Joe Haldeman was born in 1943, in Oklahoma City, OK. His family moved around, quite a bit, and he spent parts of his childhood in Puerto Rico, Bethesda, MD; Anchorage, New Orleans and Washington DC. He married Mary Gay Potter, in 1965; and, in 1967, he graduated from the University of Maryland, with a degree in physics and astronomy. Then, he was drafted into the United States Army.

Haldeman opposed the war and was a pacifist and even considered fleeing to Canada; but, his dream was to work for NASA and he knew that would kill his chances; so, he showed up at his induction center and went through boot camp and further training, before deploying to Vietnam, in 1968, as a combat engineer. He wrote letters home to his wife about the things he saw and experienced. His job routinely involved the use of explosives and the disposition of enemy munitions and explosives. A boobytrapped weapons cache resulted in an explosion and his injury, for which he was awarded a Purple Heart and given his ticket home.



After the war, he found home to be an alien place and he had troubles with things he had experienced. He sought psychiatric help and with therapy and lower and lower doses of psychiatric medicines, he coped. What really helped him cope, though, was the Milford's Writers Workshop. He was immersed in the craft of writing, surrounded by other writers and he found his true calling. What followed was a novella, called The War Year, published in 1972. It is a fictional account of Vietnam, but influenced by Haldeman's actual experiences and his letters to his wife.



From there, Haldeman combined his experiences in Vietnam and his love of science and science fiction and what emerged was a project for his MFA thesis, at the Iowa Writer's Workshop. It was first serialized in Analog, before being published as a complete novel, in 1974, as The Forever War.



Here, Haldeman distilled the Vietnam experience, in a future setting, with the Earth at war with an alien species, from the area of space in the constellation of Taurus. The enemy has not been seen and little is known about it. The novel was also written as a counter-point to Robert Heinlein's 1959 military science fiction novel, Starship Troopers.

Heinlein was a graduate of the US Naval Academy, in 1929, and served in the Nay for 5 years. It colored his view of the role of the military and he was a devout anti-Communist. The book was spawned in the wake of President Eisenhower suspending US nuclear testing, with the USSR continuing.. In it, Heinlein presents a world ruled by a military elite and only Federation military service can grant full benefits of citizenship. Most citizens are not franchised, but enjoy peaceful lives. However, only veterans have voting rights. The Earth becomes embroiled in a war with an alien race, known as "bugs" and the hero, Johnny Rico, becomes a member of the Mobile Infantry, a cross between a paratrooper and a Marine, with the soldiers using powered armor, to boost their fighting abilities. Haldeman, and many others, felt the book glorified war and presented a militarist POV. Haldeman praised the writing of the novel, but not the message. His work serves to present a combat soldier's POV, especially that of an unwinnable war, an unseen enemy, draftee soldiers, and alienation at home.

The Forever War won the 1976 Nebula Award for Best Novel and the Hugo and Locus Awards for the same, also in 1976. Pre-1991 editions of the novel were abridged, by the original editor, missing the middle section, "You Can Nver Go Back". That section was restored in the 1991 edition. Further restorations, to resolve internal inconsistencies, appeared in 1997.

In 1988, the novel was adapted for a graphic album series, by Flemish artist Mark van Oppen, professionally known as Marvano.



Van Oppen was born in Zolder, Begium, the son of a miner. he was originally on a path to follow his father's career, when economic upheaval of the 1970s changed that. He studied interior design and worked in that profession for a decade. He was also a comics fan, having crafted stories in childhood, about his teddy bears. He was an admirer of several influential Flemish cartoonists, as well as more realistic works from people like Greg, Christian Godard, and Derib. After trying to get into the industry, he found a niche doing science fiction work for the Dutch sci-fi magazine Orbit. In 1980, he adapted Larry Niven's novel, The Flight of the Horse. After working as the editor of Kuifje, the Dutch version of Tintin, as well as another failed magazine venture, he was attending a science fiction convention, where he fell into conversation with Haldeman and struck up a friendship. That led Haldeman to grant permission to publish a comic adaptation of The Forever War. Marvano was able to interest publisher Dupuis and Marvano began crafting the story in Dutch, while Thierry martins translated it into French, for the larger Franco-Belgian market. Haldeman scripted the dialogue over Marvano's finished art. The work was published in three volumes as Die Eeeuwige Oorlog, in The Netherlands, and La Guerre Eternelle, in France. US publisher NBM acquired the right to translate and publish in English, releasing the 3 volumes between 1990 and 1994 (which is how I encountered them, after having read the novel and The War Year). They were also serialized, in black and white, in Dark Horse Comics' Cheval Noir, which featured translated European works.







