to death of the unknown, ” he mentions. “More afraid in some ways of omission than death.” Mueller knew that simply the best young men went on to Ranger training, a strenuous eight-week advanced the competences and lead planned for the military’s society at Fort Benning, Georgia. He would be spend weeks practising patrol tactics, homicide goals, assault approaches, and attacks staged in submerges. But the aftermath of the duty were also sobering to the newly minted detective: Many Marines who progressed such courses were designated as “recon Marines” in Vietnam, a chore that are typically moved with a life expectancy measured in weeks. Mueller approvals the training he received at Ranger School for his existence in Vietnam. The coaches there had been through forest combat themselves, and their fibs from the front line schooled the candidates how to avoid several mistakes. Ranger trainees often had to function on time two hours of respite a nighttime and a single daily banquet. “Ranger School more than anything learns you about how you react with no sleep and nothing to gobble, ” Mueller told me. “You hear who you require on spot, and who you don’t want anywhere near point.” After Ranger School, he also accompanied Airborne School, aka jumping clas, where he learned to be a parachutist. By the autumn of 1968, he was on his action to Asia. He boarded a flight from Travis Air Force Base in California to an embarkation item in Okinawa, Japan, where there was an approximately tangible current of dread among the distributing troops. From Okinawa, Mueller headed to Dong Ha Combat Base near the so-called demilitarized zone–the dividing line between North and South Vietnam, launched after the collapse of the French colonial regiman in 1954. Mueller was determined and well trained, but he was also afraid. “You were scared to death of the unknown, ” he articulates. “More afraid in some ways of default than extinction, more afraid of being found wanting.” That kind of nervousnes, he announces “animates your unconscious.” For American corps, 1 968 was the deadliest time of the crusade, as they beat back the Tet Offensive and opposed the combat of Hue. All told, 16,592 Americans were killed that year–roughly 30 percent of total US fatalities in the fighting. Over the course of the conflict, more than 58,000 Americans succumbed, 300,000 were wounded, and some two million South and North Vietnamese died. Just 18 months after David Hackett was felled by a sniper, Mueller was being sent to the same part as his officer-training classmate Kellogg, who had arrived in Vietnam three months earlier. Mueller was assigned to H Company–Hotel Company in Marine parlance–part of the 2nd Battalion of the 4th Marine Regiment, a storied infantry contingent that traced its parentages back to the 1930 s. The regiment had been fighting almost nonstop in Vietnam since May 1965, making the nickname the Magnificent Bastards. The grueling action made its fee. In the precipitate of 1967, six weeks of duel reduced the battalion’s 952 Marine to just 300 is suitable for duty. During the Tet Offensive, the 2nd Battalion had received acrimonious and bloody battle that never let up. In April 1968, it campaigned in the fight of Dai Do, a days-long booking that killed virtually 600 North Vietnamese soldiers. Eighty members of the 2nd Battalion died in the fight, and 256 were wounded. David Harris, who arrived in Vietnam in May, affiliated the depleted legion just after Dai Do. “Hotel Company and all of 2/4 was devastated, ” he reads. “They were a skeleton gang. They were haggard, they were pummel to fatality. It was just pitiful.” By the time Mueller was set to arrive 6 months later, the human rights unit had rehabilitated its grades as its wounded Marines recovered and filtered back into the field; they had been experimented and surfaced stronger. By co-occurrence, Mueller was to inherit leadership of a Hotel Company platoon from his acquaintance Kellogg. “Those kids that I had and Bob had, half of them were ex-servicemen of Dai Do, ” Kellogg speaks. “They were field-sharp.” A corpsman of Company H facilitates a wounded Leatherneck of 2nd Battalion, 4th Marines, during Operation Saline II in the Quang Tri Province of Vietnam in 1968. Dan Winters; Archival Photo Courtesy of National Archives Second Lieutenant Mueller, 2 4 years and 3 months old, joined the regiment in November 1968, one of 10 brand-new officers assigned to the unit that month. He knew he was arriving at the so-called pointy mission of the American impale. Some 2.7 million US troops served in Vietnam, but the great majority of fatalities were suffered by those who defended in “maneuver battalions” like Mueller’s. The conflict along the demilitarized zone was far different than “its been” elsewhere in Vietnam; the primary antagonist was the North Vietnamese army , not the infamous Viet Cong guerrillas. North Vietnamese armies generally operated in bigger units, become better studied, and were more