The group was a delight to train with, as was Mesa to stay in. Like the people in general, the men at the gym and those who drove to meet there, were less suspicious and more welcoming of stick fighting then in the east. The gym was perfectly appointed and the ring ours, thanks to Smiling Alfredo renting it ahead of time for 2 hours. Once the coach, Drexler, who deserves his own article, figured out that we were not cavemen or nuts, he was cool about the weapon training.

We began with boxing at 2 PM.

Drex had us break out the sticks after the regular crowd left at 3. He liked it so much he had us stay until after 5 PM and then took a group photo.

The interaction with the head coach was so positive we are setting a date for another session for late July.

The men will want an after training assessment, which I did not have time to provide, so will give it here. The catch weight combat clinic was simply light contact sparring conditioning, focused on peek-a-boo boxing defense, training parameters, stick sparring and basics of knife attacks and defense.

The next session will be very different, but retain a light contact sparring focus, branching into development of individual styles. Drexler was kind enough to demonstrate ground and pound and grappling with this twerp and not break it into pieces, so the grappling aspect will be reviewed. I suggest all four men access Drex as a grappling coach for monthly privates and use those skills as much as possible on your feet, against the ropes and walls when we do boxing, weapons and self defense in the future. In case of group attack, the floor needs to go vertical as a wall to serve your operational needs, and hopefully remain a horizontal destination for your attackers.

All of the men need to review the 2015 bag training video under the Modern Agonistics tag on the site. All of the stick strokes and steps are also included on 4 training videos on that site from the same year.

Everyone needs to watch boxers on YouTube, I recommend as models for their body type. All should watch Haggler versus Mugabi, with Haggler as the model.

…

Steven

Our tall, thin, strong nerd, a former Coast Guard man, with thin legs and an apish wingspan, came to me the next evening at the train station, bought me a soda. He was wondering what he needed to work on specifically on his own. I told him:

Do not stand, when talking or waiting, with knees locked back, ever.

Make certain to walk with the weight landing on the heels, then feeling the floor with the falling ball of the foot.

Forget Muay Thai kicks. Practice savate kicks with those hard pointy shoes against a light bag.

Look through your hands, even when looking down at a short man.

Stop BJJ classes and switch to privates, since the classmates are yanking on your neck like apes.

Practice step and drag line drills for boxing with your feet the same width as your hips.

Slap the bag, rather than punching it, until I see you next.

Watch Thomas “Hit Man” Hearns bouts as your model.

…

Vanilla Gorilla

Slap, don’t punch the bag, for now.

Never stand still after hitting the bag with one slap, but move, step drag to a stop, and hit it again, then move. Hit, move, hit, move.

Look at Mike Tyson for a training model. Pay attention to his movement when young, not his punching power, but his evasive motion while moving inside.

Work on forearm flexibility and shadow stick fluidity, not power with the stick. You already have the power, but are tight and tripping over the muscles. Slash with the stick. Avoid jabs and smashes for now.

…

Rollo

For boxing, your heavyweight stamina is great. You have good punches. So stop throwing every punch except the jab. Just jab and guard until we train again.

Use Larry Holmes fights versus Cobb and Butter Bean as models and shadowbox and work the bag that piston jab.

Stay with your jabbing stick style but work on power drills. Move after every jab.

…

Alfredo

In boxing you are tight and square. As you work with your coach view some videos after training to help absorb his coaching.

Watch the Mickey ward versus Arturo Gati trilogy. Use Gati as a model. Make sure you are not square, but on an angle, without your lead foot between the rear foot and your target. Note how much better gait does in the rematches when he stops banging and starts moving and jabbing. His coach is one of boxing’s best ever, Buddy McGirt. As a champion and contender Buddy was largely outgunned in the 80s, but won most fights through skill. Look up his highlight reel.

For the stick, get a pair of nunchucks and learn the basic twirls to loosen your wrists up.

You had great knife sense—your Sicilian blood welling up!

Hang a rope, string, belt or sheet of paper from some thing overhead and practice making your empty knife hand into a spear point of fingers. Put on work gloves and slash and stab the soft swinging target with your fingers, keeping a slight bend in them, moving after each stroke, then moving again as you deliver another stroke, keeping the other hand back to guard your neck down to your guts on the right side.

…

Men, thank you. Please follow up with your local coaches and instructors and we will expand in our next session.

Self-Defense: not fighting

Attacker/Defender: not good guy/bad guy

With Movement, every drill, no standing

A timer?

-1. Peek-a-boo boxing defenses: 40 minutes

-2. Stick-Boxing methods, bat included: 60 minutes

-3. Knife defenses: 10 minutes

-4. Defensive object review: 10 minutes

…

-1. Boxing

All corner drills

Attacker punching notes: loose hand, bent arm contact

Defender does not punch, turns out of corner

Between rounds attacker moves to next corner

Round Progression:

-1. Shell & turn

-2. Cross-arm & turn

-3. Half Shell & turn

Section Progression

-1. Orthodox Gloves

-2. Orthodox attacker/ Southpaw defender with gloves

[Side-step ankle warning, Pass-step, C-Step right, Fade left]

-Gear Break

[rounds 3 thru 5 one pair of gloves per pair]

-3. Orthodox gloved attacker/ Southpaw defender ungloved

-4. Attacker Gloved blind jab/ defender ungloved check and clinch

[checks and clinches]

-5. Attacker gloved mount/ defender ungloved

-6. Ungloved clinching

…

-Gear Break

-2. Stick Boxing Crash Course

Grip

Fingers

Warm up

Power

Stretches

Strokes:

#1. Diagonal forehand

#2. Diagonal backhand

Methods

-1. Jab for hand striking versus knife or heavy weapon

-2. Smash for clavical stroke to smaller individual

-3. Slash, general purpose, hand dump

Defense

-1. X Beat

-2. Checking hand

-3. Roof block

Targets

-1. Hand

-2. Head [side of head note]

-3. Clavical

-4. Left knee, outside

Sparring

Two teams gear sharing versus James

Rotate men

Rotate teams

James calls round on coaching point

On deck team advances man

Final 10 Minutes

Unarmed/Knife armed, hockey gloved, Bad James versus stick, each man once

Review

…

-3. Knife

-Showing

-Running away

-Psycho Situation, can you out run him

Partner Drills

-Right side, stuffing the draw

-Left side blind jab with pass step

-Ice pick

-4. Defensive Object Review

-Hand stick

-Jacket

-Others

Thank you Carlo, Coach Drexler

A few times, these past three years, as I took the railroad through California, Clark and I attempted to link up. But he is a busy man toiling away for heartless corporate entities and, well, this cracker—a saltine, don’t you know—is blown easily by the winds of iniquity.

Clark Savage is the author of The King of All Things. We met at the motel, walked up to each other, and I was glad he can’t make it to boxing tomorrow. People, like states, are bigger out west. He had many questions about my health, and confided, “I thought, after talking to you that one time, you sounded so bad, ‘I’m was going to lose this guy before I meet him.”

It was nice to shake hands. Clark actually has the mannerisms of a man, a tall man—not goon tall, but over six feet—that works very well with grocery managers and train conductors. A man over six feet can walk at a more stately pace and cover the same ground. He can be heard better without shouting, talking over our shoulders rather than into our chests. Whether inspecting troops, ushering passengers, or walking the canned good aisle to make sure it is “full” and not “fronted,” a taller man relaxes those subject to his authority. The small leader moves quicker, is naturally more aggressive, and this is intimidating to women, agitating to runts and infuriating to big men. As I walked next to Clark down this suburban highway with sidewalks, across crosswalks too wide to ever cross with crutches back in the rude east before the cars run you over, I noticed his authority vector stride.

I quizzed. He is a military veteran, formerly an officer, of what rank I know not. I discovered the branch, but will keep that confidential, in case that could cause embarrassment for contacting a bad-thinking, prole, pulp writer. He did confirm combat strength of a current battalion of his branch at 800, and noted that unit sizes are likely to decrease. That is fascinating. The Roman legion fluctuated also, during its rise and decline increasing and decreasing size many times. WWII to current division, brigade, regiment and battalion strength is easily double what it was in the black powder era. A modern company is about the size of a black powder battalion, or battle. He did note that 5 to 10% of officers in ground combat forces have been elevated from the NCO ranks, a small percentage of officers.

