**Warning** political rant – I know. as an author I’m supposed to keep my trap shut when it comes to this stuff, but feck it. I can’t right now.**
I’m a slick sleeve. I don’t have a combat patch. I don’t know what it’s like to hear a bullet meant to kill me as it zips by my head. I’ve never seen a fellow soldier killed nor have I ever killed anyone. The entire time I was in uniform, if you can imagine it, this country was at peace. Perhaps my opinion about weapons, for those reasons, count for shit.
Despite the peace through which I served, I still had to fire a weapon at least annually. Every time I aimed my M16 at a human-shaped target, and every time I pulled the trigger, I felt mixed emotions. Part of me loved it. The power, the feeling of success for striking where I aimed –which was rare. I enjoyed the way I imagined I looked—all helmet and ammo pouches and dusty boots and that sleek looking weapon in the hands of a woman in the best shape of her life. I’d smile my wide, white smile, my dark brown skin glistening under a sweat stained helmet band and stroll out to the target, the business end of the weapon pointed down range, and count the holes I’d made. I’d analyze my shot group, which was usually crap, like I knew what I was looking at and knew exactly what to do to improve it. For most of my career in uniform I was a terrible shot.
But that didn’t stop me from looking forward to the times when we checked out weapons and spent a day on the range.
I was asked by Andria Williams to participate in her annual 
On the other hand, there are some who go the extra mile, do some research and present accurate portrayals of military members and veterans. They work at getting at the truth of what goes through the mind and soul of people trained to go to battle, why they do it, what their motivation might be, and how what soldiers do impacts them before, during and after their service.
If you haven’t found it already, 
e fat gift card, is that each Facebook post features a unique Hawaiian recipe –Get it? The sweet part? Since most of the Lei Crime stories take place in Hawaii, the recipes get you closer to the world. I want to try them all. Hawaiian king bread, Kalua pork and cabbage, Hawaiian pineapple Cake… So many yummy and fairly easy ideas to bring to the table.
Full disclosure, 
Over the last year or more, like any good author, Susanne struggled with her latest book, 
As the year winds down and I look back on 2016, all I want to do is tell the entire year to go f&*k itself and the horse it rode in on. From the many great losses of artists like Prince, David Bowie, Alan Rickman, and a childhood favorite Patty Duke, to Brexit, the floods and other natural disasters, one horrific mass killing after another, wars that never seem to end, Aleppo, and the most divisive, disturbing and dysfunctional US election cycle of modern history, and it’s clear that 2016 sucked monkey butt.
I had the strangest dream!! In the dream I am, no kidding, at Hillary Clinton’s house. I’m hanging out with the whole family! Bill is there, John Pedesta, even my heart throb Van Jones is there. Huma Abedin is there too and I get the impression everyone is glad she left her crazy husband at home. All kinds of people are crowded in the place. Most of them I don’t know but there are plenty of familiar people I’ve seen on TV. It’s this nice, relaxed, casual weekend party … a barbecue or something.