likely to engage in maintained fighting rather than melting apart after placing an waylay. “We pushed regular, hard-core army, ” Joel Burgos says. “There were so many of them–and they were really good.” William Sparks, a private first class in Hotel Company, recalls that Mueller get off apache helicopters in the midst of a rainstorm, wearing a raincoat–a telltale sign that he was new to the crusade. “You figured out somewhat fast it didn’t help to wear a raincoat in Vietnam, ” Sparks answers. “The humidity time compressed for the purposes of the raincoat–you were just as humid as you were without it.” As Mueller marched up from the operations zone, Kellogg–who had no idea Mueller would be inheriting his platoon–recognized his OCS classmate’s gait. “When he came marching up the hill, I chortled, ” Kellogg alleges. “We started joking.” On Mueller’s first night in the field, his brand-new tent was destroyed by the wind. “That thing evaporated into thin breeze, ” Sparks suggests. He didn’t even get at spend one night.” Over the coming days, Kellogg progressed along some of his wise from the field and interpreted the procedures for calling in artillery and air strikes. “Don’t be John Wayne, ” he said. “It’s not a movie. Navals tell you something’s up, listen to them.” “The lieutenants who didn’t rely their Marines went to early deaths, ” Kellogg says. And with that, Kellogg told their commander that Mueller was ready, and he hopped aboard the next helicopter out. Today, military units usually teach together in the US, deploys together for a placed sum of term, and return home together. But in Vietnam, rotations began–and ended–piecemeal, driven by the vagaries of harms, illness, and individual action tours. That made Mueller acquired a legion that mingled combat-experienced ex-servicemen and relative newbies. A platoon consisted of approximately 40 Navals, generally led by a lieutenant and divided into three crews, each was presided over by a sergeant, which were then divided into three four-man “fire teams” led by corporals. While the lieutenants were technically in charge, the sergeants operated the show–and could stimulate or undermine a new patrolman. “You land, and you’re at the pity of your staff sergeant and your radioman, ” Mueller says. Marines in the field knew to be dubious of brand-new young second lieutenants like Mueller. They were scoffed as Gold Brickers, after the single amber saloon that signified their rank. “They might have had a college education, but they sure as hell didn’t have common sense, ” suggests Colin Campbell, who was on Hotel Company’s mortar squad. Mueller knew his guys panicked he might be incompetent or worse. “The platoon was stupefied, ” he remembers. “They wondered whether the brand-new light-green lieutenant was going to jeopardize “peoples lives” to boost his own career.” Mueller himself was evenly terrified of acquiring land command. As he settled in, talk spread about the strange brand-new platoon commander who had gone to both Princeton and Army Ranger School. “Word was out real fast–Ivy League guy from an affluent clas. That set off fears. The affluent chaps didn’t go to Vietnam then–and they certainly didn’t finish up in a rifle team, ” announces VJ Maranto, a corporal in H Company. “There was so much talk about’ Why’s a guy like that out here with us? ’ We weren’t Ivy Leaguers.” Indeed , none of his fellow Hotel Company Marines had written their college thesis on African territory spats before the International Court of Justice, as Mueller had. Most were from rural America, and few had any formal education past senior high school. Maranto spent his youth on a small farm in Louisiana. Carl Rasmussen, a lance corporal, grew up on a farm in Oregon. Burgos was from the Mississippi Delta, where he was raised on a cotton plantation. After graduating from high school, David Harris had gone to work in a General Engine mill in his home mood of Ohio, then attached the Marines when he was set to be drafted in the summer of 1967. Many of the Marines under Mueller’s command had been wounded at least once; 19 -year-old corporal John C. Liverman had arrived in Vietnam merely four months from a neighbor of his from Silver Spring, Maryland, had been killed at Khe Sanh–and had heard heavy combat much of the year. He’d beset by shrapnel in March 1968 and then again in April, but after recovering in Okinawa, he had agitated to return to combat. Hotel Company quickly came to understand that its new squad chairwoman was no Gold Bricker. “He wanted to know as much as he had been able to as fast as he could about the terrain, what we did, the waylays, everything, ” Maranto says. “He was all about members of the mission, the mission, the mission.” Second Battalion’s mission, as it turned out, was straightforward: Probe and destroy. “We stayed out in the bush, out in the mountains, precisely below DMZ, 24 hours a day, ” David Harris pronounces. “We was exactly enticement. It was the same meeting: They’d