The Wench is Deceased (WWI)

Earnest Stanley, call this war, his war, WWI, the wench, or strumpet, or wild girl, it was all the same to him, it was on a Bridal horizon you might say, the war took him away from his wife, new wife, a wench grabbed him, and he had to yield to her call to active duty in the United States Military, the Army, this youthful blue-eyed and handsome man had just married, and off to war, to WWI, for it had just started for America, once in Europe, he was among the many foreigners mixed together like goulash, it was 1917, only one year would he remain there, not even that, perhaps eight-months, but he had marred Ella in 1916, and she would wait, and it was hard for him to keep his mind on a war, when he had a new wife, a plantation, well kind of a plantation, he had put money down on it, it was rocky, it had to be cleared, it was not what it could be, would be, if he could take care of it, all the things a young man dreamed of, and her comes a war, he never wanted to fight another mans battles, but I guess some did, and he was part of the pack that elected that someone to office, so he could get drafted into the Army. It was a traumatic experience for him to see the dead, the maimed, to know about the Missing POW's, the trenches filled with Germans shooting at him nine-hundred feet away; colonials, privates, the French, and the British among him, among the Americans, God's human masses colliding together, collectively trying to eliminate an enemy, sometimes at lightening speed. Cigarettes lit one after the other, as men stood waiting for the next onslaught, trying to understand this war of mud and trenches, and death and diseases, while remaining in a repugnant stalemate.

The General's Star (Part II, WWI, a Short Story)

The General watched from his guarded post, the battalion, was to charge over the top of the trenches, day two in his war with the Germans, after three years watching nothing happen, and wanting his second star, the general was desperate. He had put in Corporal Abernathy for the Distinguish Service Medal, and there was much talk about it, everyone now wanting a medal to bring home, and he General wanting the second star, and everyone's blood was like hot vinegar, hoping to empress him the general, and so he ordered another attack, he was reinforced with a new company, a new 172-troops, soldiers, untested under fire, and these new troops knew, the General lost 125- soldiers a day ago, the day before, and they had just arrived, to be told there was a second suicide mission, and they heard about what happened to the to that 125-soldiers, and they didn't like what they heard, and they were causing trouble with the other three companies, over 600-soldiers.

Broadcom ex-CEO indicted over drug parties, options

SANTA ANA/LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Broadcom Corp's former CEO took cocaine and spiked customers' drinks with ecstasy while also directing a criminal stock-options backdating conspiracy that cost the microchip company $2.2 billion, federal indictments released on Thursday charged.