September 15, 2003

JOE BUFF HELPS OUT MORE ON "OPERATION SEABEES KNOWLEDGE"

Joe's father was an enlisted man in the US Navy and served in the Navy Mobile Construction Battalions, otherwise known as the Seabees, from 1948 - 1953 in the Pacific theater. Joe was recently contacted by a retired chief from the Seabees, "Stormin' Normand," about helping raise public awareness that the Seabees still exist and are as active as ever since their creation in World War II -- as dramatized in that classic John Wayne movie, "The Fighting Seabees." Navy Seabees are playing an important role in Operation Iraqi Freedom! First organized at a base in Davisville, R.I. in 1942, to this day all Seabees say "We Build-We Fight" and "The Difficult We Do at Once -- The Impossible Takes a Little Longer." To learn more, please do view some resources forwarded courtesy of Stormin' Normand:

Here's a way to see some recent good news coverage about Seabees playing a key role in Operation Iraqi Freedom, as explained by the National Commander of the Navy Seabees Veterans Association http://www.nsva.org/

"To find the wealth of information, go to Google.Com , click on "News" on the top right. On the next page in the window type in Seabees in Iraq and click on "Search News." Happy reading."

Be sure especially to look at "Seabees face night of terror" on the KnoxNews Website http://www.knoxstudio.com/shns/story.cfm?pk=IRAQ-SEABEES-03-27-03&cat=II.

To learn how Seabees supported our Submarine Fleet in the early Cold War, how Seabees worked in Antarctica, plus much more (including great photos!), visit Seabee Art Roe's http://community-2.webtv.net/fightingseabees/ special page and surf his links.

Membership in the Seabees Historical Foundation is open to the general public, is inexpensive and includes a quarterly Seabees Newsletter. Be sure to see their website and check out their various history pages for yet more fascinating stories and insights -- and visit their on-line Museum Gift Shop & Book Store too!

FYI, Joe helped introduce Stormin' Normand and some of his Seabee buddies, as reference resources, to a military suspense author who is including modern Seabees in one of his novels.

In addition, Joe's fifth novel STRAITS OF WAR, now being drafted, will include a sequence near the beginning that shows Navy Seabees applying their long-standing talents in unconventional ways to help defend America from powerful foreign enemies in 2012.

September 3, 2003

JOE BUFF'S FIFTH JEFFREY FULLER NOVEL: DRAFTING IS WELL UNDER WAY

Joe is pleased to announce that the next book in his "Captain Jeffrey Fuller" series, the fifth overall and the first of two under his new contract with Wm. Morrow/HarperTorch (see below), will be titled STRAITS OF WAR. The draft manuscript is now well past page 100, on target for delivery to Joe's publisher later this year. (Joe's preferred method of writing -- only one of many approaches possible -- is to prepare a formal Outline of the entire story first, then do the research and more detailed characterizations and plotting on scratch pads & in his head, and only then begin drafting the actual manuscript as an intense final phase of the delivery process.) Once the completed manuscript is delivered to Wm. Morrow, the all-important first phase of actual book production begins: editing it with Joe's editor! Publication of STRAITS OF WAR in hardcover is targeted for autumn, 2004.

June 20, 2003

JOE BUFF'S "SUB PEN" VIRTUAL TALK & CALL-IN SHOW IS OFF TO GOOD START

The Sub Pen, which uses the infrastructure of a chat room hosted exclusively on JoeBuff.com, has met twice so far and is getting very nice feedback from the participants. The subjects covered in the fun, wide-ranging Tuesday-evening discussions ran from submarines to Special Forces to geopolitics and even next-generation military aircraft. To accomodate more people on the East Coast USA, the start time is being shifted earlier, from 10 pm to 9 pm. The first two Sub Pen meetings went a full two hours, so Joe will keep the meetings open until around midnight East Coast time (9 pm West Coast time). One question people raised was whether transcripts of meetings could be made available and posted to JoeBuff.com. My webmaster, Bill Parker, is looking into this right now. The next few Sub Pen meetings will be on the following Tuesdays: June 24, July 15, then July 22. Note that to participate you need Sun Java on your computer's browser software. If you don't have it, a download is available free at Sun Java Plug-In. (Allow up to an hour for this one-time download if you have copper-wire Internet dialup access.) An interesting topic that came up at the June 17 Sub Pen meeting was women joining diesel submarine crews in some other countries, such as Australia's Collins-class boats and Canada's upcoming Victoria-class. Here is a link to a color photo of men and women submariners serving together in an Australian sub's control room: www.navy.gov.au/6_facts/factsimages/womensubs2.jpg

