Novel Sneak Preview

This is a sneak preview of the upcoming Military Science Fiction Novel from Paul Honsinger, To Honor You Call Us, due out in October 2012 as a Kindle and Nook e-book and as an Amazon paperback.  The version you see here may differ slightly from the one that finally appears in print, due to editorial revisions.   

To Honor You Call Us

Book One of the “Man of War” Trilogy 

by

H. Paul Honsinger

© 2012 by H. Paul Honsinger

All Rights Reserved

The Man of War Trilogy

To Honor You Call Us (October 2012)

For Honor We Stand (Early 2013)

Brothers in Valor (Mid-Late 2013)

Hearts of Steel

(The Official Anthem and March of the Union Space Navy, with new verses for the current war, sung to the tune of the “Heart of Oak,” the official Anthem and March of the Royal Navy of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.)

To Stations my lads, 'tis to glory we steer,
Oh, sons of the Union, we fight without fear;
'Tis to Honor you call us, for Honor we stand;
We brothers in valor await fame’s command.

            (Chorus)

            Hearts of steel, that’s our ships; hearts of steel, that’s our men.

            We always are ready; steady, boys, steady!

            We'll fight, not surrender, again and again.

We’ll take payment in blood for the debt Krag must pay,
And carve them with cutlass when they come to play;
Our courage defiant ennobles the stars,

Stalwart sons of Ares, strong offspring of Mars.

            (Chorus)

We still make them bleed and we still make them die,

And shout mighty cheers as they fall from the sky;

So, to Stations me lads and let’s sing with one heart,

We will win this war if we all do our part.

             (Chorus)

Prologue

04:13Z Hours, 11 November 2314 (General Patton’s Birthday)     

            Lieutenant Max Robichaux, Union Space Navy, stood in the crowded boarding tube breathing the scent of fear-acrid sweat from the thirty-four other men he had been able to round up from the Emeka Moro.  With over fifty Krag boarders on his own ship, it seemed nothing short of insane to be counter-boarding the enemy vessel instead of defending his own.  Except that his shipmates were losing the battle for their own vessel.  Except that, unless the Krag ship could be disabled and the two vessels separated, the more numerous crew from the enemy Medium Battlecruiser would continue to flow into the Emeka Moro overwhelming the less numerous compliment of the smaller Frigate.  Except that, unless this desperate gamble worked, his own ship would be taken, refitted, crewed with Krag, and sent back into battle against the people who built her.  And, of course, there would be the small matter of the enemy brutally killing Max along with his shipmates and dumping their mutilated bodies into interstellar space.

            Call it an incentive to succeed.

            Max adjusted his gloves which not only chafed his large hands, but trapped his own nervous sweat against them.  “Five seconds, brace yourselves,” yelled the Engineer’s mate.  Every man covered his ears and opened his mouth to help prevent his eardrums from rupturing.  “Three, two, one,” Just as Max could see that the young man’s diaphragm was beginning the contraction that would allow him to utter the word “now,” the slowly telescoping boarding tube struck the outer hull of the Krag warship, triggering the breaching charge with a deafening THOOOOOOOM blowing a nearly two-meter opening into which the boarding tube penetrated just under an arm’s length.  Within a second, a polymer collar around the exterior of the tube folded out and adhered to the inside of the hull, making an airtight seal.  Just as the seal formed, the door at the end of the boarding tube dropped to form a ramp and the men under Max’s command stormed into the Krag ship. 

            They found themselves in a large cargo hold full of assorted containers, at least thirty meters square with a hatch on the far wall.  Immediately three men slipped off packs and pulled out three components which they assembled into a device, about a meter and a half square, which they activated.  Max noted that both the blue and green lights came on, indicating that, for now, the Krag ship’s internal sensors and coms were offline until their computer managed to decrypt the scrambling algorithm, which typically took from fourteen to twenty-three minutes.  He hoped it was long enough.

            A quick hot wire job by the Engineer’s Mate (what was his name, Tumlinson?, Tomlinson, Tomkins?) and the hatch slid open admitting the boarding party to a corridor.  Max was the first one through the door, sidearm in hand.  “After me,” he whispered hoarsely and the men followed him at a trot.  The Union had captured enough Krag ships in the decades’ long war for Max to know the general layout, and he was leading them to the Main Engine and Power Control Room.  The boarding party made its way quickly and without encountering any Krag up about sixty five meters of corridor and then turned a sharp corner into a short corridor that ended at the entrance to their destination. 

            There to be met by a hail of gunfire.  Ducking quickly out of the way of the bullets, Max pointed to three men behind him, then made a fist and a throwing motion, indicating that the three men were to use grenades.  They pulled the fist-sized devices from their web belts and yanked the pins while holding down the safety levers, then looked back at Max.  He held up three fingers and counted down silently:  “three, two, one.”  A full second after the “one,” and in unison, all three men threw their grenades hard against the far bulkhead of the corridor to land at the guards’ feet in a banking shot.  The three grenades went off about a tenth of a second apart.  Max and his men stormed around the corner shooting as they came, in case anyone was left standing. 

            No one was.  Four dead Krag lay bleeding near the door, pulse rifles in their hands.  “Remember men, once we get in, no shooting.  Boarding cutlasses only.  There are too many things in there that can kill us all if they get punctured by a bullet.”  He turned to the Engineer’s mate.  “Ready, Tomkins?”  That was his name.  Tomkins.  “Blow it.”

            Thomkins pressed and held two buttons on the side of his Percom, the green light on the small breaching charge he had just stuck on the hatch changed from green to red, and with a sharp BANG, the charge shredded the door.  Max led the way, his 63.5 centimeter boarding cutlass drawn, his men immediately joining in scores of separate one on one and three on two engagements with the twenty-five or so Krag engineers who had been manning stations in that space.  Spotting the panels that he needed to reach near the far end of the room, Max strode in that direction.  Immediately three Krag converged to block him.  The closest drew its own sword, a short, straight affair resembling a Roman gladius and stabbed at Max’s midriff.  With a powerful downward swipe of his own, longer, heavier blade, Max blocked the blow and struck his opponent with the back of his hand hard in the snout.  Stunned, the Krag staggered allowing Max to bring his cutlass back up and chop into the Krag’s neck, cutting about three quarters of the way through, severing its spine, and dropping it to the deck.

            The second, more skilled with a sword than the first, held its weapon in front of it like a fencing foil, ready to duel.  Max charged, leading with the point of his own weapon as if to accept the Krag’s invitation to a fencing match.  At the last moment, Max lunged forward and grabbed the end of the Krag’s sword in his gloved left hand, pushing the point away from himself while plunging his own weapon deep into the Krag’s abdomen and out its back.  Apparently, the Krag had not been looking for a point attack, as the Cutlass was primary regarded as a slashing weapon.

            Sensing rather than seeing the approach of the third Krag, Max quickly pulled his sword from the second and pivoted to his right to fend it off just as the one Marine Max had been able to find for the boarding party caught it from behind, stabbing swiftly into the Krag’s right lung with a distinctly non-regulation dirk.  The Krag fell to the deck on his back, gasping as its lungs collapsed from the air filling its chest cavity.  The Marine silenced the sound with a savage stomp to the Krag’s throat.  The way to the panels was now clear.  Max took a quick look around the compartment, seeing that all the Krag were out of the fight, except for four who were standing back to back mounting a last ditch defense.  Twenty or so lay dead or badly wounded on the deck, along with seven of his own men.  Confident that the remaining boarders would shortly overwhelm the four hold-outs, Max reached the panels he sought in three long steps, struggling briefly with the unfamiliar labels on the controls. 