We walked, looking for a place to sit, have a coffee and talk. Finding Buffalo Wild Wings, Clark informed me that he was buying and that he was so glad we got to meet up, hoping that I would be back with more warning.

Clark has a tan and reminds me of Lee Marvin with Clint Walker’s shoulders. He wears jeans, cowboy boots and a buttoned shirt, something akin to flannel, I suppose. He smiled at the choice of hotel, which is well known in the area for being a habitation of hookers, and that his Lady raised an eyebrow over that.

Clark is working on a Second Edition of The King of All Things, up-gunning the material. He is deep in historical and socio-political thought of the obvious, in self-description and in his pondering eyes. I told some fun anecdotes from the recent bout with decrepitude and some training tails.

Hot boneless wings, a diet cola, a light beer, while he sipped a Modelo with lime, and we were on our way with a pledge to meet here again for training and society. Southern California is such a nice place I expressed an interest in making it back.

Clark advised, “Don’t let it make you soft. I’m from the Midwest. The military brought me out here. When I go back to the Midwest in winter time I discover that I have become a pussy.”

After some discussion of Phillip and Alexander and the attack on these ancient figures by modern academics based on the cartoon cult of natsy big man myth, that treats European statesmen as west African dictators, Clark agreed to help with my Alexander project. He will read The Campaigns of Alexander, or Alexander’s Expedition, by Arrian, translated by Aubrey De Selincourt. This version was first published in 1958 as Arrian: The Life of Alexander the Great. By the titles, one may see that packaging ancient works for the modern mind is tough.

The title was Anabasis Alexandri. That translates into Expedition of Alexander or Alexander’s Expedition. The term anabasis also implies “down to the sea,” making Expedition closer than Campaigns in Arrian’s intent, with both being accurate enough. The Life Of is misleading title that must have been an editorial choice, Campaigns something of a correction. Clark will read the account of Alexander’s conquests from an infantry officer’s perspective and tender a written opinion on operational aspects he finds to be of note.

Thank you, Clark.

It was Friday the 5th, under Cedar Mountain, at The Chosen Plantation, where Toki Eric came to visit as I was packing. He brought a husky puppy, an abused female with a lot of energy that played with Toby, the canine HNC of opaque hue, innocently braved the claws of Evil Annie, and wondered at the chickens in their fenced enclosure. My host brought her an elk bone and she was in heaven, at her master’s feet as he spoke to James Chosen and this one.

Eric has long hair, short beard and dresses in black. Next to the seat of his beater, ‘urban assault vehicle” driven an hour out from Everet, a small town near Seattle, is a sawed off baseball bat. He wears a neck razor on a snap cord, and, when asked, he demonstrates the three methods his art uses to deploy this blade. Eric has a young bride and has knocked her up, a woman 20 years his supplicant. For this he gets an ataboy from James and I. When asked what brought him to this part of the country, he confided that his opinions and observations might seem extreme, even disturbing. With this admission James said, “You are in good company. I hate niցցers. They always start shit at work, despite their lack of skill and a work ethic. They either can’t or won’t do the work and blame it on racism when it is noticed. They run the government end of things in the field, making it their business to make building as inefficient as possible, ten of them watching me work. I’ve been attacked by them in California—it was open season, groes always coming for your stuff—my sons singled out for being white in Tacoma and Georgia. Then, when you beat their ass, they call cops, lawyers. My oldest son is attacked by two big gorillas, bouncers at a club, and he puts them in the hospital and it costs me tens of thousands to make that right when he should have gotten a medal!”

The local patriarch having addressed the ever present American taboo, the greatest sin in civic space, to declare disapproval for our dark masters, to laughter, the ice was dully broken. Eric breathed a sigh of relief and confided, “…I suffer from severe Negro Fatigue.”

“The school I attended was designed by a man who built prisons. It had 5 levels and 5,000 students. The Asians and the Jеws were on the top level. Next the gifted whites. Then the normal students. The bottom level was a thousand niցցers and me. I got attacked, and had to fight to survive, every single day. That school was an actual model of the greater society.

“So, I have severe urban PTSD from growing up in Minneapolis, being hunted, challenged, hated by people I somehow offended without saying a thing. To this day, with this three-D printed knee replacement, I still have to do something exciting. I balance that with gardening and home schooling and it seems to settle some itch. I moved west to get away from all of the niցցer bullshit. Then, I discover that the white people, in this utopia, worship niցցers and want to bring as many of them in as possible! You just cannot get away from these idiot shitheads. Still, I never could figure out why they were so different, why they always lied, always attacked a weak or unaware person—why they are the only people that rapes grandma and with no remorse.

“That changed when I took up capoeira. I had done plenty of fighting with mixed results and dabbled in training and was looking for criminal awareness integrated into a fighting form. Capoeria was developed by blacks in Brazil, where my teacher was from. It doesn’t take long to fathom the black mentality after you train it. The entire art is to be evasive, to feign retreat, to avoid contact, even if by cartwheel. This is all predicated on one goal, which is to get the other party to commit to a use of force, ideally reaching, and then to use a concealed razor to cut his guts out before he even knows he is in danger. This is perfectly in line with my experiences with these fucking people in person, sneaking, groveling, begging, shouting, back stabbing—flaming angry in an instant and the next moment praying for white daddy to protect them.

“I don’t know how much is genetic, how much they are like this where they originally came from. I do know, for certain, that when you take religion away from black people, than all you have left is an animal seeking pleasure and weakness, taking advantage by any means and doing harm without remorse.”

I got into stunt work, was a stunt man for 15 years as a way of scratching the itch that developed being in constant peril in a sea of angry niցցers. I was local and regional, never progressed beyond that. It’s like a mafia situation. Even the guys who are making six figures, the top guys, have to sneak on sets and try and insinuate themselves into the process. It is just so sleazy. Besides, I used to do cart wheels, now I’m learning to walk again. There is a kid in Seattle I used to teach who has a gym. I might start to work with him. There is certainly a need for a men’s group around here—a yearning, but a lack of a gathering.

“Do you still drink?”

“Well, I quit yesterday—but since you put it that way, the wagon feels kind of slippery…”

Eric gifted me a bottle of Japanese Toki Whiskey, best I ever had. It was for sipping, but somehow survived only to Oakland, California 5 days later.

Thank you, Eric, for your inspiring conversation.

I fancy I can hear the ocean this morning, this ocean so far away from what was once my home. At 7:45, Alfredo texts, pulls up in his Jeep Gladiator, knocks on the door, and their framed, looking like a 1940s swords and sandals gladiator in what I can only call Californian attire, hands this old cracker a coffee. The cup is pink with swirling smiley faces and pink hearts, and reads:

Hotter Than Your Mom

Coffee [pill icon] Dose

Sexy lips licking are to the right above 3 pills.

On the back is a smiley face below a pink panel. On the left of the panel is a flame.

Inside, to right and left, are vertical imprints of DOSE

Between reads:

Brewed Fresh

Hot Coffee

Not Today Satan

The coffee was good.

I would like to meet the savage slut who started this shop so for to reflower her golden terrace.

I recall last night, having spent the day atrain with Sir, a pudgy, computer consultant and train nerd, who has five years on me with rail travel. He was such a kind man. A Great Lakes man, he is looking to move to avoid paying income taxes on the social Security money already stolen from him by the Pheds once.

His internet goes out—he a complete slave to his smart phone and admits it openly: “Look, Elon Musk’s SpaceX Launch pad. Starlink is a great idea. You know he stole his engine designs from Russia? I’ve always been a space nerd, followed everything in the 60s and 70s, and then nothing, like we didn’t even go to the moon. So, these beautiful hills will not ruin Starlink reception. But I can not bring myself to help that man out. A friend of mine spent 110K on a Tesla truck, and is now losing 20K selling it because he cannot stand the man, the power behind the throne. Look, it went out again, and we are by a tower?”