touched us, we’d stumbled them, they’d disappear.” Frequent deaths and injuries meant that turnover in the field was constant; when Maranto arrived at Hotel Company, he was issued a flak jacket that had dehydrated blood on it. “We were always low on servicemen, ” Colin Campbell says. Mueller’s unit was constantly on patrol; the battalion’s preserves described it as “nomadic.” Its undertaking was to keep the foe off-kilter and disrupt their supplying words. “You’d march all day, then you’d burrow a foxhole and devote all night altering going on watch, ” announces Bill White, a Hotel Company ex-serviceman. “We were always tired, always starving, always thirsty. There were no showers.” In those first weeks, Mueller &# x27; s confidence as a captain developed as he triumphed his men’s confidence and respect. “You’d felt his nervousness, but you’d never see that in his behaviour, ” Maranto says. “He was such a professional.” The members of the platoon soon got acquainted with a better quality that would be familiar to everyone who is dealing with Mueller later as a prosecutor and FBI director. He asked a great deal and had little fortitude for malingering, but he never asked for more than he was willing to give himself. “He was a no-bullshit kind of chap, ” White recalls. Sgt. Michael Padilla( left) with Cpl. Agustin Rosario( right ), who was killed in action on December 11, 1968, during the operation at Mutter’s Ridge . div> Dan Winters; Archival Photo Courtesy of Michael Padilla Mueller’s unit began December 1968 in related silent, to protect the security for the primary military cornerstone in the field, a glorified campsite known as Vandegrift Combat Base, about 10 miles south of the DMZ. It was one of the only planned outposts nearby for Marines, a region for resupply, a rain, and red-hot food. Lance Corporal Robert W. Cromwell, who had celebrated his 20 th birthday shortly before beginning his tour of duty, entertained his compatriots with stories from his own reporting period R& R: He’d matched his wife and parents in Hawaii to be introduced to his newborn daughter. “He was so happy to have a child and wanted to get home for good, ” Harris says. On December 7 the battalion boarded helicopters for a new operation: to retake control of a mountain in an loathsome neighbourhood known as Mutter’s Ridge. The strategically important piece of ground, which rolled along four mountains on the countries of the south boundary of the DMZ, had been the scene of fighting for more than two years and had been overrun by the North Vietnamese months before. Artillery, air strikes, and cistern strikes had long since denuded the bank of vegetation, but the circumventing hillsides and depressions were a forest of trees and vines. When Hotel Company touched down and fanned out from its landing zones to support a bound, Mueller was arriving to what would be his first full-scale battle. As the American contingents boosted, the North Vietnamese withdrew. “They were all drawing back to this big bunker complex, as it turned out, ” Sparks mentions. The Americans could see the signs of past combats all around them. “You’d view shrapnel openings in the trees, bullet punctures, ” Sparks says. After three days of patrols, isolated firefights with an elusive enemy, and several nighttimes of American shelling, another division in 2nd Battalion, Fox Company, received the lineup to make some high ground on Mutter’s Ridge. Even nearly 50 years later, the date of the operation abides burned into the recollections of those who pushed in it: December 11, 1968. None of Mueller &# x27; s fellow Marines had written their college thesis on African territory conflicts before the International Court of Justice, as Mueller had. That morning, after a darknes of air strikes and cannon blast “ve been meaning to” faded the antagonist, the men of Fox Company moved out at first light. The attack vanished smoothly at first; they confiscated the countries of the western portions of the crest without resistance, evading simply a handful of mortar rounds. Yet as they continued east, heavy small-arms fire started. “As they fought their practice forwards, they came into intensive and deadly fuel from bunkers and at the least three machine guns, ” the regiment later reported. Because the vegetation was so dense, Fox Company didn’t realize that it had stumbled into the centre of a bunker complex. “Having crusaded their nature in, the company ascertained it extremely difficult to maneuver its way out, due both to the fuel of the antagonist and the problem of carrying their wounded.” Hotel Company was on a neighboring mountain, still feeing breakfast, when Fox Company was attacked. Glint remembers that he was drinking a “Mo-Co, ” C-rations coffee with cocoa gunpowder and sugar, heated by igniting a golf-ball-sized segment of C-4 plastic explosive.