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The most amazing part for me, out of all of Tom Clancy’s stories occured in Red Storm Rising.

Clancy was describing a missile attack on a U.S warship. With multiple incoming, he describes the Phalanx integrated weapon system and how it went into what’s called a “deadly embrace” — where a control program prioritizing between two tasks. When it switches to either task the other task elevates to a higher priority thus causing no firing sequence as the turret bounces between each target.

Another, Clancy describe a ship “presenting her deck”, when a ship turns into a missile so that when it hits, it hits well above the water line, giving damage control a chance to save lives and possibly the ship. After the ship is hit, it will turn away and continue in a circle to keep the damaged hull out of the water.

They were both amazing passages.

I once had a very in-depth conversation with Mr. Clancy, on a very late and stormy night in the airport. It was very insightful. (and I leaned we both played “Harpoon”.)

My favorite book was “Red Storm Rising”, based loosely on General Sir John Hackett’s (Former NATO Northern Army Group Commander) novel, “The Third World War”, itself based on NATO’s War Plan for Europe.

Later Harold Coyle wrote “Team Yankee”, about a single unit within the larger scheme of Clancy’s “Red Storm Rising”.

Favorite character, Mr. Clark.

Best event, blowing up a drug pimp in a decompression chamber in “Without Remorse”

Best book, “Without Remorse”

Best line, “If you don’t write it down it never happened.”

Best ending to a movie, non-Clancy... “Shooter”

Ascension

And if I go,
while you’re still here...
Know that I live on,
vibrating to a different measure
—behind a thin veil you cannot see through.
You will not see me,
so you must have faith.
I wait for the time when we can soar together again,
—both aware of each other.
Until then, live your life to its fullest.
And when you need me,
Just whisper my name in your heart,
...I will be there.

- Colleen Corah Hitchcock

Tom Clancy, from the dedication page of ‘Executive Orders’:

“In the orginal hardcover edition of ‘Without Remorse’ are the words of a poem which I found by accident and whose title and author I was unable to identify. I found in them the perfect remembrance for my ‘little buddy,’ Kyle Haydock, who succumbed to cancer at the age of eight years and twenty-six days - to me he will never really be gone. Later I learned that the title of this poem is ‘Ascension,’ and that the author who penned these magnificent words is Colleen Hitchcock, a poet of rare talent living in Minnesota. I wish to take this opportunity to commend her work to all students of the lyric phrase. As her words caught and excited my attention, I hope they will have the same effect of others.”

In 1981, a Turkish assassin named Mehmet Ali Ağca shot and wounded then-Pope John Paul II. In his later testimony, Ağca said the plot was led by Zilo Vassilev, a Bulgarian military attaché based in Italy, but other accounts have also pointed fingers at a Turkish neo-fascist organization called the Grey Wolves. On May 13, 1981, Ağca and an accomplice waited in St. Peter's Square for the pope to arrive. When Pope John Paul II passed by, Ağca fired several shots. The pope survived, but was hit by four bullets: two in his lower intestine, and the others in his left hand and right arm. Two bystanders were also hit by stray bullets. Debt of Honor In Clancy's 1994 novel "Debt of Honor," the author's recurring character, Ryan, has become the National Security Advisor. In the novel, the Japanese government, in the midst of an economic crisis, declares war on the United States. At one point, a grieving Japanese pilot, deeply embittered by the deaths of his son and brother in the conflict, flies his Boeing 747 into the U.S. Capitol. The novel was published seven years before the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2011, but Clancy later commented on the eerie similarities between his fictional event and the real-life tragedy. "I never got any fan mail from Osama bin Laden, and I don't really know how many books I sold in Afghanistan," Clancy told CNN about whether his novels may inspire nefarious activities. "You have to talk to the marketing people about that. But I'm not really concerned about it." Teeth of the Tiger In Clancy's 2003 book, "Teeth of the Tiger," hero Ryan's son becomes a consultant for a secret intelligence agency tasked with discreetly assassinating individuals who pose threats to national security. The novel controversially depicted a violent multiple homicide by an Islamic terrorist, set within a real-life shopping mall in Charlottesville, Va. While the event was fictional, it was tragically prophetic. On Sept. 21, 2013, gunmen raided a shopping mall in Kenya, killing at least 39 people. A Somali Islamist group claimed responsibility for the deadly attack, which lasted hours before police and soldiers reached the assailants. The attack was the single biggest attack in Kenya since an east African branch of al Qaeda bombed the U.S. embassy in Nairobi in 1998. That assault killed more than 200 people.