“Sir, if I may, Mister X is probably joking at table with The King that his government-funded e-car biz was subsidized by his ideological enemies, who are now willing to lose money in disassociation sales. Also, if he is half the man I think he is—looking like a Bond Villain and all—I trust he will launch more satellites designed to blast your repeater station service and compel you, his enemy, to pay him media taxes.”

Sir laughed, a techno nerd Santa, like most folks my age plugged with a blood sugar monitor which tells his phone, to tell him, that he is about to expire…

As we headed south, with many families on this train, and no Amish, the women kept getting prettier. Parting from Sir and crutching along, I am picked up by a Mexican baggage driver transporting old ladies, a perfect human herding stevedore. The old lady was very pleasant, her Gen X daughter with a charm better suited to milking cows in Missouri.

Soon upon the 794 out of Los Angeles to Santa Anna, I note that the passengers are now mostly atomized. Big, soft, American land whale men in there 20s with a few ragged possessions and/or a valuable device, pretty, petite women with enormous amounts of baggage. Every one except for the skate board and surfer bums, who are in pairs, sits alone, half of them with baggage blocking the aisle seat. The bottom floor of the coach/cafe car is the office, so I must crutch upstairs. The women and Negroes are all denying me space, passively. I find the least passive/aggressive looking girl, the one who has not heaped luggage on the aisle seat with all of the empty racks above, and sit down.

The conductor looks like Terry Crews and sounds exactly like Denzel Washington playing a Marine Captain. He is the best conductor, ever, should train them. He comes down the aisle and reminds every one to put luggage up top. This means women too. The two prettiest girls on the train are aghast. The men out here their age are big hulks, some giants, soft yes, but obviously in strong fruit. Not one man offers to help as the prettiest of the pretty two tries over and over again to hoist her 40 pounds of clothes and makeup with her 85 pounds of curve—this bitch is curvy at 85 pounds: run 4 babies through her and she’s perfect! Eventually, the 105 pound cock blocker shows her the floor luggage rack and the ordeal is over. The separation of the sexes, demarcated by austere lines of absent courtesy rings ominous.

At night Santa Anna Station is beautiful, like something out of a spaghetti western. A lady, my age, does not know what bus to take. The nice middle class lady waiting on an UBER does not know the buses, but points to this old, broken-down cracker, and says, “He probably knows where the busses are!”

The woman is afraid to approach.

In moments I hear, “James,” and see a smiling guido stud striding across the pavement, “do you want me to drive around? Oh, let me get the heavy one,” as I curse myself for a weakling and he snatches the heavy pack which I need crutches for, “Oh, this is light?”

Loading my prole clothes and gear into the back of the Gladiator, I look at a Hollywood image of a gladiator and say, “5’ 11” 6,”?

“Five Eleven,” he grins.

“210 pounds?”

“On the dot. I should be 185. I couldn’t last 30 seconds in a fight. I need to trim down, but can’t stop eating.”

“Carlo, thanks so much for inviting me here. That let’s me make up some for those $500 in ebooks you bought so I could buy train tickets. And you’ve rented a gym, putting me in a hotel—this is so kind.”

“James, I don’t even read since I got out of prison. I was upper middle class, doing drugs, did time for stupid shit. I’m 39. Like everybody my age, I was a wannabe niցցer. The only cool role models were niցցers. I want to be like them. Then, I do time, and my cellmate is like, “I can’t stand these niցցers and their stupid shit.”

“I’m like, what do you mean—racism is bad.”

Then six months later, ‘I’m like, bro, I can’t stand these niցցers! I was raised to worship these people, then, being locked up with them you find out what they are like. They don’t even make money slinging dope. The only ones that have money to eat at the commissary are ones that have a woman on the outside. They are completely dependent on women. This one niցցer who I liked, was talking all this shit about how when he gets out, he’s got his white MILF bitch and his other bitch. Then, I’m out, and I see him sitting out front of a gay porno shop. I know what he’s doing, and I’m like, ‘Son, how is it?’”

“He’s like, ‘Bro, its not good, its bad.’”

“I know what he’s doing there.”

“I got out of drugs just in time. The meth went bad, didn’t even get you high. So I stopped. I stopped drinking in prison, go to AA now. All of my drug using associates, switched to heroin, then the heroin dried up and it was all fentanyl, this white powder—don’t need the poppy anymore. Now they’re all dead, every one of them.

“Here, some walking around money,” and he drops a 2 inch thick fold of bills on my lap. “I’m doing good, got a good legal business, good partner, Asians, none of this niցցer shit. Here, and top-shelf wife beaters for training. I need to get in fighting shape. I have a family, wife is pregnant again. [In the picture she looks like the princess of some tiny Italian nation.]

Alfredo, who smiles a lot, openly, not smirking, has close cut hair and is very handsome, takes me to a dive motel owned by the Brothers Patel. Despite having given me an amount of cash that amounts to 7 times my entire life’s savings, that was in my thin wallet, Alfredo pays for my room and smiles. The zombie Mexican clerk, who, half asleep, is trying to fathom why some old gutter gnome with no money and a C-list action hero are renting a room together. Alfredo laughs, “He’s probably thinking this is going to be some weird sex—crutches and everything!”

It turns out that hookers, mostly female, see their clients here a lot. The whore next door almost fucked the old man in that room to death last night. Sounded like he lost a lung.

Alfredo looks at the room, and smiles, seeing that I think it is great, clean, a vast bed, a desk, 3 chairs, dresser, hangers to dry my clothes on after I wash them in the sink—a clean bathroom! His smile widens and he bumps fists, “It’s all good—James likes it. My wife would take one look at this place and leave. I will be back with coffee in the morning after the gym, and food later after work.”

Framed in the doorway, Alfredo smiles with genuine joy and we bump fists.

He’s the kind of man I never even dreamed of being, has beat the worst demon drug that the Alltarchs have released among we the herd so that we will not return to the way of the pack.

I want to write his story, if God has left that time in His design.

Thank you, Alfredo.

Author’s Proof

…

Copyright 2025 James LaFond

A Crackpot Book

Lynn Lockhart Publisher

…

Dust Cover

From November 2024 thru April 2025, an aging, crippled, writer and boxing coach was engaged by 9 readers and fighters, interested in Arete family survival in a Bantu-worshipping control matrix. To individually defend against the 6% of Americans who commit 56% of violent crime, mostly as pack attackers, these men invited an infamous negro-wrangler, a thought criminal of the lower orders, to train for mutual survival. These men have described themselves as suffering from “Negro fatigue,” unable to continue licking the branded sneaker treads that have been placed over their heads. These are their stories.

Extended Dust Cover

These men, Matt Decatur, Toki Eric, Smiling Alfredo, who have inspired this unique project, will have their accounts joined with the experiences of men known to the author for years now, who sought him secretly, like some witch doctor in a cave, in the years between 2001 and 2024, when the branded rubber heel of proxy oppression was most firmly stamped upon their collective neck. Men who were raised to admire, emulate, even worship, people of another race will relate their experiences being attacked, tormented, heckled and hated by the very people they were indoctrinated to love above themselves. Taught by school, church, newspapers, TV and movies, that they somehow hated, genetically, with animus uncontrollable, subconsciously, metaphysically and with grim finality a sainted folk, the subjects in this book relate a grim betrayal.

The experience of having the people who you admired as the martyred remnants of the only human kind to suffer racial oppression, relentlessly attack your character, your body, your home, your job, and your family, while casting guilt and blame upon you, is the thread that joins the accounts collected in NEGRO PTSD. From The cities of The Great Lakes, to the Pacific Northwest, to California, The Mid West, The Mid Atlantic and New York, this is an honest, unredacted record of real working men, and one woman, under attack by their anonymous masters’ feral huntsmen.

…

Dedication

For Smiling Alfredo, a man in his prime whom I much admire.

…

Inspirational Quote

“The school I attended was designed by a man who built prisons. It had 5 levels and 5,000 students. The Asians and the Jеws were on the top level. Next the gifted whites. Then the normal students. The bottom level was a thousand niցցers and me. I got attacked, and had to fight to survive, every single day. That school was an actual model of the greater society.