( “We were ahead of Starbucks on this latte bullshit, ” he jokes .) They could hear the gunfire across the valley. “Lieutenant Mueller called,’ Saddle up, saddle up, ’” Sparks pronounces. “He called for first squad–I was the grenade launcher and had two bags of ammo buckled across my chest. I could just stand up.” Before they could even reach the antagonist, they had to fight their route through the dense cover of the depression. “We had to go down the hill and come up Foxtrot Ridge. It took hours.” “It was the only locate in the DMZ I remember meeting botany like that, ” Harris reads. “It was thick-skulled and entwining.” When the platoon lastly crested the highest level of the crest, they confronted the repugnance of the battlefield. “There were wounded parties everywhere, ” Sparks recalls. Mueller said everyone to quit their jam-packs and preparations for a fight. “We assaulted right out across the top of the crest, ” he says. It wasn’t long before the unit came under ponderous fervor from small arms, machine guns, and a grenade launcher. “There were three North Vietnamese soldiers right in front of us that rushed right up and scattered us with AK-4 7s, ” Sparks says. They reverted fervor and advanced. At one point, a Navy corpsman with them threw a grenade, only to have it bounce off a tree and explode, wounding one of Hotel Company’s corporals. “It just got worse from there, ” Sparks says. In the next few minutes, several followers went down in Mueller’s unit. Maranto remembers being impressed that his relatively lettuce lieutenant was able to stay calm while under criticize. “He’d been in-country less than a month–most of us had been in-country six, eight months, ” Maranto says. “He had remarkable equanimity, targeting fervor. It was sheer terror. They had RPGs, machine gun, mortars.” Mueller realise rapidly how much hassle the patrol was in. “That daytime was the second heaviest barrage I received in Vietnam, ” Harris mentions. “Lieutenant Mueller was guiding commerce, outlook parties and calling in air strikes. He was standing upright, moving. He probably saved our hide.” Cromwell, the lance corporal who had just become a papa, was shooting in the thigh by a. 50 -caliber bullet. When Harris encountered his wounded sidekick being hustled out of harm’s action, he was funnily relieved at first. “I discovered him and he was alive, ” Harris does. “He was on the stretcher.” Cromwell would ultimately be able to deplete some time with his wife and new child, Harris figured. “You lucky chump, ” he concluded. “You’re going home.” But Harris had miscalculated the seriousness of his friend’s harm. The missile had nicked one of Cromwell’s arteries, and he bled to demise before he reached the field hospital. The death destroyed Harris, who had sold weapons with Cromwell the darknes before–Harris had taken Cromwell’s M-1 4 rifle and Cromwell took Harris’ M-7 9 grenade launcher. “The next day when we punched the crap, they called for him, and he had to go forward, ” Harris remarks. Harris couldn’t shake the be thought that he should have been the one on the stretcher. “I’ve only told two people this story.” The battle atop and around Mutter’s Ridge feelings for hours, with the North Vietnamese barrage received from the smothering jungle. “We got hit with an ambush, plain and simple, ” Harris suggests. “The brush was so thick, you had perturb hacking it with a machete. If you got 15 meters away, you couldn’t consider where you came from.” As the fighting resumed, the Marines atop the crest began to run low on quantities. “Johnny Liverman hurled me a handbag of ammo. He’d been ferrying ammo from one surface of the ridge to the other, ” Sparks withdraws. Liverman was already wounded, but he was still contend; then, during one of his runs, he came here under more shell. “He got hit right through the pate, right when I was looking at him. I get that ammo, I crawled up there and got his M-1 6 and told him I’d be back.” Sparks and the other Marine protected behind a dead tree stump, trying to find any defence amid the firestorm. “Neither of us had any ammo left, ” Sparks remembers. He slithered back to Liverman to try to expel his love. “I get him up on my shoulder, and I got shot, and I went down, ” he does. As he was lying on the dirt, he listened a shout from atop the ridge, “Who’s that down there–are they dead? ” It was Lieutenant Mueller. Sparks called back, “Sparks and Liverman.” “Hold on, ” Mueller answered, “We’re coming down to get you.” A few minutes later, Mueller seemed with another Marine, known as Slick. Mueller and Slick slipped Sparks into a missile crater with Liverman and kept a battle dress on Sparks’ wound. They waited until a helicopter gunship passed overhead, its grease-guns clattering, to amuse the North Vietnamese, and hustled back toward the top of the hill and comparative safety. An OV-1 0 criticize airplane overhead plunged smoke grenades to facilitate shield the Marines atop the ridge. Mueller, Sparks reads, then went back to retrieve the mortally wounded Liverman. The extinctions organized. Corporal Agustin Rosario–a 22 -year-old father