Author Guest Post: Robert W. Smith, Running With Cannibals

What’s it like to reach out and touch history in the moment, to peel back the layers of hyperbole and political deception for yourself as a simple soldier?

Welcome to one of the February 23rd stops on the blog tour for Running With Cannibals by Robert W. Smith with Goddess Fish Promotions. Be sure to follow the rest of the tour for spotlights, reviews, author guest posts, and a giveaway! More on that at the end of this post.

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Author Guest Post

What Inspired You to Write This Book?

This question strikes directly to the heart of my Running with Cannibals and I’m tickled pink for an opportunity to tackle it. The short answer is that, in researching this subject matter, I discovered the true story of two remarkable people from opposite ends of the earth, divided by language, culture and a brutal war of colonial aggression, but united by a love of justice, compassion and one another. I found it irresistible.

In school I heard in passing something about the “Philippine Insurrection,” a brief and minor conflict in the aftermath of the Spanish-American War, a subject steadfastly ignored in U.S. History books. With a little digging on the internet, I uncovered a completely different version of the so-called “insurrection,” a version based on facts and more fairly represented by Filipino historians and official U.S. Army records. Filipinos more accurately call the conflict, “The Philippine-American War.” Ultimately, the conflict held lessons that might have altered the course of history, specifically the U.S. involvement in Vietnam.

As my research deepened, I explored America’s Age of Manifest Destiny, a time during which powerful forces pushed the McKinley administration into a policy of colonialization modeled on the British experiences in Africa. The policy was motivated partially by a perceived need to control valuable trade routes and raw materials in the Far East and resulted in the U.S. “purchasing” the Philippines from Spain after vanquishing her meager forces in battle. Some historians simply attribute the entire policy to greed.

The result was accurately predicted by no less than Samuel Clemens, aka Mark Twain, in his famous essay, “To the Person Sitting in Darkness.” U.S. forces occupied the seven thousand Philippine Islands, formed a military government and embarked on a brutal war of aggression against the Filipino people. I was struck by the parallels to the U.S. involvement in Vietnam and to the general ignorance of history that certainly contributed to the initial acceptance of U.S. policy in Southeast Asia.

Delving even deeper into that time and place, I leaned the true love story of a Filipina, Casiana Nationales (Geronima) and Sgt. Frank Betron of the U.S. 9^th Infantry Regiment and the so-called “Balangiga Massacre” in which villagers rose up in defiance of their occupiers, killing some fifty American soldiers. Filipinos call it the Battle of Balangiga.

Geronima is a national heroine in the Philippines, a strong and beautiful woman of inexplicable influence who fell in love with Sgt. Betron and yet opted to side with her people against the Americans. Little is known about the details of their love affair. Those details of their love are fictionalized, the product of my imagination, but the romance is not.  Betron lived the rest of his life in the Philippines and raised a family. To me, bringing real characters to life in a fictionalized, plausible story is the most exciting achievement for an author.

About the Book

Running with Cannibals
by Robert W. Smith

Published 22 February 2022
Willow River Press

Genre: Historical Thriller
Page Count: 303
Add it to your Goodreads TBR!

On the run from a hangman’s noose, a young man joins the army in search of anonymity, but lands in the Philippines in the closing phase of the war (1901), where his life intersects with a beguiling and mysterious young Filipina, a disillusioned Catholic priest and an American “Negro” deserter. They join forces, each in his or her own way, to hold back the tide of greed and colonial barbarity from a ravenous Eagle. At great cost, the young soldier will find his place, his people and himself. But to end his running, he must endure the last battle and the dark jungle beyond that holds the key to his fate and future.

One will die in the fight. One will learn that truth wears no flag and must be pursued and safeguarded, no matter the price. The other two will live forever, legends in the minds and hearts of the Filipino people.

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Excerpt

In that moment, Ethan was grateful to be a lowly sergeant. No real decisions to make. No strategy to plan. No responsibility for disaster. Just get back to camp fast and make the report. He remembered the NCO training on writing reports. Report only what you saw and heard. Never report what you think. The Army doesn’t care what you think. Fair enough. The name of David Fagen would neither pass through his lips to superiors nor through his pen to paper.

Ethan had seen the wanted posters himself. General Funston had personally posted a $600 reward around the towns and villages for the capture of “Mad Dog Fagen.” And no wonder.

Whatever grand scheme Ethan’s patrol had fortuitously thwarted, the schemers themselves, especially Fagen, posed a far greater danger to the successful subjugation of this little, brown race than one operation. Newspapers all over America had trumpeted “victory” in the Philippines and repeated the official line that “isolated pockets of disorganized resistance” would be purged from the islands. Ethan Cooper now knew better. Any inference, however vague, that Fagen was in Manila and actively involved in an insurrecto plot to assassinate William Howard Taft or Arthur MacArthur would ignite a bonfire of terror at command level.

Americans were still being ambushed on the roads, murdered in the towns, and cut down on the trails by deadly traps. But Command had been pushing the narrative to the American newspapers that the war on Luzon was virtually won. Ethan couldn’t reconcile the disparate realities.

No one had told the Filipinos on Luzon they were beaten.

About the Author

Bob was raised in Chicago, enlisting in the Air Force at age eighteen during the Vietnam War. Following a year of intensive language training at Syracuse University, he served three years as a Russian Linguist in Security Service Command, a branch of the NSA. Upon return to civilian live, he attended DePaul University and The John Marshall Law School in Chicago on the G.I. Bill while working as a Chicago Transit Authority Police Officer. Thirty-odd years as a criminal defense lawyer in Chicago ensued. His first book was Immoral Authority (Echelon Press, 2002) followed by Catch a Falling Lawyer (New Leaf Books, 2005) and The Sakhalin Collection (New Leaf Books, 2007, hardcover)

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Giveaway Alert!

Robert W. Smith will be awarding a $25 Amazon or Barnes & Noble gift card to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour.

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