            He pulled a small cylindrical device from his web belt, ripped off a piece of plastic film exposing an adhesive strip, and gave the end a quick half twist.  Max pressed the cylinder, adhesive side down, to the panel and stepped back.  He then repeated the procedure, attaching a second cylinder to a second panel.  A few seconds later, each made a loud, high pitched whine that started out near the top of the musical scale and rapidly ascended beyond the range of human hearing all the while emitting a brilliant red-orange glow that became brighter as the pitch became higher.  When the noise and the light both stopped, Max saw that all the displays in that entire area of the Krag engineering deck were dark, the delicate micro-circuitry of their components hopelessly fused.

            Until the Krag could bypass those units, a process that might take hours, their ship’s grappling field was off line and its motive power limited to maneuvering thrusters.  “Men, her claws are cut and her legs are broken.  Now, let’s get away before we overstay our welcome.”  Max had always been amused by the idea of boarding with a nuke rather than sabotage gear, but the thought of what would happen if the boarding party’s exit from the enemy ship were delayed didn’t bear contemplation.  Being caught inside the fireball of a nuclear explosion may be a quick and painless way to die, but it was also awfully damned certain.  Boarders always took or crippled the ship they boarded, but never destroyed it. That was best done at a safe distance from your own vessel.

            Max led the men the way they came, turning into the main corridor only to be met by about two dozen Krag marines, probably drawn by the sound of the earlier gunfire.  Each side fell back from the intersection too startled by the sudden appearance of its respective enemy to get off a shot.  Knowing he had only a second to act before the Krag got the same idea, Max pulled two grenades from his own web belt, one in each hand, extracted the pins with his teeth, and tossed them both around the corner.  As soon as they went off, he charged around the corner, his men behind him, the front rank of five men shooting from the hip and taking out about half of the Krag who were not felled by the grenades. 

            The two clumps of combatants merged in a close order melee, shooting at point blank range with side arms and hacking at each other with swords.  Max shot one Krag through the bottom of the jaw and was turning to meet another when he felt an odd tug at his left arm.  Turning, he saw a Krag sword slicing the back of his wrist, just as Crewman First Class Fong shot it through the back of the head.  As both groups started to thin from casualties and room between the fighters opened up, what had been an even balance between shooting and stabbing turned more and more to shooting with the advantage going to the slightly more numerous boarding party.  The remaining Krag ran with the Union crew shooting at their fleeing backs and bringing down four more.  Stepping over the bodies of friend and foe, Max led the remainder of his men, now numbering only nineteen, back into the cargo hold, down the boarding tube, through the airlock, and onto the Emeka Moro. 

            Tomkins pulled a large blue and yellow striped lever, sealing the boarding tube airlock then slapped a red button.  A loud WHUMP marked the detonation of the explosion that blew the tube cutting the near end loose from the Emeka Moro. 

            Max gave himself the luxury of half a minute—five quick breaths—to savor the familiar sights, sounds, and smells of being back aboard his own ship.  The boarding action had been a success, with the bonus that Max and most of his men were still alive. There were Navy crewmen left behind on the Krag ship, probably all dead by now, and there they would stay.  Sentimental notions about retrieving bodies of comrades had perished in the first weeks of this desperate war for the survival of the Human race.  But, if things continued according to plan, the fallen would receive the most thorough cremation known to Man.

             Leaning against the nearest bulkhead, Max hit the orange SND/ATN button on his Percom.

            “Robichaux to CIC.”

            “CIC,” the voice from the ship’s Command Information Center responded over the tiny device strapped to Max’s wrist.

            “Boarding party is Romeo Tango Sierra.”  Max said, informing the command crew that the boarding party had “RTS” or Returned To the Ship.  “Enemy Main Sublight Drive and grappling field disabled for estimated one hour minimum.  Nineteen effectives remaining.  Rest are Kilo India Alpha.”  Killed In Action.  Dead.  Almost half. 

            “Excellent work, Lieutenant.”  Max recognized the cool, well modulated voice of Captain Sanchez.  “Make your way to Auxiliary Control with your party.” 

            “Heading for Auxiliary Control, aye.”  Auxiliary control?  With enemy boarders to be fought?  Fighting the desire to shake his head at the order, he turned to the ragged remnant of his command.  “Men, we are ordered to Auxiliary Control.”  Down a corridor Max led his men, now huffing and puffing, up an access tube, down another corridor, up three more levels, and into another corridor that led about a hundred meters to yet another access tube that would let them climb two more decks to the level on which AuxCon was located.  Then CRACK-BOOOOOM.  A sharp blast followed by a long, deep rumbling shook the ship.  Max knew that sound.  It was the detonation of an implosion charge array collapsing a heavy spherical pressure bulkhead.  Like the one that surrounded CIC.

            Now the order made sense.  The Captain must have known that the Krag had taken the spaces surrounding CIC and were setting the carefully calculated arrangement of charges that, when detonated together, would crush the CIC pressure bulkhead like an eggshell, instantly killing everyone inside.  Everyone in CIC, which included every officer on the ship senior to Max, was now dead.  Captain Sanchez had just issued his last command.

            Max and his men poured out of the access tube onto Deck 8 and ran toward Auxiliary Control.  Dead men and dead Krag littered the corridor.  No one was left alive, save one Krag with a shredded right arm trying and failing to set breaching charge on the hatch.  Setting a breaching charge is a two-handed operation.  Max drew his sidearm and shot it cleanly through the head, absently kicked the body to the side, put his palm on the scanner, and keyed the access code. The hatch slid open admitting Max and his men to the room from which the ship could be fought if CIC were destroyed. 

            Only two Petty Officer Thirds were manning stations.  The rest of the crew who would ordinarily been there had probably been sent out to fight boarders.  Max threw himself into the seat at the Commander’s station and divided his attention between pulling up the displays he needed and putting people to work. 

            “Tomkins, Woo, and Lorenzo, take maneuvering.  Adamson, Tactical.  Marceaux, Weapons.  Fong, SysOps.  Montaba, Sensors.  Everyone else cover the rest of the stations as best you can—keep an eye on what’s going on and go where you are needed.  Don’t be afraid to sing out if you see anything, need anything, or have a question.  You’ve all got your Comets, so you know how to run every station in the ship, but you’ve never worked together doing these jobs, so you’ll just have to talk to each other, pitch in, and be flexible.”

            “Sir, you’re bleeding,” observed Montaba quietly.

            Max looked at his arm. His uniform sleeve was soaked with blood and he could see deeply into the muscles of his forearm.  The slash was deep, and yet, Max felt strangely distanced from the sensation of pain.  He pulled a First Aid Kit from an Emergency Equipment Bin, stuffed a volume bandage into the arm of his uniform, and then stuck his whole forearm into a compression sleeve, pulled the cinch, and tied it off.  The sleeve inflated to put pressure on the volume bandage and slow the bleeding, while a medication ampule in the bandage was ruptured by the pressure, releasing coagulants and an antibiotic cocktail into the wound.  Maybe Max would not bleed to death in the next few hours or die of an infection before he got to a doctor.  Just maybe.

            This took only about a minute.  People were moving quickly but efficiently to their assigned stations, getting their displays tied into working data channels and controls online.  Max stabbed a com button on his panel.  “Attention all hands, this is Lieutenant Robichaux in AuxCon.  CIC is gone and I have assumed command.  Ship is being conned from here.  All DC and Boarder Repel stations report your status by lights. I need two Marines to AuxCon.  Carry on at Condition One.  That is all.”  How the Marines in the ship were supposed to determine which two were to respond to this command, they would have to figure out for themselves, because Max had his hands full. 

            Indeed, Max had never commanded anything larger than a 350 ton System Patrol Vessel.  Now he was commanding a heavily damaged 25,600 metric ton Frigate in combat with a much larger and more powerful capital ship, light years from any hope of reinforcement or support, with virtually all of his officers and much of his crew dead.  The expression “over your head” didn’t even begin to cover it. 

            The crewman at the Damage Control Station sang out.  “Getting damage reports, sir. Relaying them to your board.”  It would take a few minutes before a complete picture developed.  

