Preface. The motivation to write Rosetta 6.2 began on a snowy Bradley
Fighting Vehicle gunnery range, Range 214 at Grafenwoehr, Germany,on the Ides of
March 1987. I had an extraordinary experience,an answer to seven years of
prayer, where I was told, “You will read and write.”
I finished this book, for the last time, 18 years later.It’s a long way from
March 15th, 1987 to January 7th, 2005. I don’t know if I was too slow or the
Lord was taking His time to make sure I did ‘right’ in His Will. My prayer from
the first time I put pen to paper through the publishing of Rosetta 6.2, is that
this work in my hand be in His Will, not mine. Consequently, whatever is good
about Rosetta 6.2 is to the glory of my Savior, Jesus Christ, and whatever is
wrong is mine, James Atticus Bowden.
In March 1990 I had two years to go to U.S. Army retirement but it was time to
get on with the reading and writing after duty hours. I asked God what should I
write specifically. From that moment on, I never had writer’s block. The ideas
and words just came to me. Sometimes it was hard to keep up and get the thoughts
on paper as they flooded into my mind. I wrote the book in my head, made a
detailed outline, and created a large file of scraps of paper with ideas,
dialogue, and key events between March 1990 and December 1992.
In the first week of December I found in my daily Bible reading what I took as
my personal covenant for my life, Isaiah 59:21. Armed and energized, I began
composing Rosetta 6.2 from front to end on my new PC in January 1993. It took me
six months to finish Chapter One, writing in the hours after children’s bed time
and before sleep overtook me. Over the years I took lengthy diversions to read
about different subjects, like illegal drugs, computer science, the Koran,
Islam, Jesuits, Martin Luther, etc. And to think. And listen.
Some of the ideas that seemed like science fiction in the early ‘90s became
science facts. I imagined computer programs flowing on common electronic current
and facial visual identification software. I read about optical computing and
imagined the nano-technology for the rose cinquefoil computer chips. Interactive
voice navigation systems, software ‘spiders’, and personal communicators like
today’s ‘blackberry’ came to my imagination for fiction before I learned, years
later, they had become real.
I projected the future global, ideologically-based struggle from my job as a
military futurist. In the Army After Next (AAN) war games, playing the enemy
‘Red’ team, we discussed using commercial airplanes against targets in the
United States. I developed an international, non-nation–state enemy based on
Islam, like Al Qa’ida, for the AAN 1997 Fall War Game. I participated in an
intitial ‘Homeland Security’ seminar in 1997 to prepare for the AAN1998 Spring
war game. I expected an attack before 2010, so I was surprised only at the
timing of the attack on 9–11–01.
I wrote in earnest throughout 1998 until I finished in June 1999. My first draft
had too many details and distractions. I’ve rewritten the entire book three
times. Rosetta 6.2 morphed over the years from dealing with the one evil of
drugs to the conjunction of the evil of drugs and Islamist terrorism,
simultaneously, within the Great U.S. Culture War. The CultureWar is known as
ACW II (American Civil War II) in the op eds I write. I came upon the idea of
illegal drugs and Islamist Terrorismserving as the catalyst to bring ACW II to a
head. My first op ed, a response to 9–11, ‘One Front: Two Wars’ (See Reading
Page this web site) suggested how our unity would evaporate over time. So, it
has.
I finished up to the last chapter by Labor Day 2004. I waited for the outcome of
the election of ‘04 to decide if I would use a real politician as the 2012
Presidential incumbent in Rosetta 6.2 or a fictional one. 2005 and 2006 were
given over to an agent to get published and to develop my art concept for the
cover. I think it was a time for Rosetta 6.2 to lie fallow. After enough time
passed I had the distance to look at the words for one last time before printing
and edit the last. I pray it went well in His plan.
If Rosetta 6.2 serves properly, someone will come to know the Lord or someone
will find a deeper, personal relationship with the living Jesus Christ. Other
insights, if they happen, are merely interesting. I understand the suffering
drug abuse and Islamist terror cause and write against them. I’ve seen the power
of prayer to save and heal. I give praise to Lord Jesus, because God is good,
all the time—no matter what.
From the Back Cover: America
2012: The Islamist Terrorists and Illegal Drug Lords are allies and gaining
strength. The President’s response to terrorism and crime is a growing police
state. The government is corrupt. Jack Tillman, a NASA computer security
analyst, stumbles on a secret plan – Rosetta 6.2. Jack is pulled into the plan
with six very diverse, courageous people to defeat the Islamists, the Drug Lords
and win the Culture War. They face their fears trying to live long enough to
find answers to the vital questions. How can Rosetta 6.2 work? Can Rosetta 6.2
really crush the Narco-Islamist Terrorists? How can the Drug War be won –
really? Will it push the U.S. Culture War into a Second American Civil War? Who
wins? Sharing the danger, Jack learns why these people of faith are compelled to
do what is right. Jack Tillman must make his own lifetime and eternal decisions.
James Atticus Bowden is a military futurist. Rosetta 6.2 is his first novel. He
has specialized in inter-disciplinary, long range ‘futures’ studies for over 15
years. Bowden is a retired United States Army Infantry Officer and a 1972
graduate of the United States Military Academy. He served in five Divisions. He
earned graduate degrees from Harvard University and Columbia University. His
frequent op eds are carried on many e-zines, websites and blogs. Bowden lives in
his beloved Virginia.
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