and husband from New York City–was shot in the ankle, and then, while he tried to run back to safety, was kill again, this time fatally. Rosario, extremely, lived waiting for a medevac helicopter. Finally, as the hours transferred, the Marines coerced the North Vietnamese to rescind. By 4:30 pm, the battlefield had hushed. As his eulogy for the Bronze Star eventually predicted, “Second Lieutenant Mueller’s courage, vigorous initiative and unwavering devotion to job at great personal gamble is also contributing in the overcome of the enemy force and were in keeping with the highest institutions of the Marine Corps and of the United States Naval Service.” As night precipitated, Hotel and Fox held the anchor, and a third busines, Golf, was brought forward as added buttres. It was a brutal era for both sides; 13 Americans vanished and 31 were wounded. “We framed a pretty good hurt on them, but not without enormous expenditure, ” Sparks suggests. “My closest pals were all killed there on Foxtrot Ridge.” As the Americans searched the field around the ridge, they weighed seven enemy dead left behind, in addition to being able to seven others killed in the course of the clash. Intelligence reports afterward revealed that the duel had killed the commander of the 1st Battalion, 27 th North Vietnamese Army Regiment, “and had practically decimated his staff.” For Mueller, the engagement had proved both to him and his gentlemen that he could lead. “The minute the shit stumbled the fan, he was there, ” Maranto says. “He performed outstandingly. After that night, there were a lot of guys who would’ve sauntered through walls for him.” That first major revelation to combat–and the loss of Marines under his command–affected Mueller deeply. “You’re standing there consider,’ Did I do everything I could? ’” he answers. Afterward, back at camp, while Mueller was still in startle, a major came up and swiped the young lieutenant on the shoulder, saying, “Good job, Mueller.” “That vote of confidence helped me get through, ” Mueller told me. “That gesture pushed me over. I wouldn’t follow out life guilty for fastening up.” The heavy toll of the casualties at Mutter’s Ridge shook up the whole legion. Cromwell’s death reached extremely hard; his laughter and good nature had tied the human rights unit together. “He was happy-go-lucky. He appeared after the new people when they came in, ” Bill White withdraws. For Harris, who had often shared a foxhole with Cromwell, the death of his best friend was devastating. White also took Cromwell’s death hard-bitten; overcome with sorrow, he stopped scraping. Mueller tackled him, telling him to refocus on members of the mission ahead–but eventually accommodated more consolation than punish. “He could’ve applied me punishment hours, ” White announces, “but he never did.” Robert Mueller receives an honor from his regimental officer Col. Martin “Stormy” Sexton in Dong Ha, South Vietnam in 1969. Dan Winters; Archival Photo Courtesy of the place of Robert Mueller Decades later, Mueller would tell me that nothing he ever confronted in his profession was as challenging as conducting workers in duel and watching them be cut down. “You realize a great deal, and every day after is a commendation, ” he told me in 2008. The remembering of Mutter’s Ridge positioned everything, even terror investigations and showdowns with the Bush White House, into view. “A lot is going to come your behavior, but it’s not going to be the same intensity.” When Mueller ultimately did leave the FBI in 2013, he “retired” into a hectic life as a top spouse at the existing legislation house WilmerHale. He learnt some first-class in cybersecurity at Stanford, he investigated the NFL’s handling of the Ray Rice domestic violence case, and he provided as the so-called colonization captain for the Volkswagen Dieselgate scandal. While in the midst of that assignment–which required the kind of delicate give-and-take ill-suited to a hard-driving , no-nonsense Marine–the 72 -year-old Mueller received a final call to public service. It was May 2017, just days into the twirling blizzard start out by the firing of FBI director James Comey, and deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein wanted to know if Mueller would serve as the special counselor in the Russia investigation. The job–overseeing one of the most difficult and sensitive investigations ever undertaken by the Justice Department–may simply graded as the third-hardest of Mueller’s career, after the post-9/ 11 FBI and after resulting those Marine in Vietnam. Having accepted the job as special counselor, he retreated into his prosecutor’s bunker, cut off from the rest of America. In January 1969, after 10 epoches of rain showers and cold weather, the unit got a three-day R& R break-dance at Cua Viet, a nearby brace locate. They listened to Super Bowl III on the radio as Joe Namath and the Jet-blacks defeated the Baltimore Colts. “One touch of actuality was listening to that, ” Mueller