            “Boarders?” Max said to Lewis at the On Board Defense Station.

            “Only green lights so far, sir.  They are pretty well distributed throughout the ship.  Maybe we got them all.”

            “Maybe so.”  And maybe not.  Max stabbed the com button again.  “AuxCon to Engineering.” 

            A somewhat reedy but precise voice answered instantly.  “Engineering here.  Brown speaking.”

            “Werner!” Max responded gleefully, relief flooding through his every cell. He gave the name a German pronunciation, even though Engineer Brown’s accent was decidedly British. “Do you have any kind of engines working down there at all or am I going to have to order ‘out sweeps’ and have the crew row us home?”

            “Leftenant,” the Engineer exaggeratedly gave the rank the archaic British pronunciation, contrary to Naval procedure, “since your meager training still doesn’t encompass reading the Master Status Display, it is my duty to inform you that the Main Sublight Drive is available at up to 39.5 percent power, but I suggest you endeavor to keep that lower than 25. Compression Drive is available but no higher than 220 c.  Again, my strong recommendation is to approach that speed only in grave need—150 would be much more prudent.  The Jump Drive is nothing but scrap metal and molten pieces of abstract art.  Oh, and if I were you I shouldn’t want to pull anything more than about eight Gs because I don’t think that the inertial compensators are capable of more than 7.8 Gs.  That is, unless you wish to kill what little crew you have left.”

            “Understood, Werner.  If anything else of any importance breaks, let me know by com.  Master Status is down.  Would be nice if it worked.  Of course, it’s not like I expect you to fix it.”

            “I shall attend to it in my copious free time.  And, Leftenant, if you find yourself unable to remember the route to Lovell Station, feel free to ask me for directions.”

            “I’ll bear that in mind, Werner.  AuxCon out.”  Somewhere between a third and two thirds of the crew might be dead, one of the two star drives was gone for good, a vastly more powerful enemy vessel was just yards off the starboard beam, but Gallows humor was alive and well in the Union Space Navy.  Good thing. 

            He jabbed the com key once again.  “AuxCon to Casualty Station. . . . Anyone in Casualty, please respond.”  Nothing. “Anyone up here not insanely busy?”  An Ordinary Spacer Second Class stepped forward. “Shaloob, run on down to the Casualty Station, see what’s going on down there, and report back from the nearest working com.  With CIC gone, your Percom might not work.  And, we’re not sure the ship is clear of Krag so watch yourself.  Draw your sidearm and make sure you’ve got rounds in it and a spare mag.  Or three.”

            “Aye, Skipper,” the man said automatically.  He checked his weapon, drew two spare magazines from the AuxCon weapons locker, and went out the door, pistol in hand. 

            “Skipper,” Max thought.  “Maneuvering, open up some range between us and the Krag ship, in case they have any more ideas about boarding or they get their point defense weapons working again.  Get us out to 400 kilometers.  Course and throttle at your discretion, but take it easy on the old girl, she’s had a rough day.”

            “Aye, sir, 400 kilometers, course and throttle my discretion, taking it easy,” said Tomkins who apparently was the senior of the three at the maneuvering stations—one for yaw and roll, one for pitch and trim, and one for throttle. 

            “Tactical, what weapons do we have?”  Dear, God, please let there be some.       
            “I’m not getting any status, good or bad, from any of our pulse cannon. No lights at all. My opinion is that we should assume forward and rear batteries are out.  Number two and four missile tubes are available.  Tubes loaded, crews standing by, reloads at the ready.  But, I’ve got a red light on the main coils and amber on the auxiliary with the output driver showing at five percent, so it will almost be a dead tube fire.”  The magnetic coils that normally would accelerate the missiles out of their tubes at 61% of the speed of light were showing barely enough power to push them out of the ship at a hundred meters per second.  As a result, propelled only by their on board drive systems, the missiles’ speed would top out at about .30 c, making them far easier to shoot down.  “Tubes one and three show red lights across the board.”  Short pause. “I think their crews are dead, sir.”  Marceaux responded quickly and precisely, but his voice was shaking.  The Adrenalin was wearing off. 

            “God rest their souls,” he said softly.  “Good job, Marceaux.”  Then, in what the Navy called an Officer’s Order Voice, “This is a Nuclear Weapons Arming Order.  Arm missiles and warheads in tubes in two and four, and target the Krag ship.”

            “Nuclear Weapons Arming Order acknowledged and logged, sir.  Arming warheads in two and four, arming missiles in two and four, and targeting the Krag.”  Marceaux repeated his part of the time honored litany.

            “I plan to fire two while holding four in reserve in case two does not destroy the target or another target presents itself,” Max announced.  “Maneuvering, sing out when we get to 400 kills then turn to unmask the number two and four tubes.

            WHAM.  A hammer blow struck the ship rattling the teeth of everyone on board.

            “The Krag just fired one of their projectile weapons, sir,” Tactical observed.              “We noticed.   Mr. Adamson, give me a read on the projectile’s velocity.”

            “It was just over a thousand meters per second, sir.”

            “So, about ten percent.  Most of their acceleration coils must be out.  It will take a hit at the optimal angle for them to penetrate the hull.”

            “Unless they can zero in on one of our hull breaches,” Adamson muttered.

            “Glad you thought of that, Adamson. DC, do we know where our hull breaches are, yet?”

            “Affirmative sir, reports are tolerably complete.”  This from Arglewa.  Somehow he had acquired a nasty burn on his shaven scalp.  “We have two right together in Frame Eight at azimuth 205 and 212 and one in Frame Sixteen at Azimuth 223.” 

            “Thank you, Mr. Arglewa.  Get some burn foam on that shiny head of yours.  The glare is distracting me.  Maneuvering, do your best to roll the ship to present an azimuth of about. . . .” he took a rough average of the three azimuths and subtracted it from 360, “seventy five degrees to the enemy.”

            “Just passing 400 kills, sir, yawing to unmask tubes two and four and rolling to present seventy-five degree azimuth,” said Tomkins.

            “Very well.”

            Max’s comm. buzzed.  “Robichaux here.  Go ahead.”

            “This is Shaloob.  Casualty station is gone, sir.  I think the Krag blew the hatch and tossed in a satchel charge.  Looks like the place was full of wounded when they did it, too.  Nothing but debris and body parts now.  Nurse/Medic Salmons and Pharmacist’s Mate Cho have got a makeshift casualty station set up on the RecDeck.  I count fifty-three wounded there, thirty two look serious.  Salmons and Cho are performing surgery on someone right now so I didn’t interrupt them to get more information.” 

            “Good call, Shaloob, and good report.  When either Salmons or Cho get a second, ask them if they can use you there.  If so, lend a hand, if not hustle back here.” 

            “Aye, sir.”

            “AuxCon out.”

            WHAM.  Another Krag projectile slammed into the hull, this one causing two of the panels in the compartment’s false ceiling to fall to the deck.  A pre-pubescent Midshipman who had appeared in AuxCon without Max noticing calmly picked up the two panels and stacked them with the other debris he had quietly been arranging near the inoperable waste disposal chute, the look on his face as blasé as if he were policing a park for candy wrappers.  The boy had a short barreled shotgun slung over his shoulder and powder deposits on his face and hands proving he had made extensive use of it in the last few hours.  They grow up fast in the Navy.

            Max and Arglewa looked at each other and Arglewa shook his head.  The round had not penetrated.    

            Two marines with blood on their uniforms and fire in their eyes stepped into the compartment.  “Lance Corporal McGinty and Private Nogura reporting as ordered, sir,” said the older of the two. Both saluted smartly.

            “Thank you, gentlemen,” said Max, returning the salute with equal precision.  A Marine felt insulted if you gave him a sloppy salute.  “Take up station outside the hatch to this compartment.  You see any Navy, get ‘em in here.  You see any Krag, kill them.”

