For opportunity, wisdom and enthusiasm, thanks to my Editor, Devi Pillai and Editorial Director Jaime Levine. Kudos: for perfection, to Anna Maria Piluso; for stellar Art Direction, to Don Puckey; for telling the world, to Joy Saveriano; for copyediting, to Sara Schwager, and to all the others at Warner who contributed so much.
Thanks to the best agent between the orbits of Mercury and Jupiter, Winifred Golden, for all that and more, and to the most brilliant, visionary cover artist inhabiting this planet, Fred Gambino.
To the shy military and aerospace folks who kept me on the technologic straight-and-narrow, cheers. You know who you are.
To the Capitol Hill Gang and the Boulder Bunch, past and present, whose flinty critiques made this book, thanks. Your turns are coming.
To Robert A. Heinlein for inspiration and to Joe Haldeman for that and for his generous humanity, my gratitude forever.
Most important, to Mary Beth, more than thanks for all of the above and for everything that matters.
We crabbed shoulder to shoulder down cargo nets to our landing craft bucking in the Channel, each GI’s bilge-and-sea-soaked boots drenching his buddy below. In that moment I realized that we fight not for flags or against tyrants but for each other. For whatever remains of my life, those barely met strangers who dangled around me will be my only family. Strip away politics, and, wherever or whenever, war is an orphanage.