“…I suffer from severe Negro Fatigue.”

-Toki Erik, Selek, Washington, on a beautiful summer day, speaking to the Geeze and the author

Pledge

I Hope that this is my Myth of the 20th Century, whose author was executed for writing it. If this is the book out of hundreds that gets this writer killed so to enjoy some posthumous infamy, a blessing that shall be. Of the hundreds—HUNDREDS—of Negroes who hunted, threatened, menaced, attacked and called the PIGZ on me, not one of those hyena men ever got my wallet or my scalp. I still coach two black fighters, and they understand. I like their fellows better than they do. It is interesting that most of the men in this study have done repeated good service to black folk and have real black friends, not pets, but men.

I feel it in my tainted yeti blood, and in the collapsing cracker bones of this old crumb, that this book, Negro PTSD, will subject me once again to the social hatred and animosity I lived under for 38 years, as a lowly night clerk in Baltimore supermarkets.

-I Swear to God Almighty to this mortal record’s honesty, James LaFond, Costa Mesa, California, 4/11/25

…

Author’s Note

[I just stepped outside and tipped the Mexican maids $10 each to give me soap and shampoo and NOT service the room until I leave in two days. I complimented them on how clean the room is. They were nice, having their two children help them. Ironically, the person who taught me to tip hotel maids, was Ajay, my black-lesbian-republican-NASCAR fan land lady who recruited me as “a scary looking white guy” as a roommate, so as to keep black men away from her. Also, she might comfort my better-looking, “white,” girlfriends when I declined to bestow an exclusive visitation right upon them.]

The accounts in this book are strictly limited to those related between April and December of 2025, God Willing. The exception is Guru Rick, who can no longer speak. Read From a Heavy Gravity Planet for a Midwestern relation of this taboo subject.

A look at the table of contents below will show that these are almost all Gen-X people or tail end Boomers, from the first broken families. I do recall my parents being the very first marriage in our neighborhood to break up and that it humiliated my mother. The boys behind me mostly came from single parent families. Something about latch-key childhood, with no Dad in the home, through the course of my biographical work, is starkly reminiscent of Half-Orphan status among the millions of youths trafficked into and in this country from 1617 through the 1970s. [1]

I do recall, once, at age 35, visiting my son after his mom fired me. As he and his friend were chased home by three Negroes, I appeared at the fence as the white boys jumped it, a steel bar in my hand. The three bucks stopped wide eyed, then ran away, as if I were the headless horseman risen under a winter moon. Had I not been there, to protect him, and 8 years earlier his older brother from a pack of five negro bucks, armed with bricks and bottles, grown men among them, what might have become their plight?

My sons might have grown up under the more harrowed circumstances endured by the subjects of the brief light in the dark that is Negro PTSD. Among the multitude of TV dramas, Movies, false news stories, and books on how only blacks have been the subjects of racial aggression in America, this fractional memoir collection is but a single frame in a four hour motion picture. It will not be promoted, will be read by less than 1,000 people online, sell an estimated less than 10 copies in hardback, and make this lowdown cracker tramp just enough money to buy a few 25 ounce cans of beer. So, if this book or its writer are subject to persecution or censor, then the Fix is still in!

Therefor, the things that did not befall me, being drug use, and fatherlessness, for I went with Dad, will be of particular interest in the lives of the subjects. These atomizing agents, by fate or social engineering, have both set the working Caucasian man up for the hunt they have been subjected to for all of my withering life.

Contents

Oral History Shorts Of:

-1. Smiling Alfredo, 39

-2. Toki Erik, 57

-3. The Geeze, 61

-4. Knell, 48

-5. Mister Grey, 49

-6. Guru Rick, 61, author’s recollection from 2022

-7. Big Ron, 49

-8. Megan, 61

-9. Matt, 50

-10. Unplanned Interviews

-11. James, 62

…

Appendices

Travel Writing

Training Writing

Notes

-1. Orphan Nation, LaFond

Hi James.

This morning, at a Whole Foods Market in NYC, the cashier and I spoke briefly about the fact that I was picking up some items before work.

I told her it was a good time to shop, but a drawback was that they regularly did not have everything out yet. Today, for instance, there were no bags of potatoes.

I told her it used to be that stores restocked over night. She asked, "Really?" I said, "Yes, back in the 70's."

In NYC, WFM restocks during the day, while the store is open. They open usually at 7AM, but most meat is not out by then and numerous produce items have yet to be brought out. They also restock throughout the day, so you may or may not have to step around a cart or a ladder while shopping.

[Getting people out of bed to open up a morning business, meaning rising at 4 in the morning, has suffered a great deal with the increased postmodern ennui. Having clerks stocking during business hours is a huge liability issue. The best reason for night stocking is to keep granny from tripping on equipment and stock. Liability is the number one concern of retail food directors at the site. The fact that this has been overridden by lesser concerns points to a crisis in cost control and/or labor supply.]

Not sure if this is just in NYC or if grocery stores all over have cut out overnight stocking.

[This is everywhere and started in Baltimore in spots 15 years ago. I see it everywhere across the country I go and am amazed. Many chains still have night crews, yet the size of these are reducing and stock is being done more during the day. The main factor seems to be a switch from male to female staff, with women less likely to agree to working overnight due to safety and child care concerns. There is also the cost of an over night premium of a 1$ or so an hour. Since available labor are not very urgent and productive, paying an extra buck an hour for them still not getting the job done is not desirable. Dollar stores and drug stores, taking up more of retail food sales, have never been able to staff night crews due to low wages. Also, when crime becomes more of a problem, the night crew has to end, because the employees will be targeted by hood rats going to work. Their cars will be vulnerable on the lot while they are locked in the building, etc.]

Maybe it is just NYC. Maybe it is just Whole Foods Market. Maybe both.

Far as you know, is overnight stocking at grocery stores still the norm?

[Over night stoking is falling off everywhere I shop. The pool of young men does not exist for this work. The secondary pool, after desperate single mothers, is older men and women working after losing or retiring from some other line of work. You will have night crews of decreasing size until the old Gen-X hands retire or expire. Eventually I see night stocking being used only to prep for a holiday or other expected peak sales day. This is in part due to the increased vast size of the most profitable retail outlets, which makes truck to floor pallet display feasible during store hours. It could be that the danger of law suits has been addressed in some way I do not know about from this unsealed tomb.

[This trend existed before 2020 and has accelerated, along with increased pay for clerks after a 30 year pay freeze. Other businesses have still not returned to pre-2020 hours, with opening times still later and closing times earlier. Early morning and late night hours were always marginal volume slots. I, if still active, would suggest, a small, 2 to 3 man night crew for taking in deliveries, staging the work, and doing the high liability stocking, like front door displays, and having a part time crew start at 6 and work until 10 A.M. Note that vendors, soda and chip people, all stock during store hours. But, if Tyrone trips and falls on a box of chips, the chip company takes the legal heat.]

No reply necessary, but any reply is welcome, of course.

Take care,

Barry Bliss

Thank you, Barry.

Everything is asymetric now

Inbox

Jun 3, 2025, 9:52 AM

to me

Zup you old hobo,

a few years ago you said these special forces faɡɡots will make more money hunting down americans than they ever made hunting ragheads.

And i met such people. Special forces qualified wannabe Pretorians who believe in all the oxymoronic shit the system tells them is true so that they can play soldier.

But a few years later and a few drone attacks after i ain't so sure thats even possible anymore.

There is an entire Amazon like webmarket just for land, air and sea drones in ukraine.

Just one shot out of a TOW launcher was priced with 25.000 USD not s long ago, and now the same or better amount of firepower, a fiber optic drone with a cheap ass RPG7 warhead, costs 800 USD.

It does not need a human operator anymore when Artificial Intel. can identify enough to select targets based on shape and uniform color. It can fly with 90 miles per hour and doesn't even need a charge,

when an Ice Pick would do.

I think it's basically over for government.

In response to Master MacMirthy's generous patronage on patreon:

I hope you enjoy the membership.

Your support is huge to me and this patreon is only for this subject. When I have finished the next 5 books, i will shut it down, hopefully in 2028, and make sure the members get all the pdfs gratis.