            “Aye, sir.”  The Marines did a perfect parade ground about face and took up their stations in the corridor. 

            “Tubes two and four unmasked, enemy targeted,” Marceaux reported.

            “Very well.”  Max responded.  “Mr. Marceaux, enable drives in missiles two and four.  Release warhead safeties.  Set for maximum yield.”

            “Enabling drives in missiles two and four.”  The weapons’ propulsion systems were switched from Off to Standby.  “Releasing warhead safeties.”   The safeties which inhibited ignition of the detonators in the compact H-Bombs at the core of each of the two warheads went inactive.  Once fired, and a last safety detected that the missile had traveled at least 10 kilometers from the launching ship, the warheads would become capable of exploding if properly triggered.  “Setting for maximum yield.”  Each warhead was dialed in for its maximum explosive power of 150 kilotons, more than ten times the power of the weapon that destroyed Hiroshima, Japan, three hundred and seventy years earlier. 

            “Open number two missile door,” said Max.

            “Number two open.”

            “Verify missile target.”

            “Sir,” Marceaux responded formally, “missile number two is targeted on the Krag vessel approximately 400 kills off our Port Dorsal Bow.”

            “Very well.  Weapons Officer, you have a Nuclear Launch Order.”

            “Confirmed, sir, I have a Nuclear Launch Order.”

            “Fire Two.”

            “Two away.”  The ship shuddered as the missile was accelerated marginally by the damaged coils in its launch tube and then continued to accelerate under its own power.  “Missile on course and homing on target.”  Marceaux sounded relieved.  He probably had never fired a live missile before.  “Impact in seven seconds.”

            There was an optical feed of the Krag ship on four displays strategically located around the compartment.  Every eye was glued to one of them as every man silently counted down the seconds, watching as the Krag ship slowly yawed, probably to unmask a just-repaired beam weapon battery and fire what was likely to be a killing blow to the frigate.  No one breathed, as it was always possible that the damaged Krag point defense batteries might pick up and destroy the missile, notwithstanding its own extensive countermeasures designed to prevent that from happening. 

            Three, two, one . . . Right on the mark, all four displays flared into almost painful brightness as the Krag ship disappeared in an incandescent sphere of rapidly expanding plasma slowly fading from a brilliant blue-white through the color-temperature spectrum into dull red and vanishing into infrared frequencies invisible to the human eye.  At last, there were only the cold distant lights of the stars set against the infinite dark of space. 

            Max spoke into the silence, just loud enough to be heard at the weapons station.  “Disable missile drive and Safe the warhead in tube four.”  Marceaux confirmed the order.

            To the whole room, “All right, people, the bad guys died.  We didn’t.  Excellent work.  Now, let’s see about getting the old girl back to Lovell Station.”  

"Graveside" Remarks for Harvey G. Honsinger

These are remarks I prepared to be delivered at the burial of my father, Harvey G. Honsinger, at the Mont Belvieu Methodist Cemetary at Mont Belvieu, Texas (also known as Barber's Hill).  Due to the threat of rain, the graveside ceremony was moved inside, to the Fisher Chapel of the Mont Belvieu United Methodist Church.  The text here is what I wrote for delivery at the graveside--obviously I changed what I actually said slightly to take the new venue into account.  


The chapel was a very fitting site--it is a beautiful white frame church with a beam ceiling and lovely stained glass windows, many bearing inscriptions showing they were donated by Harvey's ancestors and other relatives.  


Graveside Remarks for Harvey Honsinger

April 2, 2012

Good afternoon.  Thank you for coming.

For those of you who don’t know me, I am Harvey Paul Honsinger, everyone calls me Paul, and I am Harvey’s son.  

   

I feel certain that my father is pleased that you are here, each of you, because everyone here is special to him.  I know my father’s mind and his heart well enough to believe that he is especially happy to see the faces of his brother, Brian, of the folks he called “the Cousins,” that is the grandchildren of Q.K. and Clara Jane Barber who used to spend summers at the Bay together, along with Cousin Bruzzie—because from what I hear, you folks were in many ways more like brothers and sisters than cousins—plus his dear friend and hunting companion Bruce Jester, as well as all the other family, friends, and anyone here who grew up with him here or who knew him as a young man.  He loved you.  All of you.

I am confident, too, that Harvey is pleased that this place, of all the places on this Earth, is where he is being laid to rest, and that is not just because he left written instructions to that effect. For, even though he lived from 1958 until last Friday in Louisiana, he always considered himself a Texan. And, not just a Texan, but someone with a particular connection to this community, this town, this place.

Barber’s Hill was much more than just a place he was from.  He cherished growing up here, in this town, where everyone knew everyone else, where people looked out for one another, and where the town was, in many ways, simply an extension of the families of which it was made.   

He also valued very highly that he had deep roots here—that his ancestors had come here before the Texas Revolution and built their homes, and helped build this town, the schools, and the church that stood here, creating a community of families and fellowship and faith, where once there was nothing but a gentle hill surrounded by a sea of grass.

In fact, this spot is practically in the back yard of the very home in which he grew up.  It stood right over there, just yards away.  “Spittin’ distance,” you might say.  This place is so close that a pecan that fell from that tree right there—the same one in Harvey’s yard that he and his brother used to climb, the same one that made the nuts from which his mother, Vera, baked cookies and cakes could—almost—roll over here and come to rest against his headstone.

And the church that stood on this spot was important, too him, too.  Not just because his forebears donated the land and helped build the chapel with their own hands, but also because generation after generation worshipped here, received the Good News of our Lord here, were baptized here, were married here, and found their final rest here.

And, finally, I know it is of deep meaning to him that he will find his eternal rest here, surrounded by his parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, other family members and friends, many of him he has missed so keenly these past few years.

  

Indeed, this spot, this very spot, is what we might call a “spot of his childhood.”   At the memorial service held for him at Lake Charles, Louisiana, yesterday, we sang, according to one of Harvey’s final wishes, the old hymn—“The Church in the Wildwood.”  This was, I think, a very meaningful choice, and a choice made with this final resting place in mind, because here are the last words of the last verse, right out of the old Cokesbury Hymnal:

“When day fades away into night,

I would fain from this spot of my childhood

Wing my way to the mansions of light.”

The unchained soul of Harvey Honsinger has found his way, from this spot of his childhood, to the mansions of light.  We commit to the soil of Texas the body of this proud Son of Texas.  And, we ask that God accept Harvey’s loving spirit to wait with Him—to wait until Harvey can be joined there by all of those who knew and loved him and we are, all of us, joyfully reunited--reunited in the mansions of light.  

Eulogy for Harvey G. Honsinger

My father passed away from liver cancer at about 10 PM last Friday.  Here is the text of the eulogy I prepared for his memorial service.  I deviated from the prepared text slightly in a few places, but this is pretty close.  Perhaps some of the friends and family who were not at the service may wish to be able to read these words.

Memorial Remarks for Harvey Honsinger

Delivered by Paul Honsinger at Lake Charles, Louisiana on April 1, 2012

Good afternoon. Thank you, all of you, for coming here today.

Summing up the life of a man in a few minutes, particularly when that man is your own father, and even more when that man is someone as multifaceted as Harvey Honsinger, is not easy. It is like trying to tell a relative what the Grand Canyon is like by talking to him about it over your cell phone, or describing a beautiful symphony by just humming a few bars. Nothing I say will do justice to the man. So, please bear with me while I try as best I can to hum a just few bars of the symphony that was Harvey Honsinger. If the way I do it sounds a little strange to you, I’m a lawyer. I can’t help it. Consider it a handicap.