In 2017, the series was reprinted in 6 installments, by Titan, who also published Marvano's adaptation of the sequel, Forever Free.



The story features William Mandella, a physics doctoral candidate, who is drafted into the elite United Nations Expeditionary Force, which is made up of genius-level IQ soldiers. Here, Haldeman makes a stark contrast with Vietnam.

In 1966, the department of Defense implemented Project 100,000, where the minimum IG requirement for enlistment was lowered to the 10th percentile of the Armed Forces Qualification Test. Some 300,000 men who would have normally been barred from military service were recruited and drafted (54% recruits, 46% draftees) and then given the same training as other recruits and draftees. The Johnson Administration referred to them as "New Standards Men;" but, critics and members of the military referred to them as the "Moron Corps." Those brought into the program included those who did not speak English, those who scored low mental aptitude, those of substandard education, as well as minor physical issues and over- ad under-weight. Performance records were monitored, but no special remedial training was given to the troops to boost educational levels to their higher scoring peers. Subsequent studies showed that veterans were more likely to have a poorer education, greater unemployment and marital difficulties than non-veteran peers and that the Project 100,000 were largely deployed to combat in Vietnam.

Here, Haldeman reverses the situation, with the UN recruiting the highest scoring individuals, creating a military force of PhDs and technical experts.

Book 1 deals with their training, both on Earth on on the planet Cerberus, beyond Pluto. Live fire exercises and training missions emphasize the danger, as well as the absurdity. After a lecture on 8 ways to kill a man, with an entrenching shovel, one recruit questions when they would only be armed with a shovel and why attack the kidneys, which the Taurans may not have, and not the head. The training instructor responds that they might be wearing a helmet and that the Taurans were known to have a similar physiognomy as humans and it was conceivable that they would have complex systems, comparable to human anatomy. No one really believes it.



This is followed by news reports, exploring the history of the conflict and the departing UNEF fleet, to Aldebaran. A UNEF exploration vessel was attacked by a Tauran ship, touching off the war. The report notes that it will take 4 years to reach the location of the attack. Space travel over long distances is possible via collapsar jumps, where collapsar stars create portals, which allows ship to be accelerated to near-light speeds. However, the time dilation that results means that a 1 year tour equals decades of time, on Earth. The impetus of the war is the fear that the Taurans will take control of the portal planets, blocking interstellar travel. Time jumps, via traversing through black holes or collapsars, was discovered in 1998 and led to interstellar colonization, at lower expense than the Apollo Program.

Tarining is carried out on cold weather environments, on Earth, but then the troops are transported to their ships, parked in Earth orbit. They are then transported to the planet Cerebus, for further training, a trip which requires them to lie in stasis chambers, while massive G-forces occur as the ship accelerates and decelerates. The journey takes three weeks and injuries occur, en route, due to conditions. Finally, they arrive and a transported down to the planet, where they meet their training officer, Octavio Cortez. he outlines their training. over the course of a month, they will erect a base, on the dark side of Cerebus, and remain isolated, while being attacked by robot drones. They will defend themselves, without medical evacuation or reinforcement. It us up to them to stay alive and 1 in 10 will die in training.



In many ways, this training is similar to the training received by Special Forces, as they worked at building base camps, in forward areas, which they then carried out in Vietnam, as part of the Civilian Irregular Defense Group program, which moved communities into fortified villages, to defend against VC attacks. These camps would be resupplied by helicopter and reinforced by Mike Force units, if under siege. In reality, the camps limited mobility of civilians and became targets of the VC and many Vietnamese felt more like prisoners within the camps, than citizens. Many would leave these camps and a few were overrun by VC, resulting in heavy casualties, before being secured again by friendly forces.

Of Mandella's unit, 11 die in training and one is permanently maimed and must remain on Cerebus, as an invalid, as he could not survive the accelerations and deceleration forces, in stasis chambers.

mandella gets to know female recruit, Mary Gay Potter (named for Haldeman's wife), who had been studying biology. They learn to intercept incoming attacks and deploy ground forces to fight off invaders. They succeed in their first attack simulation, but their second is a different story. Their missile defenses operate on a "dead-man switch," where release of the trigger switch fires the weapon. In the second attack, they face simultaneous attack, from opposite directions and a moment's hesitation leads to casualties.