June 18, 2003

JOE BUFF "RE-ENLISTS" WITH HIS PUBLISHER FOR AT LEAST TWO MORE

Joe is delighted to announce that working with his literary agent, John Talbot, and his editor at Wm. Morrow/HarperCollins, Mike Shohl, terms have been agreed to for another two-book hardcover contract. Drafting the first of these new books, which will be the fifth in the Captain Jeffrey Fuller series, is Joe's main work project for the remainder of this year. Also, FYI, the latest info from Wm. Morrow on release dates for Joe's 2003 titles are: paperback edition of CRUSH DEPTH on October 28, and hardcover edition of TIDAL RIP on November 11. (The first book in the new contract would be published in hardcover in the autumn of 2004, coordinated with the paperback of TIDAL RIP.)

May 22, 2003

JOE BUFF HAS ANOTHER ARTICLE (TWO-PARTER) TO RUN IN THE SUBMARINE REVIEW

Joe's formal paper "So What if the Seas Were Transparent?" has been accepted and will run in two parts, in the upcoming July and October 2003 issues of the quarterly journal THE SUBMARINE REVIEW. (Both parts will be added to Joe's website Nonfiction Archive once the issues come out, because the REVIEW owns publication rights to their content.) The paper looks at a statement posed sometimes by "anti-submarine pundits," that if a new beakthrough sensor technology rendered the seas genuinely transparent then by robbing subs of their stealth these underwater vessels would become useless. Joe draws on weapons engineering and naval architecture principles, plus basic physics, and plans in the Pentagon acquisition pipeline for future submarine active defenses against inbound torpedoes and attacking aircraft, to demonstrate that nuclear subs would even in this scenario remain true capital ships of the twenty-first century. (FYI, subscriptions to THE SUBMARINE REVIEW, a terrific information resource, come with inexpensive membership in the Naval Submarine League.)

April 21, 2003

JOE BUFF HAS NEW ARTICLE IN THE SUBMARINE REVIEW

Joe's new nonfiction article, "ASDS, SSGN, and WIAs," has just been published in the April, 2003 issue of The Submarine Review, which is the quarterly professional journal of the Naval Submarine League. The article is reproduced with permission here on JoeBuff.com and can be seen through a link at the top of the Article and Essay Archive. This is the sixth issue of the Review to run an article by Joe, after a hiatus while Joe was busy writing his first few novels. (FYI, Joe has two other articles recently submitted to the Review's Editor, one of them a two-parter, and is patiently awaiting word on whether they will eventually also be accepted.) The acronyms in the title are as follows: ASDS means the Advanced SEAL Delivery System minisub; SSGN refers to several Ohio-class "boomer" SSBNs being adapted by the Navy to carry a large Special Forces contingent, and also launch massive Tomahawk cruise missile salvoes instead of H-bomb-tipped Trident ballistic missiles; and WIA means wounded in action.... The concepts in this new article are illustrated vividly in a SEAL combat sequence early in Joe's upcoming Captain Jeffrey Fuller novel TIDAL RIP.

April 4, 2003

JOE BUFF HELPS OUT ON "OPERATION SEABEES KNOWLEDGE"

Joe's father was an enlisted man in the US Navy and served in the Navy Mobile Construction Battalions, otherwise known as the Seabees, from 1948 - 1953 in the Pacific theater. Joe was recently contacted by a retired chief from the Seabees, "Stormin' Normand," about helping raise public awareness that the Seabees still exist and are as active as ever since their creation in World War II -- as dramatized in that classic John Wayne movie, "The Fighting Seabees." Navy Seabees are playing an important role in Operation Iraqi Freedom! First organized at a base in Davisville, R.I. in 1942, to this day all Seabees say "We Build-We Fight" and "The Difficult We Do at Once -- The Impossible Takes a Little Longer." To learn more, please do view some resources forwarded courtesy of Stormin' Normand:

Here's a way to see some recent good news coverage about Seabees playing a key role in Operation Iraqi Freedom, as explained by the National Commander of the Navy Seabees Veterans Association:

"To find the wealth of information, go to Google.Com, click on "News" on the top right. On the next page in the window type in Seabees in Iraq and click on "Search News." Happy reading."

Be sure especially to look at "Seabees face night of terror" on the KnoxNews Website.