The hymn just sung, “The Church in the Wildwood,” was one of his favorite hymns, and it says a lot about him. It’s about a simple country church remembered from childhood. He loved it because, even though he was highly intelligent, well-educated, and widely read, he was, in many, many ways a simple, old fashioned man, marked by simple, old fashioned virtues. He loved, was faithful to, and cherished very deeply his wife and family. He was a caring and involved father to my sister Kathlene and me, and was very devoted to his grandson, Austin, and granddaughter, Sarah. He worked hard. He paid his bills and saved his money. He had strong faith. He was scrupulously honest and honorable in his dealings with everyone. He was unfailingly courteous. He said “please” and “thank you” and even called seventeen year old waitresses “ma’am.”

He was, in every way, a gentleman. I hear everywhere that chivalry is dead and that gentlemen are out of style, but that never stopped Harvey Honsinger from being that way.

You can’t talk about Harvey Honsinger without talking about his fifty-three year marriage to the love of his life, my mother, Judy Honsinger. They met on a blind date in 1958. He was working at Channel 10 in Lafayette and had noticed her when she had visited the station with a boyfriend that she was breaking up with. On the day of the visit, Harvey looked scruffy and Judy was NOT impressed. He, though, had been very taken with her from the beginning. The ex boyfriend called my mother on behalf of dad and said something about going out, meaning going out with my father. She misunderstood him, thinking that the soon to be ex was asking her out himself, and she said that she would go out with anyone but the boyfriend. So, he said that he had a friend named Harvey who thought she was nice looking and wanted to go out with her. Well, mom had kind of painted herself into a corner and even though she wasn’t really hot on the idea about going out with this Harvey guy, she reluctantly said yes.
       
But, aha, Judy had a plan. Yes, she was going to go to a movie with this Harvey guy, but her younger sister, Norma, was going to go to the same movie and sit in the back. If he so much as held her hand, she was going to go home with Norma and that would be that.

My father, however, had a different—and better--plan. At the appointed hour, he showed up at Judy’s door in Lafayette, immaculately groomed, surrounded by the aroma of cologne, wearing a suit and tie, complete with a French cuff dress shirt and silver cufflinks.
       
Judy still has the tie.

Harvey asked her to go dancing with him. In Abbeville. Judy, who was a bit weak in the knees at this point, forgot completely about her sister Norma back at the movie theater, and floated out the door with him. To his dying day, Harvey remembered exactly how Judy looked and what she wore that night. It was a blue taffeta dress.

She still has the dress.

When my mother described that night to me, she sounded as though she felt she was flying. Maybe she was. In fifty three years of marriage, the air might have occasionally been turbulent, but the plane never landed.

Harvey and Judy were deeply and passionately in love from that night until death parted them. He treated her with unfailing and consistent gentleness, honor, respect, and love every day of his life, and he never stopped telling my sister and myself how lucky he was to be married to such a beautiful and patient woman. He cherished and adored her every day, and there was love and adoration in his eyes for her until the very, very last moment. She was his beloved, his treasure, his heart of hearts.

He was a big man, always larger than life in the minds and hearts of so many who knew him. He was big, not just in physical dimensions, but in every other way. He had a loud, warm, boisterous laugh, a strong, commanding presence, a resolute will, firm opinions, and a big, booming voice. Stage performers they talk about an actor “filling up his space.” Harvey Honsinger filled a lot of space. His departure leaves a huge, cavernous void. The passing of his voice and his of his laughter leaves an eerie stillness.

Speaking of his laughter, it would be a great injustice to talk about my father without talking about his sense of humor. In particular, he had a fine sense of how to bamboozle the credulous. When my sister bought her first car, a Mazda with a transverse drive train—you know, the kind where the drive shaft goes from left to right instead of from front to back--she proudly lifted the hood to show him the engine. He immediately pointed out to her how the engine was aligned and he told her “little girl, they put your engine in sideways.”

My bright, accomplished, beautiful sister was the apple of his eye, but she occasionally can be a tiny bit gullible and so, she was a frequent target for this kind of humor. One time when she was about ten, he had been fishing, and he put a little croaker, a fish that makes a distinctive noise, in his shirt pocket, and said to her, “Kathlene, listen to my heart.” She put her head right by the fish, which went “bwaaaap.” She nearly passed out.
       
In case you think that he was anything but soft hearted about his little girl, you should know one amazing thing that he did out of his feeling for her. When Kathlene was about five, America finally woke up to the fact that cigarette smoking caused cancer. Dad was a smoker. I don’t mean he smoked cigarettes, I mean he was a smoker—nicotine had its claws deep, deep into him. One day, she came to him crying inconsolably. When she could finally talk, she said something like, “I don’t know what I would do if my daddy died of cancer.”

That day, he flushed every cigarette he owned down the toilet and quit cold turkey. Forever. On the first try. This was before nicotine patches. Before nicotine gum. Before pills to help with the cravings. He did it with nothing but Tootsie Pops and iron determination. For his little girl.

Back to his sense of humor, he loved duck hunting, and often hunted with his brother and Mark Baker, an outstanding gentleman who is in all but name the adopted son of dad’s brother Brian. Dad and Mark often disagreed over which of them had killed a particular duck. Dad told Mark that he had solved that problem by buying for Mark special shotgun shells: according to Harvey, the pellets were coated with a high-tech concentrated dye that would color green the blood of any duck hit with them. So, if the blood was not green, then Mark had not hit the duck. Obviously, there was no such thing as the special marker shotgun shells.

For years, if there was a question about who had killed the duck, they would cut into it and Dad would say, “no green, Mark, it must be my duck.”
       
When we were little, one time after it had been raining a lot, there were lots of mushrooms popping up in the yards of our neighborhood in Oak Park. Mom noticed the neighborhood kids peering carefully and minutely under every single mushroom. When she wondered aloud to Dad what they were doing, he told her that he had told the kids that the mushrooms were fairy umbrellas and they were all trying to find the fairies.

My father is probably best known here in Lake Charles for the 20 years he worked at KPLC. He had many professional accomplishments there, but I like to remember him as Santa Claus. Every year around Christmas, in the afternoons the station had a Santa Claus show where, sandwiched between the regular programming, they would feature Santa with local children. Dad got the part because, well, he looked the part.

Anyway, Harvey’s Santa was jolly and warm, but with a stern side. Sure, he asked the children what they wanted for Christmas, and had a merry HO HO HO but he didn’t just take their word on whether they had been naughty or nice. Oh, no. Instead, he asked them if they helped their parents with chores around the house, what those chores were, and whether they did them right away or whether they had to be asked again and again. He asked whether they did their homework and if they were kind to their younger brothers and sisters. Whether they fed their pets. Whether they were respectful to their teachers. Santa was tough. And he had an agenda.

For years he directed a program called the Lee Janot show. As many of you remember, Lee Janot was a local personality who had a powerful ego and who considered herself very much the star of local television. Well, she may have been the star, but Harvey Honsinger was the Director, charged under FCC regulations and station policy with full and absolute responsibility for everything that went out over the air during his shift. It was inevitable that they would butt heads.

It was a live show and the program had to be planned in a fair degree of detail. Lee was a free-wheeling soul, and liked to do things out of order or to improvise, which was not acceptable to my father. Finally, he put his chips on the table and told her he was in charge and she would have to stick to the script. Lee raised. “What are you going to do, Harvey,” she said, “cut me off and show a test pattern.”

“No,” he replied, upping the ante, “I’ll cut you off and for the rest of the time slot I’ll run Deputy Dog cartoons.” (Y’all remember Deputy Dog, right?).

“You wouldn’t dare.”

“Just try me.”

Well, one day, thinking she was calling his bluff, she went way way off the script. Bam. Harvey punched the button killing the show. Whack. He punched the button to start the film running and Zoom, out over the air waves went Deputy Dog.

From that point on, they had a friendly, respectful relationship. If you remember the show, you may remember Lee asking frequently, “Harvey, is it OK if we do whatever?” “Harvey, can we do this, that, or the other thing?” She knew to ask, because if she didn’t there was a Deputy Dog cartoon set to roll on a moment’s notice.