Take care,

james

Hello Mister Lafond,

It’s very kind of you to message, I apologize for being so late in replying. Some of the accounts you’ve researched and shared have been either so sobering or rage-inducing so I would be truer to say that I greatly appreciate the membership. It’s always educational to read about these captives accounts and to see your always sympathetic observations about how their society worked without any modern narratives muddying the water.

It’s understandable you’ll be leaving this project eventually and I thank you for giving so much of your time to it. As you’ve said before it’s one of your more thankless missions. I’ll continue to follow your other projects when you do. You always manage to weave wit and empathy into all of your works (in a way that I don’t see from other authors with less hard-earned experience working with the human animal in all it’s forms) and when you aren’t impressing with well-considered psychologies you always get me laughing. Buzz Bunny, the Book of Nightmares or Thunderbird all had me howling. When you pass like the Dreamer aboard the Timeship Hindenburg, pumped dry of your creative juices, you’ll be missed. (I’ve always assumed my alter-ego died beneath the meat wall.)

So once again, thank you sir for all you have done and continue to do,

Fergus

An Email Titled Bulging Eyes from a fighter named Oscar.

[This old gutter gnome felt a warm sense of regard for that old book The Logic of Steel when Good Oscar sent in this latest email. Oscar has a job in a rising sector of law enforcement. I quite enjoy training tails and will like posting these as quest articles as a help to the many readers who put up with me switching to history and novels from the immediately useful arts.]

Dear James,

First with the bad. I deeply regret to inform you that me attending the camp in Halifax is something I’m going to miss out on. [Redacted job description.] This new job has those things called “benefits.” And I told them of my plans to go to in May but they hit me with that 90 day bs.

I’ve had other jobs where I let them know when interviewing that I would need time off within 90 days. Many thanked me for notifying and said I could have em but they would be unpaid. Not these new guys, no siree.

[Redacted locations.] …the northeast/mid-atlantic is an area I’m very familiar with, what with me being from there… Before this job, obviously. One day dammit. One day I will see the graphomaniac in the flesh!

[I am hoping to meet the balance of such men as Oscar while still able to travel and train. It’s always an honor to be relevant in the area where I am no longer potent. What follows is a training session descriptions of the likes I have been involved in many times across the span of a mostly misspent life. Oscar’s account below brought back good memories.]

Now with the whimsical. So I mentioned before that one of the classes I take is aikido. Went back to them recently. This was after recovering from my [redacted] injury enough to get back to the sweet science and the other stuff. Not long after that i decided to go and visit my old aikido dojo. Studied there for a number of years but attendance is now sparing, since other arts/styles/systems take precedence. Not to say that I haven’t picked up a few things from aikido, but I’ve decided to keep my visits to once in a blue moon. Drop in fee is dirt cheap since the instructor drops mats in his church cafeteria. Overhead is nil.

While convalescing I read a good number of your books, including the Logic of Steel, which led me to the folsome prison book. When I decided to come back it was a night where the focus is on knife defense. You know, slo-mo, complaint, telegraph non-sense like the rest of aikido. On top of that, there’s a guy there, who’s basically second in the pecking order, that also does Russian systema and occasionally shows us what he’s learned for knife defense. Another art with its special delusions from what I’ve seen from him and videos online. Ok whatever. Did the training and kept my mouth shut.

After class, I was chomping at the bit to show them the Puerto Rican shield I’d seen in logic of steel. Everyone else had left and Systema guy and sensei were on the mat fine tuning some techniques. As they were winding down, I told my instructor and number two that i learned something interesting. Told systema man to take one of the wooden tantos and prepare to slash me

Got out the kindle app and did my best to try to wrap my jacket around my left and held the tanto in my right. Wrapped hand was forward. My instructor had an interested look on his face and no. 2 looked at me like I had just whistled and summoned a flying saucer. Eyes just popping out of his head like a looney tunes character. Dumbstruck. My aikido Instructor is a vet and a smart man. He has experience in his early years in TKD, vita sa’ana, formal fencing with the epee and estoc, some Muay Thai, and he finally settled on aikido in the 90s. So he may not have been full of awe as no. 2.

So he met me in the middle and I told him that such a wrapping could be used to parry slashes and thrusts. I told him we could spar lightly. So we went at it, him using what little aikido tanto jutsu he learned and all systema knife techniques he knew. Versus me with literally no knife knowledge apart from a few escrima seminars, and some knife combat videos from a few people who might ring a few bells.

Suffice to say for about three minutes it was mostly just him walking up to in order to do these overcommitted slashes and thrusts. My shielded hand had little problem parrying or just slapping away the knife while I counter slashed and thrusted. He got quick and crafty with feints at the end and got me a few times. The problem is that while his feints were kind of slow. Finally I did what Paul vunak likes to do and “defanged the snake.” No. 2 by the end of this little dance was out of breath, with the systema he studies having little to no physical training component.

My instructor then asked me where or who such a thing. So I said, “From a man in Baltimore who takes no shit!” No. 2 being a man who is allergic to even the mention of urban areas said, “Baltimore?!?! Aw man…” while shaking his head. No slights from me. Been to baltimore plenty of times. Had good meals there in multiple cuisine types. Of course I’ve never been to the no-go zones. Like the ones in the Wire. Anyhow I just stayed with them on the mat for about 20 more minutes talking about how the PR shield was probably not exclusive to PR. I understand it to be called Filete by the boricuas. I know that in other parts of the Spanish empire they too cover the hand with a cloth or cape. Knife dueling is very popular in Andalusia, and its fighting style is called The Steel of Seville. So much for barbers. I know that in Argentina, duelists use a poncho, and this attested to in a short story by Borges, and also by my Argentinian Judo teacher. Ditto Uruguay, and in Uruguay, they call their knife fighting style “Esgrima Criolla” (Creole Fencing). In the Filipino styles I’ve seen techniques using a sash. The common denominator here being the Spanish empire.

Anyhow, these two gentleman are appreciative with what can be done with clothing on hand, literally. A feat to rival Jason Bourne and MacGyver. I directed them to your fine book. Hopefully they buy it as well. It sure was a paradigm shift in their heads. My instructor very much likes to adapt martial arts to “the street” and welcomes improvisation. The point being, James, that you are dropping knowledge nukes on people. Hope you enjoyed this account. With me getting back into the swing of things there will doubtless be more.

Sincerely,

Oscar

Thank you, Oscar.

The Odyssey, on this most recent listen, reveals it as even more faith-focused than the Iliad, which is the most religious war story I have read, by far. Roughly every second verse among protagonists and supporting characters and adversaries, speaks of God, gods, prayer, heaven, providence, fate, and sacrifice. Religious statements are more frequent per word than Bradford’s or Mourt’s relation of the founding of Plymouth Colony, cited by historians as the foundation of America as a Christian nation—America’s most holy prequel.

As a writer of sequels, it seems to me that Homer composed the Odyssey as an examination of God’s words to his lesser lights of heaven [angels in Christian context] that man is the most sorrowful creature upon the earth, a being of suffering, and that the least He could do to relieve some portion of this was to test such men in the hopes that they would gain everlasting fame among future men, and hence enjoy the only kind of immortality available to mortals.

Odysseus, the “Grieved-lord,” is most often referred to as “That Man” by his family and fellows. He is never for a loss in a tight spot. He is said to have been named after slaying a boar which wounded him on sacred Mount Pharnassus in his youth, “The man of all odds.” He is described as the “most unlucky” “unhappy” man in the world. He is a combination of an afflicted Job, hunted Paul, wandering Jonah and triumphant David.

God is a harsh father who gives good and bad to men in the world. The term God is usually applied to Zeus, sometimes as an aggregate of all heavenly powers as a concept, and about five times in reference to Poseidon, brother of God Almighty Zeus. Zeus, Poseidon and Hades, the three Sons of Time, rule Creation between them: Poseidon the sea, Hades the underworld and Zeus Heaven and Earth. Zeus, through his primary exhibition of power, storm, cloud and thunder and his command of the Winds has significant control of the sea, its surface at least, and men upon the “broad back” of “the fish-giving sea.” Genesis, 4, I think, describes God activating a generative force of the sea in such a way as to indicate a secondary, subservient power to the Lord of Heaven and Earth.

