THIS STORY IS a fictional projection of what could well be ahead if the United States loses the Global War against Islamist Terrorism. Many Americans today will only accept military engagements, if any, that are brief with few U.S. casualties; somewhat like Grenada or the liberation of Kuwait or the military incursions into Panama or Haiti or Bosnia or Kosovo. Those U.S. efforts were carried out for our interests but they were not fought for the survival of our own nation; they were largely fought for the survival of others. We are now engaged in a war for the survival of the United States and the survival of civilization as we know it.
Shortly after 9-11 our leaders gave advice to the people of the nation to live life as before: to work as we have always worked; travel as we have always traveled; go on vacation when time permits; purchase what we would have purchased before. In summary, other than being vigilant, Americans were told not to change our lives from the normal routine known before 9-11. It was bad advice. Too many willingly adopted that advice and lived with the false perception that the war was no more than a background rather than the fore-ground of their lives, and the war was little more than an infrequent and unwelcome intrusion on the things they chose to do.
The war did not dominate our time as World War II dominated the time of all Americans in that unified quest for victory. Than, three decades after that victory of World War II came the defeats of Cambodia and South Vietnam. At this writing, losing the current war is likely because now our culture has contempt for memory. In an epidemic of amnesia, America has forgotten how we achieved victory in one war and defeat in another.
Although this book is fictional, most descriptions of the U.S. takeover are based on real non-fictional recent takeovers of other nations and territories by tyrannical forces. This story of what could lie ahead was painful to imagine and even more painful to write. But the greatest pain of all will come not if it is written or read, but if it is lived.