It seems that not everybody enjoys a good cliffhanger. When I first published Chapter 153 a number of people made various comments concerning the marital state of my parents at the time of my birth, and a few others asked about my unnatural sexual interest in my mother. You have to love a good cliffhanger.
I had a few comments about the actual locations of some of the Marines and ships in 2003. My response? Since we didn’t have the massive interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan, the troop and ship deployments would have been very, very different. If I am sending in the Marines, why not let it be Charlie’s bunch? Several readers reported that they had been present in Monrovia shortly after the Marines went in for real, and my description was relatively accurate.
There were some comments that it was pretty obvious that once Charlie and the Fort McHenry turned up off Monrovia, he was bound to get into the action, regardless of Carl’s orders. That’s probably true, but I couldn’t find a conceivable way not to foreshadow things. Sorry if the surprise was ruined.