After the month's training, the unit boards their ship and spends 6 months travelling to Stargate, a planetoid, with a base, where they take on supplies and weapons, before departing to their assigned sector. They experience their first collapsar jump. When they emerge, they fire nuclear missiles at a Tauran ship. The commander of their ship gives them a briefing, before turning over to Sgt Cortez....



Despite their cold weather training, they are going to a warm planet, Aleph, near the star Epsilon, where the Taurans have a base. Their mission is to attack and bring back a Tauran, as prisoner.

Their mission is similar to p the patrols run in Vietnam, in VC territory. Patrols were sent out to hunt and engage the VC, inflict as many casualties as possible and bring back prisoners for interrogation. Patrols often went out without encountering the enemy, unless they felt the odds favored them. When they did engage, the VC often fired from hidden positions and then quickly withdrew, unless they felt they had the upper hand. Prisoners were more often taken in villages, during search and destroy missions, than in the field, by patrols on the jungle trails. More often, prisoners were considered VC, until proven otherwise and few were ever cleared of that designation. Many were killed outright and most were poorly treated and even murdered, in front of journalists.



The troops touch down on Aleph and deploy their forces, across it's grassy plains....



Potter reports in that they have spotted some animals and Cortez orders them to shoot to kill. Potter argues that the are just animals, but Cortez reminds them that they do no know what the Taurans look like. They fire on a beast, which resembles a sort of lumbering herbivore dinosaur, killing it. however, they discover that it was telepathic and a soldier that scored high on the telepathic testing scale is dead from a brain aneurism, caused by the animal's psychic projection. They do a quick roll call and discover that 4 other sensitives suffered severe headaches, but no casualties. The order goes out not to shoot the animals.

They bivouac for the night and Mandella is on guard duty, nervous in the alien darkness. He is drawn by movement, which turns out to be another native herbivore. Mandella stares at it and receives feelings that the creatures don't fear them, but are curious.

They continue their patrol the next day and encounter more animals, then Mandella calls in movement and they get their first glimpse of a Tauran...



They receive drone recon images of the Tauran base, where they see 30 more vehicles like the one the scout is piloting. They debate the numbers, when Hollister says there are hundreds, a message telepathically received from the herbivores.

Cortez relays their orders. They will launch a surprise attack with a ship-launched nuke, in the upper atmosphere, to disrupt their communications. the troopers will then atatck the base and leave one Tauran alive, for questioning. Potter questions the order and Cortez reiterates that all but one are to be killed, not one taken prisoner and some killed. They move into position and Cortez calls in the drone strike. Once the nuke is set off, Cortez starts reciting a Robert Burns poem, which triggers a sudden bloodlust in the troopers and they go on a killing rampage....



During the Vietnam War, when encountering enemy fire, it was not uncommon for troops to become enraged, especially after the wounding and death of their buddies. They often returned fire with violent methods and pressed their attack into villages, where they would clear buildings, often committing acts of violence against villagers, regardless of whether they were VC or not. In some cases, the violence was brief; in others, it led to the My Lai Massacre.

Following the Tet Offensive, Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, 20th Infantry were deployed to an area near the Son My village. Men were briefed that the residents should leave for the market, by 0700 and anyone who remained was VC or VC sympathizers. Orders were given and/or interpreted to mean that women and children were to be considered enemy and killed. Troops landed after gunships hit the village, but the soldiers received no incoming fire. They still believed the village housed VC. Gunships reported fire near another village, My Lai. The soldiers entered a hamlet and found only women, children and old men cooking breakfast. They herded the villagers into the center and then violence broke out, as a soldier struck an old man. Killings and violence ensued. Soon, it spread to other hamlets. 70-80 villagers were herded into an irrigation ditch and soldiers opened fire. others were forced down a road, before GIs opened fire. Buildings were set alight and animals shot. Although actual numbers are hard to determine, it is believed that at least 20 women and young girls were raped.

During the rampage, Warrant Officer Hugh Thompson Jr, who was flying close air support, noticed the bodies of the dead strewn about. he spotted bodies in a ditch and landed, asking a soldier to help get the civilians out of the ditch. They said they would help them out of their misery and Lt Calely said they were following orders. Thompson took off and witnessed the soldier shoot an unarmed civilian. He then landed his helicopter at another location, between other marauding GIs and civilians,, with orders to his crew to shoot anyone who tries to get at the civilians. he was able to get 12-16 civilian children out of a bunker, after an officer refused to aid them. Thomspon reported what he witnessed and compared the GIs to the Nazis, in WW2. Thompson received the Distinguished Flying cross for his actions to defend the civilians.

