Thomas Wictor

A plurality of the people interested in military history are terminally unpleasant. I keep having that realization rammed into my block-of-oak head. They believe that accuracy is evil.

My latest dust-up with a very unpleasant, truculent military buff was over my statement that a certain book contains many historical inaccuracies. I won’t copy and paste the person’s comments, because then you could Google them. The person doesn’t deserve the attention.

He took issue with my assessment of the book by pointing out that it’s well received. Yes, it is.

And it’s still filled with inaccuracies.

Then he sarcastically demanded to know why, if the book was so inaccurate, I wasn’t out warning people away from it. He used three question marks to make sure I understood the contempt in which he held me and my opinion.

Typical raving moronism and insults from someone who has no argument and who’s decided to arbitrarily take up the cudgels on behalf of a stranger who isn’t even being attacked. I didn’t point out that the book is inaccurate because I hate the author, or because I’m trying to wreak havoc, or because I’m an asshole.

As someone who once wanted to have a career writing books on military history, I value accuracy. When someone finds inaccuracies in my books, I don’t get angry; I thank the person. Although so far I’ve received only one message concerning my misuse of one German noun. That’s it.

Plenty of military buffs are people who wish they could’ve been heroic. They themselves never fought in a war. To make up for it, they fight online. The problem is, by shouting down those who want accuracy, they’re making sure that inaccuracies persist.

So be it.

My book Assault Troops of World War I: The Central, Allied, and Neutral Powers will be my final book on military history. After the irrational deaths of my parents, I can’t engage people who have no coherent reason for doing what they do. I must cut them off.

In my exchange with the mental patient above, he angrily told me to not put words in his mouth…after he put words in my mouth. Then he claimed he wasn’t angry or taking anything personally, despite his insults and sarcasm. Though he wouldn’t admit it even for a million dollars, his only purpose was to silence me.

Tim tells me it’s simple envy. Who knows?

Nobody should be envious of me. So far my life has been almost nothing but pain. My military books are derided and ignored. I lost almost everything and everyone I loved. Essentially, my existence in this cycle has been an unending run of broken dreams.

Beware what you wish for, mental patients. None of you would last ten seconds inside my head. What I’ve seen, experienced, and survived would kill you as dead as my parents. Not only that, what I comprehend and feel would kill you.

My first-hand understanding of desolation, sorrow, torture, and failure is complete. The best X-Files episode is titled “Clyde Bruckman’s Final Repose.” Peter Boyle plays Clyde Buckman, an insurance salesman who’s psychic. However, his only psychic ability is knowing how and when people will die. Because of what he knows, his life is hell. He can’t escape his knowledge.

What I’ve experienced and figured out allows me to predict the end result of most peoples’ lives. Their dysfunctions tell me where they’re headed. They haunt me because there’s no saving them.

I live with the knowledge of what happened to this two-year-old, who’s trying so hard to please his parents, posing obediently with his hands clasped like a miniature German diplomat.

Because of the utter lack of mercy shown him, I had to stand over him eighty-two years after that photo was taken and recount the worst moments of our lives together, in an effort to help him die in peace. The surreality of the scene can’t be described.

I look at this little girl’s First Communion, and I know where she’ll be in seventy-eight years, killing herself over a nine-month period as her sons beg and die with her.

But I can look at the photos. I can write about those long-ago, lost children, despite the horror and tragedy. I’m stronger than you idiotic military fanboy freaks can even begin to comprehend. While I replay the deaths of my mother and father—as well as other equally appalling things—you want to fight about…nothing, since all I did was correct inaccuracies. Your imaginations are so bereft that you have to manufacture absurd Tonka Toy battles over issues that don’t even exist. I guess you’re bored with being at peace.

You’re so cute and innocent, taking everything for granted, blissfully unaware of what could happen to you. There’s no peace for me, and there never will be. It’s not possible. The damage is far too great. I understand too much, and I’ve seen too much. The darkness within me would snuff you right out, O Belligerent Military Mental Patients. I carry knowledge and memories that just a handful of people could endure.

If it’s envy that makes you so unpleasant and truculent, I’d trade places with you in a second, only for the pleasure of seeing your eyes widen, your mouth open in a silent scream, and your body slam lifeless to the earth. That would cheer me up for a solid month. No, make that a solid year. I’d get Tim to film it, and then we’d put it on YouTube. Viral City!

“Angry Mental Patient Enters Thomas Wictor’s Head, Dies Instantly!” Eighty million views.

It would’ve been nice to continue writing books on military history, but too many of you make me sick. You’re utter poison. And guess what?

Your deaths are going to be ghastly. Yes, like Clyde Bruckman, I can predict that. Horrible lives mean horrible deaths. Trust me; I’m an expert now. You’re headed for the abyss. In your case I won’t be upset in the least. You deserve it and the world will be a much better place without you. I can’t imagine being so toxic that my death would improve the overall state of humanity. And you choose to be that way!

So congratulations. You win. No more military books from me, and no more attempts to ensure accuracy. Shutting up now. My Military Tetrology will be enough.

For the non-insane people who might’ve wanted more books, I’m sorry. Someone else will come along. I may dip my toe back into the waters years from now.

But only when a plurality of today’s military buffs are dead.

In the meantime I have to concentrate on beauty, positivity, and art. The sewer dwellers can screw themselves.

Begone, military mental patients. You so thoroughly polluted my area of interest that now I associate it mostly with miserably unhappy, lunatic runts spoiling for a fight. I cast you out.