The following are quotes from The Odyssey, a book which mentions God, heaven, heavenly power, prayer and observations of faith far more often per wood then any book of the Old Testament. The Odyssey, like Ovid’s Metamorphoses, seem to beg for a heaven-sent savior to take up man’s cause, especially in view of the underworld. The Greeks of Homer never ate or drank wine without a prayer and their prayers, when in the presence of women, were greeted by an earthly chorus of praise to God, “Alleluia!” The heroes of the ancient Greeks, minus a few damned souls such as Ajax who questioned God, were more pious than any Biblical figure predating Christ, except for David, author of Psalms, who would have fit in in the pious halls of Dark Age Hellas as a bright light worthy of an Odysseus.

The Odyssey:

General:

“Born to sorrow if any man was”

“the wrath of God”

“Fear God”

“The Spinner” [Fate, taken up as an aspect of God in Christian poetics, with Beowulf describing God on His War Loom weaving men’s fate.]

“Snatchers” phantoms that abduct oath-breakers and sinners to the Underworld

“Avengers” who punish sinners in the Underworld

Sayings

“Bold as brass”

“Tramping to the devil”

“A ravenous belly cannot be hid, damn the thing”

“Catch ‘em Ecotosh, the bogie king, who chops men into mince meat” [mentioned 4 times]

“The drops of grace” [wine poured to the gods]

Notable Statements

“Made her tall and full and more white than polished ivory,” on a divine restoration of Penelope’s beauty even as her husband is restored by turning his pale old skin into richly tanned skin, “glossy like the skin of a dried onion.”

“I wind my schemes on my distaff.” [Penelope]

“A groom to carry each earring.” [Slaves given as a compliment to a gift given, marking the earrings as more valuable than those two human lives.]

Chapter Quotes, mostly from dialogue, which had to have been rendered believable for Homer’s audience to enjoy the tale. The quotes are only a portion of the many and nearly constant reference to heavenly power. Composing in about 720 B.C., Homer reflects an ethos close to that of feudal Europe, with many small towns and kingdoms abiding by a universal faith governing the moral tenor of their interactions.

Book 2

“This is God’s will.”

Book 3

“Thanks be to God.”

“God scattered the fleet.”

“God made smooth the great billows of the deep.” [Not Poseidon, but Zeus Time-holder Almighty.]

“We prayed God to show us.”

“By the voice of God.”

“If it should be the will of God.”

Book 4

“Zeus Olympian in his infinite wisdom.”

“Too much happiness for God to grant.”

“God gives good fortune or bad fortune.”

“God willing or not,” [The damning curse of Ajax.]

“The Lord God.”

Book 8

“God Crowns his words.” [Possibly in reference to Apollo.]

“God has been generous to you and inspired your song.” [Later the litmus test for including of Gospels in the Bible.]

“God can do it or not do it, as he pleases.” [Reference to Poseidon.]

Book 9

“God gave us what we wanted.”

“God walks with him to see he gets no wrong.” [See Enoch and Exodus]

“God made him do it.”

“God breathed great courage into us.” [This may be in regard to Athena, who is described as closest to Zeus Almighty, to understand his will with no explanation, and to carry his power to Earth and Sea, an aspect of God said to have been born from his head, and referred to often as Tritagenea. Scholars disagree if this means “of the sea” or in reference to her place in a Trinity. She bears his storm shield. His messenger is Iris “Storm-foot,” very much a minor angel like those who warned Lot.]

“Clouds and darkness are all about him and he rules over all.” [Compare to Exodus and the God of the Covenant.]

Book 11

“God will make your journey hard and dangerous.” [Of Poseidon.]

“Come and praise God.”

“Thanks be to heaven.”

Book 15

“Zeus, loud-thundering Lord of heaven.”

“God’s messenger, Hermes,”

Book 16

“The destiny God spun for him.” [This departs from the traditional view that God only knows what Fate has spun, and places him at the loom, a practice in pagan-to-Christian poetic adaptation.]

“No one but very God.”

“By the grace of God.”

“What comes from God none can avoid.”

“Inquire the will of God,” [Uttered by a man plotting murder.]

Book 17

“God forbid.”

“Suppose there really is a God in heaven?” [The first atheist, among the murder plotters?]

“Affront the brazen sky.” [To challenge heaven with human hubris.]

“May God blast them before they do any harm.’

“I will do my best with God’s help.”

“Brought by God to our very doors.”

“Zeus all-wise takes away half his sense when slavery is upon him.”

Book 18

“God will spare me.”

Book 19

“A king who is a God-fearing man and rules over a mighty nation.” [Zeus often speaks of being feared, yet it is unclear if this statement should read god-fearing. They all frighten me.]

“Many call him blessed.”

“Men quickly grow old in evil days.” [Compare to Exodus when Moses and God speak of God working evil among men and Moses’ transformation upon seeing God.]

“God has robbed him of his return.”

“A child of many prayers.”

“The will of God.”

“Leave the rest to God.”

Book 20

“How God sent omens of the wrath to come.” [Often eagles, sometimes thunder without clouds.]

“May God punish them.”

“God’s wrath.” [The entire book is about faith in heaven and God’s wrath upon sinners, Odysseus merely a tool of heaven. See below.]

Book 21

“If God shall destroy all these men by my hand.”

“God will give the victory to who he will.” [Athena, playing the angel of God, working his will through a man, only one man at a time, including various persecuted prophets who aid the hero.]

I trust the above samples help the reader in their consideration of the Bible, particularly Job, Judges, Exodus and Psalms, in light of the fact that the Gospels were brought to us through the Greek word, by men educated in Homer, Hesiod and Ovid.

This effort is an effort at a contextual backdrop to the faith of Alexander as described in Arrian’s Expedition of Alexander and examined in The Son of God, an amplification of that work.

…

Notes

Other treatments of the Odyssey will focus on ethnology, geography and the afterlife.

“James, a pair of bronze statues of Greek make in Italy have been recovered by divers. They are savagely sinister in appearance, the left arm raised as if fitted with a shield. One academic, a female professor, commented that these were obviously fantastical images, as no man before steroids would be able to get that muscular…”

“How much do I think they would weigh if they were 5’ 10”? Oh, 175, maybe 180, a bit light in the legs by modern strength standards, but with wide shoulders and big chests.”

-Lynn

…

MiLady, by modern strength standards you mean “non-fighting” standards. You just described numerous middleweight to light heavyweight boxing champions, or welterweight to middleweight MMA fighters and many standout MLB outfielders and short stops. Just like modern scholars deny Alexander understood war, and boxing writers deny that ancient gauntlet boxers or early modern bare-knuckle fighters knew how to box, so the full spectrum defamation continues in the hands of our gate keepers. Right now, I am living with a 22 year old man, a soldier, who is up for Special Forces selection. He runs 40 miles with a 50 lb ruck on—runs, does it in a couple hours. He is 5’ 10” and 190, looking to trim down to 185 for selection, so he has 10 pounds of muscle to lose in the field and still be strong, putting him at 175, just what you described.

Major Wolf, who has made it into many novels, was a Major and Acting Colonel in the Army Rangers. He told me that the perfect Ranger was 5’ 10” to 6’ 1”, “maybe 6’ 2”, no more” and 165 to 185, “ranger lean.” He told me this as we traversed this mountain above me, me having a hard time keeping up, even though I was more fit and my knees were not ruined from jumping out of planes. The length of your stride means a lot cross country, the shorter legs working harder, burning more food, stretching tendons and nerves. My stretched femoral nerves do have some relation to doing shift steps and counter march steps as long as possible so I could cover as much ground in stick fighting as the taller men I dealt with. I learned this while rehabing.

Standard walking is 4 miles per an hour, what I do, superior 5, elite 6 and up. In multiple hours this makes a deadly difference when trying to take killing ground first. We are told that ancient people, anybody before mass diabetes created by the USG Food Pyramid, was tiny, when they were not. Only born slaves were short, such as the 5’ 6” inch British soldiers that fought under 5’ 10” inch officers against 6 foot Zulus in the 1870s. It was about the childhood diet.