Mandella and his compatriots kill everything in sight, including the herbivores, which leads to casualties with some of the psychic sensitive. They move in on the base and the Taurans emerge, without arms and without returning fire.....



One lone Tauran is left alive and tries to reach an escape rocket, and is targeted for capture, but kills itself. The post-hypnotic command is released and the soldiers come to grips with what they have done....



The ship escapes and they know that the next encounter with the Taurans will be different, as they will know how humans fight. Mandella is disgusted with himself and the human race. Mary Gay nearly goes insane.

Book 2 opens with the unit back onboard ship, after suffering 14 casualties: 4 dead, one an amputee, and 14 driven insane by the mental conditioning and killing of the herbivores. They picked up 29 replacements at Stargate and are en route, when they receive an alert of a Tauran vessel that has fired a missile that accelerates faster than previously seen. The vessel is technologically advanced, due to the time dilation of the collapsar jumps, essentially from their future. 10 years time has elapsed on Earth, during their 2 years of military service. Cortez tells them that time shock may win or lose the war, as subjective timelines represent decades for themselves and the enemy, to react to events. The troops are ordered into their stasis chambers, as their ship will engage in a series of evasive maneuvers, at great acceleration. They have new accelerations tanks and they have ports implanted on their bodies and hook up their orifices to tubes, to regulate their body pressure. Despite the maneuvers, the ship is hit and there is a report of decompression in one of te chambers, where Mary Gay resides. Mandella and others unseal and rush there and he finds Mary Gay badly injured, but alive. Others are dead. They have footage of the new weapon and the captain makes to decision to abort their mission and return to Earth with the intelligence, to prepare for the next encounter with the Taurans.

The troops return to Earth and are discharged, having served their tour and collected their back pay. 26 years have passed on Earth. They do not recognize the society. Mandella's younger brother is elder middle aged and his mother is 84 and dying,. Medical treatment is rationed by priority and she is classified Priority Zero, lowest of all. Mike, Mandella's brother fills him in. Employment is tightly controlled and the veterans' skills are 25 years out of date. Instructors are greatly needed and they will feel pressure to re-up.



Upon returning to the US, many Vietnam veterans found it hard to find jobs. The economic impact of the war devastated the US economy, coupled with the OPEC oil embargo. Inflation was rampant and veterans found that civilian companies had little use for the skills of an infantryman or mortar expert. This was not exactly an unkown factor, as veterans of WW2 and Korea experienced similar issues....



Vietnam veterans also faced the alienation of having fought in an unpopular war, with images of napalm burned children and executed prisoners, with the stigma attached. Places like My Lai became synonymous with the war. Veterans learned not to bring up their service to avoid conflict or uncomfortable conversations. Substance abuse was heavy and the VA system was inadequate to deal with what became know as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. William Earhart spoke of being the oldest student in his classes, with others afraid to talk to him or would ask ignorant questions, but give off the impression that they weren't really interested in understanding and lacked the context to really understand what occurred there. He also spoke of being 20, a decorated combat veteran and unable to make the purchase of a car, because he wasn't yet 21. He had to give his father the money to make the purchase. Then he was not allowed to buy his own insurance and had to be carried on his parents', until 21. he felt that his government had spat on him, not anti-war protesters. He found himself drawn to the Vietnam Veterans Against the War, after the bombing of Cambodia and the Kent State shootings. He spent years self medicating, with alcohol, before turning to writing poetry to exorcise his demons.

Some veterans, unable to adjust, actually re-enlisted and went back to Vietnam, for another tour, because they understood things as they were, when they did not, at home. Others stayed in the military because it was an insulated environment and made careers of it. The unemployment rates were even worse for minority veterans.

Mandella and Mary gay are interviewed, but find their comments censored and twisted into propaganda statements, by the government. Homosexuality was encouraged as a means of birth control and the populace is predominantly gay. Universities are closed off to them, due to their age. They can take welfare relief, which is subsistance, living in a drug-induced stupor, watching video programming. Taxes are high.

William and Mary Gay find it difficult to continue their studies. William's mother is ill and denied all care. He obtains medicine and oxygen on the black market, but it isn't enough. Finally, Mike convinces them to rejoin the UNEF and come to the Moon, as instructors....