says. In the field, they get little information about what was happening at home. In fact, later that time, while Mueller was still deployed, Neil Armstrong made his first step on the moon–an incident that people around the world watched live on Tv. Mueller wouldn’t find out until daylights afterward. “There was this whole segment of autobiography you missed, ” he says. R& R breaks is likewise rare opportunities to imbibe alcohol, though there was never often of it. Campbell says he drink just 15 brews during his 18 months in-country. “I can retain drinking warm beer–Ballantines, ” he pronounces. In tent, the three men traded publications like Playboy and mail-order automotive catalogs, dreaming the cars they are able to soup up when they returned back to Position. They guided the time toy wino or pinochle. For the most part, Mueller bounced such activities, though he was into the era’s music( Creedence Clearwater Revival was–and is–a particular favorite ). “I retain several times strolling into a bunker and feeling him in a corner with a notebook, ” Maranto says. “He read a lot, every opportunity.” Throughout the rest of the month, they patrolled, meeting little linked with the enemy, although abundance of clues of their spirit: Hotel Company often radioed into allegations of concluding descended the organizations and disguised ply caches, and they are usually made incoming mortar rounds from unseen enemies. Command under such conditions wasn’t easy; drug use is an issue, and racial hostilities guided high. “Many of the GIs were draftees; they didn’t want to be there, ” Maranto says. “When new people revolved in, they imparted what happens in the United States with them.” Mueller recalls at times struggling to get Marines to follow orders–they already felt that the beating of serving in the infantry in Vietnam was as bad as it could get. “Screw that, ” they’d reply sharply when was necessary to do something they didn’t wishes to do. “What are you going to do? Route me to Vietnam? ” Yet the Marines were bonded through the constant danger of being subjected to duel. Everyone had close calls. Everyone knew that luck in the combat area was finite, fate hurtful. “If the good Lord diverted over a placard up there, that was it, ” Mueller says. Nights particularly were fitted with horror; the enemy elevated sneak assaults, often in the hours before dawn. Colin Campbell recalls a night in his foxhole when he turned around to find a North Vietnamese soldier, armed with an AK-4 7, right behind him. “He’d get inside our bound. He had our back, ” Campbell suggests. “Why didn’t he kill me and another chap in the foxhole? ” Campbell roared, and the infiltrator bolted. “Another Marine down the line shot him dead.” Mueller was a constant existence in the fields, regularly reviewing the code signals and passwords that marked friendly contingents to each other. “He was quiet and reserved. The plan was meticulous and detailed. He knew at night where every place was, ” Maranto recalls. “It wouldn’t be peculiar for him to come out and make sure the volley crews were correctly placed–and that you two are awake.” The souls I talked to who performed alongside Mueller, adults now in their seventies, largely had strong recollections of the kind of captain Mueller had been. But numerous didn’t know, until I told them, that the man who led their team was now the special guidance probing Russian interference in the election. “I had no idea, ” Burgos told me. “When you’ve been in action that long, you don’t remember appoints. Appearances you recollect, ” he says. Maranto says he only put two and two together recently, although he’d thought for years if that person who was the FBI director had served with him in Vietnam. “The name would ring a bell–you know that’s a familiar name–but you’re so busy with daily life, ” Maranto says. At the makeshift landing zone getting briefed before being airlifted to join the rest of the operation. Mueller is standing on the right with his back to the camera . div> Dan Winters; Archival Photo Courtesy of VJ Maranto April 1969 recognized a stark American milestone: The Vietnam War’s engagement death toll transcended the 33,629 Americans killed while campaigning in Korea. It too drew a brand-new menace to Hotel Company’s region: a laid of powerful. 