[Addendum:  Since the service, I have been reliably informed that the correct spelling of this particular cartoon is actually "Deputy Dawg" not "Deputy Dog."  Of course, where I grew up, the difference in spelling was NOT audible.]

After KPLC he had a second career as a Probation and Parole agent, later supervisor, later District Manager/Administrator for one fifth of the entire state. It was a major change but he didn’t seem to have any trouble. When the man who was doing the hiring at Probation and Parole called one of my dad’s references, a man who used to work with him at the TV Station, the supervisor asked this man whether he thought my father could do the job. He replied, “did Harvey say he could do it?” The caller told him yes. “Well, if Harvey Honsinger said he could do it, you can bet your last dollar that he can do it.” He was very happy in his second career as a law enforcement officer and was very, very proud to carry the badge.

And, after his retirement in 2002, he devoted much of his time to writing. Finally, in October of last year, he was published. Firehair: A Novel of the West by Harvey Honsinger is available for sale worldwide. In his last days, he delivered another manuscript, which will be published and available in a few months. As his editor, I can tell you that he was a gifted storyteller, he had an ear for dialogue, and a marvelous ability to bring to life the way people lived their daily lives in a bygone era. He was an extraordinarily talented novelist.

He wrote those books on the same computer that I used to write these remarks. He loved what the computer allowed him to do, but had many frustrating hours trying to get it to do his will. It was a love/hate relationship, and somewhere in the stratosphere over Moss Bluff, there still is a cloud of ozone and thunder from his battles with the evil forces that lurked inside that machine. He is getting the last laugh now.

There is so much more that could be said about him and so much more that deserves to be said. But, he left specific, written instructions that the remarks at his service be brief. I am very concerned that if I go on too long, he will find a way to make me go away and put Deputy Dog in my place. So, I think it appropriate to leave you with this.

He was a good man. He loved his wife, his family, and his country. He strove every day of his life to do the right thing, and to do injury to no one. And, when he learned that the end was coming, he faced it with absolute courage and determination. He made his final arrangements, saw that his beloved Judy was provided for, and went gently, quietly, and without complaint.

God has now unchained Harvey’s spirit from the weight of his earthly body. Tomorrow, he will be laid in the soil of his beloved Texas, at the site of the church built by his family and where they worshipped for more than a hundred years, just yards from the house in which he grew up, and surrounded by the departed family members he has lately missed so much.

That place is a “spot of his childhood.” And, I think that maybe he had that somewhere in mind when he picked the “Church in the Wildwood” hymn to be sung today, because here is the end of the last verse:

“When day fades away into night,
 I would fain from this spot of my childhood
 Wing my way to the mansions of light.”
       
Harvey Honsinger has found his way to the mansions of light. We are left with the emptiness created by his all-too-swift departure. Yet, we who loved him and are left behind are sustained by glowing memories of his love, his humor, his almost bone-crushing bear hugs, his warm smile, and above all, his laughter.

The Perils of Social Media

If you have a pending family law case, or are expecting to be involved in one soon, especially if it involves child custody, you need to take a very close look at your Facebook and Twitter accounts, as well as any photo sharing accounts you might have.  Assume that the other side in the case is going to find those accounts, is going to go through them with a fine-toothed comb, and is going to try to use against you anything that can in any way be made in any way to look bad for you.

I had a case several months ago in which my client made a comment on Facebook that, could be taken several ways, one of which was that he and his friend were going to remove valuable parts from a boat that was going to be turned over to his ex wife.  The court read the comment in the way most damaging to my client and ruled that he had damaged the asset.

In another case, on my client's Facebook page there there were some photographs taken at a party that were not exactly flattering to my client.  Fortunately, I was able to keep them from being admitted based on the date on which they were taken and other evidence-law grounds.

On more than one occasion, in custody cases, I have found pictures of the opposing party and the children posted on line in which the other parent appeared to be drunk and in which there were beer or liquor bottles in the same frame as the children.

And, even if the pictures are posted to a password protected account for your friends and family only, don't assume that your ex or soon to be hasn't guessed or stolen or cracked your password.

It may be that in your social circle it is fashionable to post pictures of yourself drunk or drinking or groping each other or otherwise "horsing around" on camera.  It is not my place to comment on that.  However, it is my place to advise you that, if you have a family law case, you should look very critically at everything you have posted on line from the viewpoint of a fifty year old Family Court Judge who is charged by law with protecting the best interests of the children.  If in doubt, take it out.

The Myth of the Biased Judge

A few days ago, when writing about some of the things clients should do or bear in mind when working with their divorce or custody attorney, I talked about clients' often erroneous perception that the judge in their case is biased.  I mentioned that, in my experience, few judges suffer from any kind of consistent bias in favor of moms or dads or husbands or wives.  I am also strongly of the view that the overwhelming majority of judges are strictly unbiased in every conceivable respect.

The generally high ethics of our judges was driven home to me today when I received an order from a local Superior Court Judge in which he—on his own motion—decided to recuse himself from a case.  In that case, the mother is seeking to move out of state with the children so that she can attend a four-year university (which we don’t have in Mohave County, Arizona).  Under Arizona law, the father has a right to object to the move and to have the Court determine whether allowing the relocation is in the best interest of the children.  Here, the father did so object (I represent the mother); accordingly, the Court needs to determine whether the mother will be allowed to move out of town with the children.

No one had voiced the slightest concern to this judge, but he simply decided that he should not continue with the case.  I thought that the reasons he gave in his order might help the folks who read this blog understand the lengths to which judges go to be completely impartial, so I have reprinted them below.  Although the Order is a public document, out of respect for the judge, I have not included his name, and have deleted certain other information which might allow identification of the parties:

“The Court set this matter for hearing on the Petition to Prevent Relocation and then questioned itself as to the propriety of hearing this matter. For the past couple of years the Court has witnessed the parent’s interaction with the children on numerous instances, and in most particular, how well the Petitioner has conducted himself with the children, primarily at [certain sports events attended by both the judge and the parents]. In the relocation case, the Court will be called upon to make findings under both A.R.S. §§ 25-403 and 408. The Court has come to the conclusion that it would inevitably have to draw upon its personal observations with the parents of the children, and in particular, that of the Petitioner.

Therefore, in order to avoid the appearance of impropriety, the Court recuses itself in this matter.”

My files are full of orders of this kind, where a judge recuses himself because when he was a private attorney he represented the parents of one of the parties, or because the judge attends the same church as a party, or because the judge has some distant social connection with the parties, and so forth.  I once had a judge recuse himself because an expert witness—not one of the parties but simply one of the witnesses—was someone with whom the judge sometimes plays golf. 

I’m sure that there are biased trial court judges out there somewhere.  But, it has been a long time since I have tried a case in front of one. Most people who think they see evidence of bias on the part of a judge do so from their own biased perspective, or because they don't understand the law that the judge must apply to their case.

Working with Your Divorce/Custody Attorney: Part Three

Based on reader traffic, it seems that my previous posts on how to work effectively with your divorce/custody attorney have been popular.  Accordingly, and because there is always more to learn in this area, here are a few more tips that I hope some of you find helpful.

1.  Write down a list of your questions before meeting with or calling the attorney, and then write down the answers.  I can't even begin to count the number of times clients have come into my office with their mind brimming over with questions, only to find that they can only remember a few of them when it comes time to sit down with me in my conference room.  There is something about going in the attorney's office that makes some people's minds go blank, just as there is something about going in the doctor's office that makes people's blood pressure go up.  If you write your questions down, not only are you not going to forget them, you won't have to spend valuable time (for which you are paying a pretty penny!) trying to remember your questions. Rather, you can march quickly through your questions and conclude the meeting quickly and efficiently.