The French army had a standard of 5’ 7” inches in the 1700s. Officers complained that man as small as 4’ 10” [gutter waifs] were being conscripted and sent to them in New France? The Indians they were supposed to fight were so big that they were hired to go round up the runaways, scooping them up like pedophiles nabbing children.

Much of the mobility advantage by Indians and frontiersmen over soldiers of the 1700s, was their meat-eater height advantage over the bread and beer fed soldiers. For uniform marching and dressing the armies wanted men between 5’6” and 5’9” in the regular ranks. Grenadiers had to be 5’ 10” or taller, to throw the grenade, and again for equipage. Only one size of shoes and uniforms were made for each troop type! These men would march at a higher rate. Grenadiers were also used as pressmen and to catch deserters, who could not out pace them.

Danial Boone was 5’10”, as was Blue Jacket, Tecumseh, Simon Girty, Lewis Wetzel and Rogers, with other frontier heroes taller, with Kenton 6’4”!, Liver-Eater 6 feet. They ate meat.

Rome also had standards for its legions, 5’ 7”, I think. This is an attempt to insure healthy men who can keep uniform march order and will not have malnutritive disorders earned in childhood. City boys were not desired, but farmers and barbarians. According to Michael Grant in Legions of the Empire, the first cohort of each legion, the guards, had men who must stand 5’ 10.”

Do note that men about 5’8” are ideal for labor, for engineering tasks, as they get injured less doing drudgery than taller men who, while possibly stronger, have more leverage against their joints hoisting weight, digging, etc. You want taller men in mobility units, not wasted in line units that do all the grunt work in sieges, bridging, road cutting, and camp building.

Do we see a pattern?

The men on horse back, ironically, would usually be taller than the foot soldiers, since they ate well as barbarian herdsmen or as feudal lords and the sons of oligarchs.

According to Victor Davis Hansen, the standard hoplite of the 400s and 300s in Greece stood 5’7” and weighed 145, a junior welterweight. These were predominantly barely-farming grain eaters.

However, the leading athletes could be giants, and it seems as if 6’ 4” was an easily obtainable height within the diet range in Classical Hellas for special men, such as competed in the sacred agons. Promachus “Front-line-fighter” turned the tide of a hoplite battle by breaking the line himself. In shield combat, big men rule. This is why the Spartan kings had Olympic victors by their side and why the best wrestler in history, Milo of Kroton fought in the front line. Such men, as did gladiators later, did engage in “steroid” use by eating certain animal organs and glands and vast quantities of meat. I know many very muscular men who use no such steroid type enhancement. Heavy built men were not desired in mobile units. The Romans only used gladiators to defend positions, as they were worse then useless in the field against less formidable fighters who they trained in basic swordmanship.

So, what would be the size of the Macedonians, who ate much more meat than the more southerly Greeks?

-Alexander seemed normal, at about 5’8”, but very quick and strong, with unmatched human stamina.

-Hephastion must have been over six feet, for he was taken to be Alexander on first meeting.

-Companions would rarely be shorter than 5’7” as they were oligarchs in meat country and many, such as Clitus the Black and Koragus probably went 6 to 6’4”.

-Guards, 5’ 10” to 6’4”

-Phalangites, 5’7” to 5’10”

-Allied Hoplites, 5’8” and up, being picked men, including Dioxiphos, MMA champion, meaning over 200 pounds.

-Archers, 5’9” to 6’4”, averaging 5’11”, being hunters probably the strongest men in the army able to draw bows that outranged the Scythian composite bow, meaning to the ear. These were like English Longbowmen of a later age who butchered French knights in hand to hand combat using axes, picks and mauls, being twice as strong as the smaller knights, tall working men.

-The Agrianes?

These were herders and hunters of the highlands, Arуans. Look at Scotsmen and Native American warriors, Vikings of later ages, as well as the Germans and Celts that faced the Romans and were their neighbors, described by all Roman sources as at least as tall as a man of the First Cohorts.

5’9” to 6”4” with the upper range dedicated to sergeants. I suggest that the weight range of these men run from 150 for lean body types and younger men, up to 200 pounds, with the average man standing 5’10” to 11” and scaling 160 to 175 pounds. [0]

The sergeants bearing the large rally shield, lance and heavier javelins instead of darts would tend to stand 6’+ and scale 185 to 200, just like the last fighter to KO me in a waster duel. [1] A man who stands six feet and scales 200 pounds, when using a heavier shield, is equal to two men of the smallest 150 pound range. More importantly, he can break ranks, crashing through a line of smaller men at the head of a wedge formation.

In about 900 B.C., there was a duel over Olympia, in which the armies each advanced a man. They did not advance a hoplite, but an archer versus a thrower. The duel was hand to hand, so they chose bigger men who were also quick, a Ranger. In the Crusade of Richard the Lionhearted in I think A.D. 1177, a duel broke out, between two archers of the opposing forces.

…

Notes

-0. Yes, the sculptures Lynn spoke of, which might hopefully grace the book.

-1. A waster is a blunt sword.

-2. It is possible that dogs were used by these forces, but mostly for hunting and sport for horsemen. If the Agrianes or archers had dogs, they would have to have been trained to silence on command for scouts and for signaling in defense of a camp perimeter.

On Battle

According to Alexander, no greater truth about war was part of human memory than Homer’s Iliad. Modern historians scoff at this notion, as if “he who was first in the profession of arms” in all of history knew nothing of his vocation. What the Iliad tells us is the same thing that Xenophon tells us in the Hellenica and Anabasis.

Fortunes of Battle

Slings and arrows and hurled spears represent the malicious and even random peril of battle, ever present and taking men regardless of merit, to include Achilles. Many times a hero misses his spear cast and a man behind or beside the target is slain at random.

King of Battle

The spear and shield together impose will upon battle, the spear king of battle, deciding the day, standing against the tides of battle like a breakwater and breaking the enemy like a storm breaks a dyke. See Gilgamesh Book 1.

Queen of Battle

The sword, and her crude analogue the ax, are the tools of the executioner, the weapons of death. These were used mostly to slaughter foes broken by the spear, to slay captives “put to the sword.” The main use of the cavalry saber from 1618 through 1815 was the slaughter of fleeing footmen. Achilles used the sword to slaughter fleeing men and the 12 captive Trojan youth at the funeral pyre of Patroclus. The American frontier term was “war to the knife” or to “take up the hatchet” to kill. Thucydides account of the Syracuse expedition, the use of the ax and sword as executioner’s tools across ages, cultures and faiths, and the symbol of the Roman fascines, an executioner’s ax bundled in rods of punishment, make this clear. Hence, the sword and ax, particularly as weapons of the siege and sack of cities, were objects of terror to the low morale slave soldier of the majority of armies of Antiquity. See Burton’s Book of the Sword.

Attacking and resisting are the imposition of will on the enemy. Wiles are the minimizing of losses and the maintenance of the soldiers’ ability to impose his leader’s will through confidence in the commander.

It is strange that a non Macedonian unit was cited for combat honors more often by the heroic Macedonian conqueror than even his guards. The reasons are clear in Arrian’s narrative when he says, “All returned to camp safe and sound,” after the Getae battle and with “least loss of life,” describing the attack on Thracian positions at Mount Hiameus Pass. Alexander, his companions and guards might have a heroic temper. But most of the army were working on short pay and did not wish to suffer the fate of Patroclus, Hector, Achilles or Ajax, and, as well dreaded the idea of not returning home. These were not modern Americans bred to tolerate migration of home every decade of life, but traditional people who could only ever have one home. Alexander KNEW he was headed off for good and had to come up with a recipe for keeping men charged up for the next adventure by a combination of success and light casualties.

Hence, the Agrianes and archers, led by adventurous brigadier generals from other nations, nations that were highly afflicted by the international banking interests backing the Persian empire, [1] were perfect units for leading off. Light units attacking was a novel idea for everybody, granting social shock value against the most effective enemy units: Persian aristocrats and Greek traitors. It also challenged the honor of the Guards and Companions who would want to out-do these light troops. [2]

…

How were these men armed?

