Burning In Hell

About the Book

Y?

On this, most of the way through year three in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), in these days of prequels; Star Wars, Air Wars, and perhaps ground wars, I manage to write this introduction six months after the last of my fifty-two Sarajevo  Scenarios and six months from the end  - maybe!  Why (Y)?  Things south  (Yugo) of here may shorten my stay along with the mounting strains within the Federation of BiH.  As I mention throughout the scenarios, I repeatedly experience sincere acts of humility from individual people here.  The religious practices, personal resiliency, and logical pursuits of excellence continue to attract my envy and help me maintain faith in people.  

 Unfortunately, I have only reconfirmed my thoughts on groups of people - diatribes of my co-workers and groups of locals permeate the following essays.  As you continue to see in Yugoslavia and the Balkans at the present, groups of people continue to grope for meaning to their nihilist existence.  We also do it in the United States and NATO, the Balkans, in Africa, South America, Asia, and everywhere else.  We do it in our families, our offices, our condominiums - we even do it in our communities outside the door.  

 Therefore, the question remains, Y?  Instead of enjoying and employing the human freedoms that were given us long ago, we opt for power and money that does nothing for other people, other beings, other things?  What gives anyone the right to impose anything on anyone else, tell someone else what to do, especially through oppression and suppression???? Why must everyone conform to the norm? What boredom? Are the majority of people so insecure that they most commit atrocities of the mind, body, and spirit whenever difference (or indifference) rears its head?  

 What follows in my essays questions and rebels against most everything main stream, conformist, popular, and consumer.  Indeed, I waste my time trying to ask Y?  

~   Y do former military and corporate officers flounder without authority?

~  Y are these same civilian officers seem so lost and insecure when they must earn their respect and loyalty?

~  Y do people who leave wars to be safe in another country so trash their obscure and ancient enemies that they never see or want to see?

~  Y do these same survivors call the ones who stay old fashion and conformists?

~  Y do we sacrifice world overpopulation and poverty for ten seconds of pleasure?

~  And then later leave spouses to be free again?

~  Y do families full of alcoholics tell us we drink too much?

~  Y do people who never make a serious decision or attempt their whole life tell you that you are never serious?

~  Y do religious leaders often incite differences in the public of their parishes but not in the public of the media?

~  Y do the same leaders put more respect in the mass of their superiors then the mass for their followers?

Having become a staunch believer in scientific evolution and often admit to being a rationalist, I could probably answer these questions without stretching the truth too far. Survival comes to mind and in this devastatingly violent century, survival bred ultra-conformism, ultra-comfortism, and ultra-conservatism.  The need for the psyche to preserve itself in a protective shell and the body in an ever-smaller vehicle has altered evolution just as bombs over and within Yugoslavia portend to do.  The ironic thing, as we age, is that belief in something, be it religious, philosophical, or psychological, tends to settle the soul, soothe the body, and free us from fears better than any misuse of power and control has ever done or ever will.

 The following scenarios were written as letters to family and friends to encapsulate my experiences here in a hel

About the Author

MD Connor was born and raised in northwest Connecticut. He attended the United States Military Academy and proceeded to serve in the US Army and for military contractors overseas and in the US for over 20 years. He is married to Cynthia Cindric and they call Washington, DC their temporary home.