A friend's book...

My friend, Fred Minnick, spent 2004 in Iraq as a U.S. Army journalist. He was based in Mosul, though he traveled around the country to cover military missions and events. We kept in touch by e-mail during his year-long deployment, and he wrote a blog, In Iraq for 365, using the name Sminklemeyer that I read everyday. Some of you will know him as Desert Smink. His was the first military blog I ever read, and it had me hooked from the start. I checked his blog constantly for new posts . . . some had me rolling with laughter, others brought me to tears. I told him that he could paint a picture with his words . . . a picture that was vivid and made me feel like I was there and that I knew the people he wrote about. I, along with everyone else who followed his blog, encouraged him to write a book when he returned home.

Well, that book, Camera Boy: An Army Journalist's War in Iraq, is finally being published, and it's a good one. How do I know? I got a sneak peek . . . . . :) Anyway, his book will be available in November and can be pre-ordered at http://hellgatepress.com/display_book.php?id=84.