Historians have the idea that the Agrianes were simply peltasts, same as Thracians, which makes no sense, since they always burned through their light counterparts as if they were not there, attacked heavy formations head on and fought toe-to-toe with barbarian medium infantry. Historians reject the idea of ancient medium infantry. Yet these existed in the form of Iphicrates reformed Hoplites from the previous generation, about the 370s when Phillip was captive at Thebes and scheming the creation of the Macedonian army. These used smaller shields, lighter body armor and possibly javelins. The defeat of the Spartans on Sphiactra in 404 showed that peltasts could defeat hoplites if used aggressively.

It is obvious from Arrian that Longarus, the Agriane King, who was a kind of war uncle to Alexander, had various grades of troops. Also, his neighbors and foes, the Tarlantians, who also lived in the mountains, had horsemen, heavy hoplites and light troops, apparently of various types. Such tribal units would tend to mix slingers and archers as specialists among the more common javelin and dart throwers. Throwing light spears and heavy darts was the regional method of war at a distance from Homer’s time down to the 300s and 400s A.D. But, archery, depicted as useful for Odysseus, lord of forested-mountain Ithaca, was a necessary form of hunting, and slinging stones an economic activity for the mountain herders that made up the population base of the highlands.

Armor, though hoplites trained to run in it over short distances, was out of the question except for officers and Guards of the Agriane. Most archers would be hired out to the Macedonian archer brigade. [3]

How did Phillip and Alexander become such good commanders of light troops?

Theirs was a front-tier kingdom.

French and English Americans from Champlain in the 1600s, down to Church in the 1670s, Rogers in the 1740s and 50s, and Howe and Cornwalis in the 1770s and 80s, learned light infantry tactics in forested mountains the hard way, from the native enemy, in alliance with the native enemies of their enemy. Modern infantry tactics are based on this, successfully used in Spain from 1806 to 1809 by English against French, and later used to develop “storm trooper” tactics by Ernst Junger and Erwin Rommel in WWI, which relied on infiltration, and night fighting and was called, “fighting in Indian file.”

The Agrianes and Archers were the Macedonian rangers and special forces and worked together in the same fashion, with the Agrianes the rallying force for the archers, who they rescued a few times at Pellium, Thebes and in Phrygia in Book 2 of Arrian.

Their methods will be the subject of the series of novels in The Areid, beginning with Grace: Book 1.

In search of a more recent analogy, in Early Modern America, how did tribesmen bedevil heavier-armed troops in forested mountains very similar to the Agriane, Thracian, Triballian, Illyrian frontiers and the mountainous regions of Asia, from Phrygia, to Kurdistan to Afghanistan?

The basic hunting/raiding file was of three men. This was standard from the Shawnee of the east to the Apache and Pawnee of the west.

The Cherokee, who had the greatest mix of Native and European/American enemies, fought in a file of five, three-facing skirmish line with a back-up man and flanker.

The basic arms of the region were:

Primary

-long gun

Secondary

-hatchet/tomahawk

-knife

Special

-War club/sword, [4] weapon of a notable chief or hero

-Lance, wielded by specially sworn warriors, such as the white Indian that rampaged around Fort Wheeling and later Cheyenne Dog Soldiers. [5]

-Bow & arrows, every 5th Cherokee warrior, the leader, was armed with a bow to protect against and exploit overruns when guns were empty.

Shields had been discarded due to firearms blowing through them.

…

As Ancient analogues, the Agriane arms would be:

Primary

-Shield & Darts [small javelins] used together of necessity, so as not to expose the armpit while casting. The shield would be a small, light figure of 8 with a strap for wearing on the back, and a hand grip, facilitating punching even as the central cutout over the elbow permitted casting and sighting. The function of the empty long gone as a clubbing tool would be filled by the shield, the fear of the musket shot by the probably 5 darts. Modern historians assume these were the only weapons of the peltast, which ignores Arrian, Iphicrates and analogous combat sense. Thracian and other peltast shields were shaped like a half moon and protected the arm pit less while throwing and were marginal for punching.

Secondary

-Light war axes, like the hatchet/tomahawk are useful camp tools, cheap, easily repaired, and aid in siege work, dragging horseman out of the saddle and climbing cliffs and trees. These are even better with the shield then with the knife of the American frontier.

-Machera [machetes] would also replace war axes among some warriors, when they could be had and when practical. Ideally, every second man, that is 2 of 5, would have the machete, with 3 of 5 armed with an ax for stripping shields and pulling down riders. The machete would be better while defending and night fighting, the ax while attacking in main encounters by day, both of complimentary value in siege work. The mix of these two weapons would be like the mix of U.S. GI firearms in WWII, carbines and rifles in the same unit for operational flexibility.

-Knives, small to large knives would be carried by all such troops. How else would they provide their animal skin shield covers, boots [more like moccasins], leggings, ponchos and cowls? The WWII analogy would be the 0.45 APC.

Special

-Swords would replace war clubs, the WWII analogy being the Thompson submachinegun for close range mayhem.

-The lance would be the lance, wielded by a file commander armed with a larger shield as a rallying point. This man would also be armed with darts as well, be bigger and stronger than normal, and possibly be throwing full size javelins as a result. Despite lack of body armor, he is a heavy footman. I suggest light Iphicratic type body armor for this man. [6] His presence is the best explanation for why “the Agrianes yielded nothing” in battle. The very accurate WWII analogy would be the B.A.R. operator. The Legions of Republican Rome, who depended on hurled javelins, used this strategy, with the triaria, third line fighters, using spears.

-The bow or sling would be employed to compensate for the easily depleted darts and provide firing cover in retreat and for exploitation. The darts are 5 times heavier than arrows, and would not last long, with all five thrown easily within 30 seconds. While more darts are run up front by boys or the retreat is conducted, an archer or slinger could provide covering fire, having much more ammunition. Also, a thrower’s shoulder wears out over age. The sling and the bow can be plied to an advanced age even with injured shoulders. Therefore, older veterans with blown shoulders might be retired to second line duty. This is similar to the Roman triaria model. The WWII analogy is the light machine gun, the Bren or the MG34.

As to how these moving parts of the most cited unit in Ancient warfare functioned, is the subject of the Areid novels.

…

Notes

-1. The Agrianes and other small Balkan nations had agents among them paying off second rate chiefs to compromise the rule of the kings and princes in favor of economic exploitation by alien slave drivers. The bankers of Babylon either paid for the right to import slaves to mine gold or for local lower class people to be enslaved to mine gold. Corruption of tribal leadership by imperial bribes was not a Roman or American invention. The people of Crete were not subjugated by the Persian navy. Their rivals of Rhodes were Persian vassals and provided an advance naval base for the Persian fleets. The conquest of Persia by Alexander would free Crete from a looming naval threat. So, the Agrianes and Cretan “mercenaries” were motivated by love of country and were highly effective in service to a larger nation battling an even greater one. The modern parallel would be the very motivated and effective service rendered by Hungarian, Cossack, Romanian and Italian military units again the Soviets Red Army in WWII.

-2. After the death of the Cretan commander, Eurybotus at Thebes, command of the Archers was regarded as an honorable appointment for a Macedonian officer.

-3. For unit size my reference is the Black Powder Era, including the Civil War, which had lesser men in the same designation than today. A file would be a team or squad. A company or band varied from 2 or more squads, as few as 30 to as many as 300 men, as would a troop of horse. A battalion is reckoned at 400 to 800 men. A brigade is roughly 1000 to 1200 men, the archers and Agrianes being 1000, later reduced to 500 by detachment, and the phallanx taxilla about 1200. Divisions are references to larger national contingents, mostly in the Persian service, ranging from 1,000 to 10,000.

-4. When they were available, native warriors liked swords, called “long knives” or “shemanese” for which they named the invading officer class.

-5. See Messach Browning and Zane Gray’s novel of Lewis Wetzel.

-6. A quilted vest, perhaps with a groin skirt, sewn with some studs, bands or plates, similar to the jack worn by musketeers and pikemen of the powder and shot era of the late 1500s and through the late 1600s.