2.  Pay careful attention to the "paperwork" you get from the attorney.  Your attorney has an obligation to send you copies of all the correspondence he receives in your case, as well as copies of everything filed with the court, both on your behalf and on behalf of the other party.  All of this stuff is important and your attorney didn't send it to you just for the purpose of killing more trees.  Rather, it was sent to you for the purpose of keeping you informed of the progress of your case.  You should do your best to read it carefully and understand it.  If there is something you don't understand, then you should call the office and ask for someone there to explain to you what it means.  You should also have a file or folder in which you keep all of these documents so that you can refer back to them later.  Every so often I get calls from clients wanting to know the "status" of their case, when they just received a mailing from my office containing a package of correspondence and pleadings that show them exactly what the "status" is.  When I ask whether they read what I sent them, they often say something like "all that legal stuff?  I just toss that in a drawer."  So, in effect, the client is paying me and my staff for the paperwork that informs them of the "status" of the case, and then is also paying me to talk to them about the same "status" that the documents they have already received have completely explained to them.  That is a waste of the client's money.

3.  Do not communicate with the other party about the substance of the case without planning those communications with your attorney and keeping the attorney informed every step of the way.  My clients often settle their own cases, and I have no problem with that.  In fact, I like it. The problems arise, however, when people go off half cocked and make offers to the other side without talking to the lawyer first. Sometimes the offer comes at a time that does not work well with the overall strategy of the case.  Sometimes what is offered is a bad idea for the client (because it has not been thought through or the client doesn't have the experience to know that some ideas that look good on paper never work out in practice). Sometimes what the client has offered is outright illegal.  If you are going to make an offer to the opposing party yourself, you need to talk it over with your lawyer before you do so to make sure that it is a good idea and is something that can be done, and then you need to keep your lawyer in the loop through the whole process so that you can get advice AND so that the lawyer doesn't take a position or do something in the case that works at cross purposes to what you are doing.  GENERALLY, negotiations should take place between the two attorneys, or--if the other party is not represented--between your attorney and the other party.  Sometimes, as described above, it is all right for the parties to do these things directly, but you should be sure to keep your attorney involved at every step.  Remember, the attorney does this for a living and has skills, knowledge, and experience in this area that can be very valuable to you.

4.  Do not rely on your "knowledge" of the law and your friends'  "advice" in place of the informed legal advice of your attorney.  There are tons of things that "everybody knows" about the law pertaining to divorce and custody. Most of them are wrong. Dozens of my clients have shot themselves in the foot by disregarding my advice and doing what they thought they were entitled to do or should do based on their own supposed knowledge of the law or the advice of well-meaning friends.  The law is complex, varies from state to state, and changes constantly.  There is a reason your attorney had to obtain a four year degree from an accredited college or university, then complete a three year course of instruction at law school (long enough to get a doctorate in many places), and then pass a rigorous bar examination in each state in which he practices.  What you and your friends "know" about the law may be what the law was ten or twenty years ago, may be the law in another state or states, or may be a distorted or over-simplified version of a subtle rule that doesn't work the way you think it works, or may just be flat out wrong.  In some cases, relying this knowledge can be so wrong as to land you in jail or cost you hundreds of thousands of dollars.  

5.  Do not believe what you hear on the "street" about your judge.  Hardly a month goes by without my getting a call from one of my clients asking me if we need to see about getting a particular judge taken off of our case because the client heard that this judge "always favors the father" or "leans toward the wife all the time."  More than once, I have heard reports of contradictory rumors about the same judge:  one client hears that "Judge Jones" leans toward men and another hearing that "Judge Jones" is biased toward women.  Such rumors are almost always untrue.  Usually, they are based on one person's experience with that judge in one case, a case which the speaker generally lost (and, very often, deserved to lose) on some issue that was important to him or her.  Human nature being what it is, the speaker cannot bring himself to believe that he lost his custody case because he was not the better parent; accordingly, it must be because the judge was biased.  Naturally, the speaker will back up his position by saying things like "you could just tell from the questions the judge was biased."  Well, I have had people bring me these cases to see if there is grounds for an appeal, and I have read the transcripts of some of these hearings, and what the client perceived as bias was simply reasonable questions that any judge would ask under the circumstances.  They just felt like the judge was against the client because they were hard questions.  In fact, often these questions brought out the reason the client deserved to lose the case.  If you think your judge may be biased, ask your attorney.  The attorney's experience with that judge typically extends far beyond a single case, and may extend to dozens of cases with that judge.  I will tell you categorically that none of the judges before whom I regularly try these cases has ever shown the slightest hint of gender bias.  I'm sure that there are some out there who do, but I have yet to encounter one.

Family law judges make hard decisions in a hard and ambiguous world.  These decisions, and the questions and procedures that Judges use in order to get to those decisions, will often feel like bias to a party or to someone with an interest in the case.  Because of their own inherent bias, and because they don't have the training to evaluate the performance of a judge, the opinion of a lay person on the bias or competence of a judge is generally next to useless.  This is absolutely a subject on which you should rely on the advice of an attorney who regularly practices before the judge in question.

Is Facebook a Marriage Killer?

There is a lot of talk right now on the Internet, in news articles, even from church pulpits, about the social networking site, Facebook, being a “Marriage Killer.”  Some lawyers are saying that Facebook is a major factor in one in five divorces.  I haven't seen that in my practice, but my we may just be behind the times here in Lake Havasu City, Arizona, which--while lovely--is often not the trendiest of places.  Other lawyers will tell you that Facebook accounts are a major source of information that they mine to get dirt on cheating spouses. There are preachers telling their congregations that, if they value their marriages, they will go home right after the service and cancel their Facebook accounts.  You can find some of that discussion in the articles linked here.  If you want more, just Google “facebook marriage killer” and you will have reading material for a week.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1334482/The-marriage-killer-One-American-divorces-involve-Facebook.html

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1334482/The-marriage-killer-One-American-divorces-involve-Facebook.html

http://business.ezinemark.com/facebook-has-become-a-virtual-marriage-killer-3192fd81c35.html

For the record, I am not a member of Facebook or any other social networking site.  I don't have anything against them, they just seem to soak up a lot of time that I need to spend on other things.

My wife, Kathy, and I are co-authors of the book How to Save Your Marriage from 12 Top Marriage Killers.  Facebook is not one of the marriage killers we list.  But, since the phrase “marriage killers” in the title, I feel compelled to put in my oar and, as a person with a naturally contrarian and argumentative personality, I am going to voice an opinion that on the subject that appears to be a minority view.

My position is simply this:  Facebook is not a marriage killer.  Or, at least, it is no more a marriage killer than the telephone, the automobile, women working outside the home, the social acceptability of men and women mixing socially without their spouses, cell phones, email, internet chat rooms, instant messaging, and text messaging—all of which were derided as greased poles to the perdition of adultery in their time.  The real marriage killers at work here are the same ones that have been at work since the beginning of time, Lack of Commitment, Boredom, and so on. 

These situations and technologies merely provide means and opportunity for adultery.  They are not the cause.  Let’s be honest.  When you “friend” an old flame on Facebook, maybe it is just for the purpose of getting caught up and talking about old times.  These are certainly reasonable and innocent objectives, if those are really what you have in mind.  On the other hand, if what you are really going for is a little excitement—not an affair mind you—just a little excitement, some flirtatious banter, a little whiff of the heady powder smoke of danger, then we are talking about something entirely different.  You are turning to someone outside the marriage for something that you should be finding inside the marriage.  Your interest is sexual.  It may not be overtly sexual.  It may not be intensely sexual.  But, it is sexual nonetheless. 

When you turn outside the marriage to a live person for some kind of sexual excitement or gratification, you are (1) showing that there is something lacking in your marriage and (2) putting your marriage in danger.  (See my post to this blog on April 7, 2007 on Infidelity for a discussion of how “innocent” flirtations can sink a marriage).  Plus, you are taking the first step down the road toward having sex with someone who is not your spouse.  In the real world, most people who stray usually do so by baby steps.  They don’t just wake up one day and decide, “Hey, I’m going to start screwing around.  What a great idea!”  Rather, they gravitate into a relationship with another person that gradually becomes more intense until it escalates into having sex with that person.  These things all start somewhere, and--apparently--Facebook is one such place.  