They are promoted to lieutenants and reassigned to combat infantry platoons, upon arrival. The UNEF lied to them.

They re-enter combat and pilot shuttles on a mission, where they take fire and receive injuries, though their new suits seal around injuries. They end up as amputees....



During the Vietnam War, 65-70% of casualties to the US Marines, in 1965, were due to land mines. Over 120,000 were hospitalized with injuries and a like number injured, but not hospitalized. Amputations were common and the image of the disabled vet is prominent in protests, reunions, dramas, and photos and camera footage from the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.


William and Mary Gay are transported to a hospital planet, called Heaven, where they will be fitted with mechanical prosthetics and spend 3 months recuperating from their injuries. The doctor advises them to lean on each other, for support. The prosthesis is actually a combination of synthetics and organic tissue, with metal bones and organic tissue over it. It does require treatment of localized cancers, in the process. William's relative time of service is now a century and he discovers that language has changed and their are descendants of humans who have never seen Earth.

He and Mary Gay spend their time on an isolated mesa, in a a beautiful surrounding, until the service calls them back. They arrive at Skye station, dedicated to pleasure, where they eventually receive their orders. Mandella is assigned to Stargate. Mary Gay is not...



They protest and request to be assigned together, but are denied. They are resigned to their fate and make love, one last time, then Mary Gay leaves for her assignment. They will now be on divergent subjective timelines; forever apart. William watches her ship depart from their spot and contemplates jumping, to end it all....



Mandella now has to deal with survivor's guilt, as Mary gay is effectively dead to him. Many combat veterans go through this, recalling buddies lost, plagued by nightmares.

Book 3 follows William, as he is promoted to major, given advanced training in military tactics and strategy, via VR and other learning aids. He is fed military history and philosophy and programmed with knowledge on waging war and killing, to his own disgust. He goes through battle simulations from different eras, flying Fokker DR7 triplanes and fighting with Shaka, in South Africa.

William meets his new executive officer, who has access to his file, which says he could kill a Tauran in dozens of ways, but probably couldn't kill a human,. They meet their new command, composed of soldiers born in vitro, genetically engineered to be soldiers and all homosexual. The exec is asexual, due to the loss of pretty much all of his sex organs and llower half of his body, replaced by synthetics. he meets his second field officer, what would have been Field First Sergeant, but the duration of the war has made them top-heavy with officers. New soldiers were drafted for 10 years subjective time, with a two one thousandths of a percent chance at survival.

The unit is being sent to a collapsar portal planet to establish a base and will remain there for 3 years, during which time they will likely be attacked. It will be the most distant outpost of the war. The ship's captain shows Mandella schematics of a new Tauran fighter, which looks nasty. Their hope is to arrive before the Taurans, dig in and build defenses.

The soldiers are armed with swords and axes, which can operate in stasis fields, as technology has advanced enough to shield against projectile and energy weapons. Thus, fighting has regressed to armed hand-to-hand and melee combat. The ship's doctor has an alcohol-laced conversation with William, revealing that the soldiers call him the "old queer," because he is over 400 Earth years old and heterosexual. She drunkenly makes a pass at him to experience heterosexual intercourse, but William refuses, because she is drunk and she then passes out.

They land and establish their base, but have no contact with the taurans. After 5 months, the stress gets to the unit and incidents start occurring. A soldier nearly kills a man who took up with his lover and is thrown in the brig. When he gets out, he tries it again. The exec wants to flush him out an airlock, which Mandella has the power to do, but doesn't want to exercise it. The soldier makes the decision for him and tries to attack him with a knife. William defends himself and the edge in experience subdues the man, before one of his officers holds a weapon on him. Later, William debates executing the soldier with his officers, when the soldier solves the problem again and attempts suicide. The doctor treats him and kicks Mandella out. She comes out to say he is dead, of cardiac arrest. She killed him.

Then, they receive an alert that two tauran cruisers and 8 fighters have appeared and are between their orbital ship and the planet. It is the attack they have anticipated. The ship has to engage and leaves a lifeboat for the ground troops. The ship destroys one cruiser, but then they spot another ship emerging from collapsar jump and recognize it as a troop lander. Mandella deploys his troops to prepare to intercept them. Fighters destroy a couple of landers, but they overwhelm them. The orbital ship runs a kamikaze attack on the remaining cruiser and sets off a massive shockwave that hits the surface. Mandella and his remaining troops are inside a stasis field and set up a nova bomb to destroy the Taurans. The Taurans enter the field with axes, but the humans are more adept at the edged weapons they carry. They activate the bomb and push it outside the field, where it detonates and kills the Taurans. After 6 days, the radiation has subsided and they shut down the field and survey the area.

