"The Bard of Warriors has arrived " Tom Clancy April 12 1947 to October 1 2013

In Vahalla the Warriors are drinking mead and regaling each other with tales of glory when the door opens and a figure walks in, one of the warriors eyes the newcomer and exclaims "By Oden, the Bard of Warriors has arrived!"  The Vikings immediately make a place at the table and hand the newcomer a horn of mead and all make a toast to the newcomer "Welcome to Vahalla where all warriors live forever!

     Thomas Leo "Tom" Clancy, Jr. (April 12, 1947 – October 1, 2013) was an American author best known for his technically detailed espionage and military science storylines that are set during and in the aftermath of the Cold War, along with video games which bear his name for licensing and promotional purposes. Seventeen of his novels were best-sellers, with over 100 million copies in print.^[3] His name was also a brand for similar movie scripts written by ghost writers and many series of non-fiction books on military subjects and merged biographies of key leaders.

     I first became a fan of Tom Clancy back in the mid 80's, he wrote 2 books  that I got hold of the first one was "Hunt for Red October", the second one was "Red Storm Rising.  The second one I read while I was patrolling the 1K zone between West Germany and East Germany and Czechoslovakia.  He had the ability to make all his books seem real, it kinda scared the crap out of me, I kept expecting the 8th Guards Army and GSFG to roll over us, we in the Cav were viewed as "Speedbumps" and we were expected to die in place and give NATO a chance to call out the forces to defeat the Russians.    Funny how things have changed....and yet remain the same.  I remember on 9-11 when my wife called me and woke me up, I was on night shift at Ford Motor Company and she called me to tell me that a commercial plane hit the trade center, and my first reaction was " when did you start reading Tom Clancy?"  I didn't believe it until I turned on the TV and saw the second plane hit the tower and I knew that we were attacked and at war.
     I was a continual fan of his books and I always knew that he believed in American exceptional-ism and that we as Americans would prevail in the end.    
     We lost Vince Flynn and now Tom Clancy, The literary world for people on the conservative side is lessened.