50 -caliber machine gun nests that the North Vietnamese had set up to harass helicopters and low-flying airliners. Hotel Company–and the battalion’s other units–devoted much of the middle-of-the-road of the month to shooting down the lethal artilleries. Until they were found, resupply helicopters were limited, and flights were vacated when they came under direct flame. One Marine was even killed in the landing zone. Ultimately, on April 15 and 16, Hotel Company overran the enemy firearm and action a departure, uncovering 10 bunkers and three firearm positions. The next day, at around 10 am, Mueller’s platoon was attacked while on patrol. Facing small-arms ardour and grenades, they called for breath assist. An hour later four assault rolls thumped the North Vietnamese position. Five days later, on April 22, one of the 3rd Platoon’s garrisons reached under same attack–and the situation abruptly grew frantic. Glints, who had returned to Hotel Company that winter after healing from his wound at Mutter’s Ridge, was in the waylaid garrison. “We lost the machine gun, jammed up with shrapnel, and the radio, ” he recalls. “We had to pull back.” Nights especially were filled with frightful; the adversary wished sneak onslaughts, often in the hours before dawn. With radio contact lost, Mueller’s platoon was called forward as buttres. American artillery and mortars pounded the North Vietnamese as the team boosted. At one point, Mueller was engaged in a close firefight. The incoming fervour was so intense–the stress of the moment so all-consuming, the adrenaline pumping so hard–that when he was shot, Mueller didn’t instantly notice. Amid the combat, he glanced down and recognized an AK-4 7 round had overtaken clean through his thigh. Mueller prevented fighting. “Although seriously wounded during the course of its firefight, he resolutely maintained his position and, aptly guiding the volley of his squad, was instrumental in demolishing the North Vietnamese Army force, ” reads the Navy Commendation that Mueller received for his action that day. “While approaching the designated area, the team emanated under a heavy loudnes of enemy burn from its right flank. Skillfully soliciting and directing corroborating Marine artillery fire on the opponent outlooks, First Lieutenant Mueller ensured that burn superiority was gained during the hostile unit.” Two other members of Hotel Company were also wounded in the fight. One of them had his leg blown off by a grenade; it was his first day in Vietnam. Mueller’s eras in duel ended with him being lifted out by helicopter in a sling. As the aircraft peeled away, Mueller withdraws reviewing he might at least get a good dinner out of the harm on a infirmary carry, but he was delivered instead to a field hospital near Dong Ha, where “hes spent” three weeks recovering. Maranto, who was on R& R when Mueller was wounded, retains returning to camp and hearing oath that their commandant had been shot. “It could happen to any one of us, ” Maranto says. “When it has come to him, there was a lot of sadness. They experienced his company.” Mueller recovered and returned to active office in May. Since most Marine detectives spent only six months on a combat rotation–and Mueller had been in the combat zone since November–he was sent to serve at bidding headquarters, where he became an aide-de-camp to Major General William K. Jones, the head of the 3rd Marine Division. By the end of 1969, Mueller was back in the US, his engagement tour accomplish, working at the Marine barracks near the Pentagon. Soon thereafter, he cast off an application to the University of Virginia’s law school. “I consider myself extraordinarily lucky to have constructed it out of Vietnam, ” Mueller announced years later in a discussion. “There were many–many–who did not. And perhaps because I did survive Vietnam, I have always experienced compelled to contribute.” Over the years, a few of his former chap Marines from Hotel Company recollected Mueller and have watched his busines unfold on the national theatre over the past two decades. Sparks cancels dining lunch on a July day in 2001 with the story on: “The TV was on behind me.’ We’re going to introduce the new FBI director, Robert … Swan … Mueller . ’ I slowly switched, and I appeared, and I belief,’ Golly, that’s Lieutenant Mueller.’” Sparks, who speaks with a thick Texas accent, says his first thought was the running gag he’d had with his former captain: “I’d always announce him’ Lieutenant Mew-ler , ’ and he’d mention,’ That’s Mul-ler . ’” More lately, his former Marine comrade Maranto says that after devoting six months in fighting with Mueller, he has watched the coverage of the special advise investigation progress and chortled at the news reports. He says he knows Mueller isn’t sweating the pressure. “I watch people on the word talking about the distractions getting to him, ” he alleges. “I don’t think so.” Garrett M. Graff ( @vermontgmg) is a lending writer at WIRED and scribe of The Threat Matrix: Inside Robert Mueller’s FBI and the War on Global Terror . He can be reached at garrett.graff @gmail. com . em> Such articles is displayed in the June issue. Subscribe now . em> Listen to this story, and other WIRED features, on the Audm app . em> More Great WIRED Stories If Trump is laundering Russian fund now &# x27; s how it would work Spot the illegal in these airport baggage x-rays How a DNA transfer virtually imprisoned an innocent being of murder PHOTO ESSAY: Ominous view Read more: https :// www.wired.com/ narration/ robert-mueller-vietnam / http://dailybuzznetwork.com/index.php/2018/07/01/the-untold-story-of-robert-muellers-time-in-combat/