Everyone is dead and they leave in the shuttle and link up with the lifeboat. They arrive back at Stargate some 350 years relative. They are met by identical soldiers, who turn out to be clones. They are told that the war is over.



It ended 221 years before. When Earth developed clones, they created a species that could communicate with the Taurans, who were a clone species. Finally, they had a mutual context for communication. Now, Stargate's purpose is to welcome home the returning veterans, who come in periodically, on different subjective timelines. They are told that veterans have settled on other planets, due to the changes at home. One called Middle Finger is favored by heterosexuals and William decides to go there. His exec and the doctor decide to join him. He receives his personnel file and finds a note from mary Gay, who returned previously. She says she is going to Middle Finger,



She and other veterans have purchased a ship and use it to make short collapsar jumps, while they wait for loved ones to return. It is a time machine, to bring them together, in the same subjective time.

The story ends with a news report....



The story has a happy ending and so does Joe Haldeman's. Aside from becoming a noted and celebrated science fiction author (as well as other fiction and non-fiction), Haldeman taught writing at MIT. He and Mary Gay have been married for over 50 years and his work is considered one of the classics of science fiction, celebrated and read throughout the world. It is considered one of the best modern anti-war novels, from the experiences of a veteran, much like Eric Maria Remarque's All Quiet on the Western Front. It serves in contrast to Starship Troopers and other military sci-fi to say war is a stupid thing and often predicated on an inability to communicate with the other side.

Here is a brief promotional clip of Haldeman, speaking about the book....



and a podcast interview, with Haldeman....



Haldeman is not alone in using his Vietnam experiences in science fiction. Author David Drake is also a Vietnam War veteran, serving in the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment (The Black Horse Regiment), in both Vietnam and the invasion of Cambodia. His series hammer's Slammers features a mercenary armor company, using hover tanks and artillery to fight on alien worlds. Military aspects fill that work, as well as his Republic of Cinnabar Navy space opera series, modelled on the Aubrey-Maturin adventure novels of Patrick O'Brian, set in the Napoleonic Wars (themselves inspired by CS Forrester's Hornblower series), Drake's writing has been accused of being militaristic, which may be a bit unfair; but it is not about the horror of war as much as the adventure, though as seen through the eyes of professionals. That does tend to color your view of the missions they undertake.

Within the comic book world, military sci-fi hasn't been a big element. There is Carl Potts' Alien Legion, though Potts was more interested in the adventure elements, again. It features a Foreign Legion, in space, with various races, a sort of melting pot, heavily influenced by Star Wars. As such, it mostly space opera and not exactly flushed with military authenticity.

Christopher Moeller produced his Iron Empires series, at Dark Horse, Caliber and DC and his work shows a bit more attention to the military aspects, but in a mixture of cultures, also in a sci-fi setting. his world is an empire with a political and religious structure that is interwoven, more reflective of medieval Europe. it bears a strong resemblance to the Warhammer 40,000 series, with warriors in powered battle armor and heavy weapons, like knights of old, supported by less armored infantry and hover tanks and artillery. Moeller mixes things like samurai traditions, warrior monks, elite soldiers, colonial races serving with humans, noble houses and the like, in a mix of intrigue and horror, as the empire is beset by a parasitic alien invader which inserts "worms" into the cerebral cortex to control species, like the creatures in Star Trek II, The Wrath of Khan. In the segment, called Sheva's War, we also see creatures that capture victims, enveloping them in a membrane, which sustains their life functions, as they feed on them and/or control them. Imagine a leech-like creature that partially swallows a victim, which remains alive, in its mouth and is sheltered inside a cape-like skin flap. Moeller writes of soldiers and warriors, but also duplicitous politicians and vain leaders, as well as the body horror of the alien invaders, and the common people caught in the danger zone. Moeller is also not a veteran, but has done more research into past military cultures.

Next, another 90s Vietnam-related comic, as we look at Ms. Tree Special #10, (formerly Ms tree Quarterly, but turned into semi-annual specials, for issues 9 and 10). The story features a mystery of Vietnam and an MIA soldier.