I want to say welcome and thank you for checking out my website. My name is Chuck Wadd and I am a writer specializing in the adult action/adventure genre. I created this site to promote my new book, To Live and Die in the Philippines, (TLADITP) and to display samples of my work. The book is available through Iuniverse.com and Amazon. At the core of the story line is Alonzo Blue, a security contract worker who was introduced to the Philippines via the Air Force and finds himself back there after a couple of years of stateside life.
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The three stories included on the site are referenced in TLADITP. They were hand written on the flight lines and security areas of Clark Air Base and never typed out, (the days before computers, you know.) The first one is the death of Det. 5's first Chief of Security, William "Wild Bill" Tolliver and the often mentioned Shootout at the Golden Dragon Massage Parlor in Davao City involving Alonzo Blue and a four-man NPA hit squad called a Sparrow Unit. Finally, I added the somewhat lengthy inital meeting of Jessica De'Leon and Blue. I hope you find these tales entertaining and that it sparks interest in the book. While originally written using adult language, I've taken most of it out so a wider audience can enjoy the stories.
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The idea of the book goes back to my teen-aged years and to understand me, you must understand the period of my early years. I am a child of the early 80s with all the positive and negative influences and perspectives that come with it. Having my comings and goings strickly monitored by my mother limited my early teen experiences. Nevertheless, being on the front lines when the new inventions of MTV and cable TV raised their heads compensated me to a point.
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Fast forward a few years to Dec 1987. I was a twenty-one year old Airman First Class in the US Air Force arriving in the Philippines for my third and final duty station. At that time, the US still maintained two bases in that country. Subic Bay Naval Station for the Navy and Clark Air Base belonged to the Air Force. They were the oldest and larges overseas bases at that time despite the fact that they had considerably shrunk over the years due to various agreements and treaties.
As now, the country was going through a tumultuous time. Ferdinand Marcos received his walking papers the previous year through the “relatively” peaceful People Power Revolution and three active insurgencies carried on against the new government. One was the Moro Insurgency happening on Mindanao. The other was the communist revolution waged by the Philippine Communist Party and their armed wing called the New People’s Army (NPA), which caused us major grief. The Reform the Armed Forces Movement (RAM) conducted the third one. RAM was a right wing group of former military officers who had been instrumental in installing the current government. The reason for their heartburn rested in the belief that Manila was being too soft on the communist and the Moros.
The NPA assassinated a GI and a Filipino US Department of Defense worker in Angeles City in October so nerves were still on end when I arrived in December. As a cop, they stuck me on a six and one schedule since everyone was working 12-hour shifts. In all honesty, I was somewhat shocked at how unorganized everything appeared. They had extra cops working to try to secure the base, an almost impossible job. I later learned that the base was over 156,000 acres and 90% of it was not fenced in. My fellow cops informed me the locals had stolen the fence years before and no one had bothered to put up a new one. This was my introduction to life in the Philippines. Over the years, the terror acts of the NPA only worsend. Whenever the NPA threatened action, the gates of the base closed with all the occupants “safely” locked inside, which after awhile became frustrating due to the active off duty life that the environment provided. The communist had us cowed like a bunch of little girls, whenever they yelled, Boo! We jumped. Being quite frustrated that a few third world, flip-flop wearing banditos carrying .45s had punked the world’s most powerful air force, I thought, wouldn’t it be cool if people in similar if not worse situations weren’t scared to take it to the bad guys and put a few rounds in a few asses.