Better to avoid that path entirely. 

Accordingly, I don’t think that, to preserve your marriage, you need to log in right this moment and cancel your Facebook account or never join in the first place.  From what I hear, Facebook is a valuable and fun social tool that can be a real help in keeping in touch with friends, reconnecting with people from your past, and maintaining relationships with distant friends and family.  If you do have a Facebook account, however, I would strongly recommend that you carefully and objectively review your “friends” list.  Take a hard look at everyone on that list who is a credible adultery partner for you and ask yourself honestly both what your true reasons are for being in contact with that person and what is really going on in all of your communications with that person.   

You know whether what is going in is pure friendship or whether something sexual is happening.  If the latter, you need to cut it off immediately.  The dangers are too high, and the temptations are too great.  Don’t tell yourself that “it is just an innocent flirtation.”  That doesn’t work any more than, “I’m just going to eat one cookie.”  Plus, as I mentioned in my post on adultery here back in 2007, even the “innocent flirtation” takes energy away from the marriage that may be necessary to sustain it.  That excitement and sexuality needs to be channeled into your marriage, not drained into the dead end of an extramarital relationship, even if that relationship never becomes overtly sexual. 

Facebook is a mere instrumentality.  In a murder, the responsibility does not lie with the tool, it lies with the murderer.  Same with marriage. BUT, just because the responsibility for the shooting does not lie with the gun, that doesn't mean you want to play with a loaded revolver, much less point it at your own head.

For more information or to order our book about marriage killers, go to our web site http://www.honsingerbooks.com.  

Why So Many Divorces?

The statisticians tell us that about half of all marriages end in divorce.  As do most people who work in family law, though, my wife Kathy and I often wonder why there are SO MANY divorces, and why divorce is so much more frequent now than it was only a few decades ago.  Here are my, distinctly unscientific, theories on the subject.

1.  The family is no longer the primary economic unit of society.  Back in the days of my grandparents and grandparents, most Americans lived on farms or worked in small, family-owned businesses.  Mom, dad, and the kids all worked together tending fields, herding cattle, or stocking the shelves.  My great-grandfather, Q.K. Barber, was a cattleman on the prairie between Baytown and Liberty, Texas, and he worked all day on his own land within a several hundred yards of his wife and daughters, and within a few miles of similar spreads run by his brothers and sisters.  The family was together, or at least close to one another, all day, almost every day.  Shared work, shared hardship, shared triumphs, shared experiences bound husband, wife, and children together into family units that were much tighter than are most families today, in which husband and wife go off to their own jobs, kids are off doing their own thing, and folks are lucky to see each other over dinner a few nights a week.

2.  The family is a far less important social unit of society.  In our rural, agrarian past, the husband and wife typically did not have circles of friends with whom they would go out drinking or for card night or game night or girl's night out or whatever. Husband and wife were each other's best friends and were each other's primary social outlet.  Not only were there fewer opportunities to stray, this relationship was just one more set of ties, one more layer of glue, that held husband and wife together.  These two factors, husband and wife working apart from one another and then doing much of their playing apart from one another, cannot help but lessen the number and the force of the bonds that hold them together. I am convinced that one of the things that has held my marriage to Kathy together through some of the tough times has been that we work together and are each other main source of friendship and companionship.  We spend almost all of our time together.  Sure, sometimes we rub each other the wrong way, but mostly this fact means that we have so many bonds, so many shared experiences, so much that we do together, that it would take a nuclear device to drive us apart.

3.  Popular culture does not foster realistic expectations of love and marriage.  The love stories that we see on movies and on TV, that we read about in books, and--as a result--that we imagine for ourselves these days, are full of the mythos and magic of love and nearly devoid of sweat and tears that it takes to make a marriage work. The song says that "Love Will Keep Us Together," when, in reality, love will only bring us together; it takes commitment, courtesy, caring, and communication to make it stick. People think that once love has brought them together, some sort of ethereal magic will ward off all of the evil forces that might serve to drive them apart. To the contrary, the world is full of forces that strive to drive the couple apart and that, if not actively fought against by the couple almost every day, will certainly succeed, if not in causing them to divorce, at least will serve to make them unhappy.

4.  Popular culture does not praise and reinforce the traits of character and conduct that make marriages strong.  There was a time when adults in our culture were portrayed as mature grown ups, committed to their families, and bearing adult responsibilities.  Whatever their dramatic deficiencies, television programs like Leave it to Beaver and The Brady Bunch showed Ward and June and Mike and Carol holding down professional positions, making sure that the house was clean and meals prepared, providing structure and discipline for children, paying the bills, and generally getting the job done.  Adults in family sitcoms now are generally immature, incompetent, disorganized, histrionic, and in most cases indistinguishable in their level of gravitas from the children in the show.  Indeed, much of the comedy in many of these programs is derived from the unflattering contrast between the maturity and sensibility of the children relative to the childishness of the adults.  This is not to say that TV writers can or should reset the clock to 1969, but perhaps we would all be better off of television and movies that portray families would contain more examples of adults who have their acts together and who act their age.  Many young people, particularly young men, seem to aspire to a protracted--if not eternal--adolescence (only with more money) in which they hang out with their friends, drive cool cars and buy neat stuff (the guys in these movies and shows tend to live in pads that have basketball hoops, pinball machines, sports posters, and other teenage trappings writ larger and more expensively), even if they are married and have kids.  I have heard the term "family man" spoken on these shows often with derision, rather than respect.  The prototypical sitcom husband and father of 2011 is not Ward Cleaver, but Homer Simpson.

5.  Not only does our culture not reinforce marriage, there is much in our society that seems actively dedicated to destroying it.  The media portray adultery, if not with approval, then at least in many cases without strong condemnation.  Many parts of our society wink at affairs (a trait once seen only in the very rich).  The gals in Sex and the City (I am told) bounced into and out of the beds of the married and single alike. In fact, there is even a well-financed, widely advertised dating service the explicit purpose of which is to help people tie up for extramarital sex.  No, I won't post the link or give their name here, but their motto is "Life is short.  Have an affair."  The company web site boasts offers an "affair guarantee" and touts the company as "the most recognized name in infidility . . . . We are the most recognized and reputable extramarital affair company. . . . We are the most successful website for finding cheating partners."  The website says the company has over nine million clients.  Makes me want to barf.  No, my sexual conduct has not always been the most praiseworthy (although, in all of my three marriages, I never cheated on a spouse), but the idea of a company actually being in the business of facilitating a kind of conduct that is not only illegal in many states, but that is also enormously destructive emotionally, socially, and economically just plain blows my mind.  The difference between that company and a dealer in illegal drugs is one only of degree.

In America of the Twenty-first Century, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that marriage is under attack on many fronts.  If you want your marriage to endure, you must defend it.  Our book, How to Save Your Marriage from 12 Top Marriage Killers, puts in your hands some very simple, robust, and powerful weapons for doing so.

Overall, we need to recognize that, these days, the seed of marriage does not fall on the fertile soil that was there to receive it a generation or two ago.  That does not mean, however, that the seed is destined to die.  Rather, it means that, if the seed is to grow, WE must nurture and water and fertilize it ourselves.  Now, more than ever, each marriage stands on its own, to flourish or perish based on the individual efforts of its members. If you are married, you must remember that society will not sustain your marriage, popular culture will not sustain your marriage, government will not sustain your marriage.  If marriage in America is going to be saved, it will be saved one couple at a time.  As with so many other things in our society, we need to build from the bottom up.  The strength of the building comes from the foundation in the ground, not the satellite antenna on the roof.  Saving your marriage is up to you.