Comes Rushing Like A Raging Fire

Webber Lee’s comment

Over thirty years ago, since the start of what became known as the 6-day war, (the Yom Kipper war) an ever-decreasing burden of work, offered me an opportunity to pursue a lifelong yearning to write adventure novels.

At this joyful enterprise, I have managed some success.  My action novels, based upon my experiences as a pilot in Viet Nam and Africa, (the last of which has been optioned by Warner) have been very rewarding, both financially and personally. 

For those of you familiar with my work, this effort, (and it was an effort, at first overcoming my objectivity problems) and later, the research, the endless reading, from dozens of widely strewn sources, marks a significant departure from the previous genre in one respect only: What follows is not a novel. 

This is a true story.  The people reported upon in this account are real people.  The actual names of have been used throughout, with only a few exceptions, which are noted.  All of the events reported upon, actually happened. 

Like a skier, who concentrates so hard, on avoiding a tree that he inevitably crashes into it, I found this project the one great obstacle of my writing career, always looming ahead, a challenge constantly on my horizon.  I have avoided it for years, in part, because I am offended by the wasted reams of melodramatic and partisan verbiage, written almost daily, concerning the religious personalities of the world. 

I further confess, to some specific built-in objectivity problems.  Doctor Stampell was a faithful, and hardworking Stewart of Lord, but an ass, none-the-less.  That is compounded by the guilt I feel, at the concept of exposing the final, very private last moments, of some dear friends, whose lives were lost, those many years ago. 

The aforementioned aversions, evaporated a few years ago, when my wife, Nirvana, was working for a nameless clutch of Bedouin camps, and a chance meeting with a Nubian Christian woman named Reha, caught her attention.  Reha was middle aged, when my wife met her again, a grandmother, but the passion burned hot in Reha’s veins, as she described the day, of our first arrival in Cairo, those many years ago.  Nirvana left me knowing, that this story deserved to be told, and now, with the recent passing of Doctor Stampell, there isn’t time to stop.