To learn how Seabees supported our Submarine Fleet in the early Cold War, how Seabees worked in Antarctica, plus much more (including great photos!), visit Seabee Art Roe's special page and surf his links.

Membership in the Seabees Historical Foundation is open to the general public, is inexpensive and includes a quarterly Seabees Newsletter. Be sure to see their website and check out their various history pages for yet more fascinating stories and insights -- and visit their on-line Museum Gift Shop & Book Store too!

March 31, 2003

JOE BUFF QUOTED ON WAR CODE-NAMES IN MAJOR MILWAUKEE NEWSPAPER

Joe was quoted this past weekend in a feature article by reporter James H. Burnett III of the MILWAUKEE JOURNAL SENTINEL. The article "Branding Also Key in War Effort" has the subtitle "Names with positive image help military in public relations battle." Joe is quoted extensively in the last section of the article, "Code Names," about the atomic bomb project in WWII and about operational naming in Gulf War I.

Read Article:
http://www.jsonline.com/bym/News/mar03/129606.asp

March 6, 2003

JOE BUFF'S LATEST OFFICIALLY "ACCEPTED" BY MORROW/HARPERCOLLINS

The manuscript of the fourth Captain Jeffrey Fuller adventure, TIDAL RIP, has been formally "accepted" by Joe's editor. (In publishing industry parlance, "acceptance" is a legal contract concept, meaning that editing/revising by the author has been completed to the Editor's satisfaction.) TIDAL RIP is now on schedule for release in hardcover on November 1, 2003. The paperback of Joe's third novel, CRUSH DEPTH, is now planned for simultaneous release with the TIDAL RIP hardcover. Joe is now outlining a fifth book in the Jeffrey Fuller saga series.

February 13, 2003

JOE BUFF TO WRITE OPINION COLUMN FOR PREMIER MILITARY WEBSITE

Joe Buff has been invited by the President/CEO of the major e-provider of services-help and news for the military community, Military.Com, to write a periodic column of Thought Pieces and Opinion/Analysis on national defense and homeland security matters. Joe's first contribution, "Armed Force and History: Muscle Versus Mayhem," appeared in late January in their Military Opinion section. Yesterday his second piece, "Toward Nano-Fish-Bots?" was posted to the site home page as a Special Feature. If at the time you visit Military.com. Joe does not have a current article up on their home page, you can see all his prior pieces in their Joe Buff Archive at:

http://www.military.com/NewContent?file=Buff_Index

(Note: For your convenience these articles can be also be found at the bottom of JoeBuff.com's own HOME page.)

February 10, 2003

United States Sub Vets Inc. Praises Joe Buff's Website Submarine GLOSSARY

The United States Submarine Veterans Inc. (USSVI) is a national organization of active duty and former submariners. (Some of their members qualified in subs even before World War II!) Their main Creed, as stated on their website, is to remember forever their fellows who gave their lives defending our freedom, i.e. the submariners lost in wars and tragic accidents who are now on Eternal Patrol. USSVI has almost 100 "bases" (chapters) all around the country. Joe was contacted recently by the Webmaster of their Portsmouth, Maine chapter, which is called the Thresher Base in honor of the USS THRESHER -- which departed from Portsmouth on her final terrible voyage in 1963.

The Webmaster called Joe's Modern Undersea Warfare Glossary "by far the most complete and accurate glossary I have come across." Their site is at http://www.thresherbase.org. From there you can find a link to the national USSVI website too. (The link back to my GLOSSARY page will be up soon.)

Joe highly recommends you not only read the USSVI Creed as shown on thresherbase.org's home page, but use the link on the left side of that page " Talk With History" to find and read the essay " Submarine Chiefs." It is very inspirational! To know where Joe stands himself on the importance of Always Remembering, you need only look at the dedications of his first three novels.

NEWS: February 7, 2003

On-Line Book Review Service Loves CRUSH DEPTH

The major book review website Curled Up With A Good Book recently gave a quite excellent review to Joe Buff's latest Jeffrey Fuller adventure, CRUSH DEPTH. The review (by Denise M. Clark, copyrighted 2003), said in part:

"This is an intense action and suspense drama reminiscent of The Hunt for Red October, though much more compelling... A great offering from author Joe Buff and one that should not be missed."

The entire review is several paragraphs long, very thoughtful and insightful, and can be viewed in full at:

http://www.curledup.com/crushdep.htm

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