'Strike Group Reagan': Real Heroes Fighting Real Enemies

Since 1941, there is one question that was asked by an American president when a crisis broke out: “Where are the carriers?”

Strike Group Reagan is intended to tell the story of one such potential conflict – with the challenges that might occur, and how American servicemen improvise solutions to problems, adapt to an enemy’s plans and tactics, and overcome obstacles to accomplish their mission.

Even before 9/11, America’s “first responder” to an international crisis was usually a carrier strike group, sometimes teamed with a Marine Expeditionary Unit. This is not Cold War nostalgia. In the 1990s, carriers were sent to hot spots, the Taiwan crisis of 1996 being the most prominent. One of the reasons CIA and Special Operations personnel did so well in late 2001 was because of the support that came from USS Enterprise (CVN 65), which had turned around to arrive off Pakistan.

Yet there has been little, if any coverage of this side of the tale from Hollywood – or even the carriers in general. It is something long-neglected since the end of Desert Storm. Covering a carrier strike group’s response to the initial stages of a conflict seemed like a natural focus for a movie. So, I began writing a screenplay, and used it as the outline for the novel that became Strike Group Reagan. And as the writing process continued, the need for Strike Group Reagan in my mind became greater and greater.

This is not to complain about the heroic portrayals of American troops in several science-fiction TV franchises and movies. But why not tell tales of heroism against enemies other than Decepticons, Goa’uld, or alien invaders? It shouldn’t be too hard to show how American military personnel would improvise and adapt to the challenges that would come from such a conflict. If Hollywood can show American troops finding a way to take down Megatron’s minions, why can’t they show how our troops take down a group of Taliban thugs?

Several films, while box-office bombs, were little more than thinly-disguised screeds against the Global War on Terror. America’s troops were portrayed as victims – or worse. That portrayal is dead wrong – America’s servicemen are heroes – and deserve those portrayals with regards to the war on terror. I come from a Navy family – my dad served in the United States Navy, and was even on the front lines of the Cold War in a sense (having been on an SSBN deterrence patrol). I’m proud of his service.

At the same time, I also felt that I owed people more than just complaints about the situation. I wanted to try to contribute the sort of story I wanted to see. I felt the material was ample: In my lifetime, there have been several instances where the Marines have had to come in to evacuate Americans from conflict zones. Carriers have handled a number of “small” conflicts from the “Line of Death” confrontations with Libyan dictator Moammar Qaddafi in the 1980s to the “tanker war” of the late 1980s in the Persian Gulf. There are places where similar conflicts could occur today.

Strike Group Reagan is an effort to properly honor our troops – an effort to tell a tale of American troops in the global war on terror carrying out their mission. It is available on Amazon.com, or via Comfort Publishing, and there is a group for fans on Facebook.