St. Martin's Press will publish Vinny O'Neil's second murder mystery novel, REDUCED CIRCUMSTANCES, on July 10th. REDUCED CIRCUMSTANCES is the sequel to Vinny's debut novel, MURDER IN EXILE, which won the St. Martin's Press "Malice Domestic" award in 2005 and was published in 2006. The series deals with amateur sleuth Frank Cole, a bankrupt businessman trying to restart his life by working odd jobs in the fictional town of Exile, Florida.

The Academy commander, Major General Sharif, and I worked together closely for the last year. I served merely as an advisor; he is the one with the real responsibility for the Academy’s success or failure. Problems have been many. Together, for the betterment of the Afghan Corps of Cadets, we battled bureaucratic indifference, culturally influenced inefficiencies, political pressure, and higher headquarters. We walked the Academy campus together innumerable times, inspecting construction projects, discussing cadet leadership development programs, and trying our best to anticipate future needs. We have joked, talked politics, talked about the war, talked about our families, and cared about the welfare of the Afghan cadet. We made a good team.

In case you read the Army Headline News about Cadet Matt Bell receiving the Roosma Award for basketball, that was me up there on stage presenting it. My family established the award after my grandfather (John S. Roosma, '26) passed away in Nov 1983. He was admitted to the basketball Hall of Fame for being the first college player to score over 1000 points in his career. Too bad I didn't get his height ;-)

Beat Navy!

Meg Roosma

Afghanis celebrate their independence from Soviet occupation on April 28th. The Afghan National Army commemorates the day with a military parade, attended by President Karzai and a who’s who of Afghan and foreign dignitaries. The parade is a throw back to Communist era spectacles, designed as a show of strength for potential adversaries. Based on the amount of time dedicated to parade rehearsals, the Afghans believe there is much political capital to be gained by flawless marching. With an ongoing insurgency, I wonder if “the parade juice was worth the squeeze.” Clearly, I have much to learn about Afghan politics. Nevertheless, the cadets looked great at the parade.

Sibylla (Meine) Andrean provided the following note (and picture) about her and her brother, CJ:

Hi Val, All is well here. I retired on 1 Sept 05. I am teaching a class online for Troy University. I am currently living in Tucson, Arizona. My husband Clark is in the Air Force and stationed at Davis Monthan AFB. He left on 1 May to go to Kuwait for about 5 months. He just came back last July from a 9 month deployment to Iraq :-(