Chapter 2 No.2

Vax stared at me. The muscles in his ever so masculine nose rippling as he flared his nostrils.

"My trust fund says that I can."

We escaped with moments to spare. I had had my moment of doubt but I came through thanks to a substantial lecture on the difference between rhetoric and dialectic plus a book contract and the promise of a Hugo nomination.

We never did kill Mrs Pooter. The enemy were too quick for us, and we barely escaped to fight another day.

Only Vax and I survived intact from that mission. I heard that two of the platoon have since got married and run a erotic florist in Wisconsin. The horror of their fate haunts me, but I fight on while Vax's words still resonate in my skull: "Start nothing, finish everything."

The Second Fifth Generation of Warfare

Introduction by Timothy the Talking Cat: Flight Rear Admiral General Fortescue-Billinghman USMT, HTTP, MD Retd is both an accomplished soldier, a military historian and one of the world's leading tacticians. His seminal work "Tactical Loin Cloths - the Spartan Secret Weapon and the Underpants of Thermopylae" is a unique work that spearheaded the modern military focus on superior firepower through superior undergarments. We are extraordinarily privileged to have the opportunity to republish his essay here in this book. Previously the only way of accessing this essay was via a few carefully mimeographed copies that were circulated at his local golf club. Sadly due to Squirrel convergence and the connivance of the liberal establishment General Fortescue-Billinghman's unique vision was cruel censored by the golf club and in clear violation of its constitution (not to mention natural justice) he was expelled for the invented crime of 'stealing items of clothing' from the club locker room.

The Second Fifth Generation of Warfare

Flight Rear Admiral General Fortescue-Billinghman USMT, HTTP, MD Retd

The history of warfare is a history of steps. Each step is a stride and each stride is a leap. Each leap brings us further into the future and those leaps represent a forward stride that brings us stepwise beyond the past and towards our destination. By such movement we progress but by 'progress' I do not mean what Teddy Roosevelt would call "progressive" but rather the forward march of mankind onward towards a martial future.

To envision these strides, picture a ladder. Imagine that ladder reaching upwards, with each rung another leap forward into you human destiny. Now picture that ladder as a staircase. Can you imagine it? Can you picture a big, broad sweeping staircase, such as you might find in the ballroom of a fancy hotel. Perhaps some colonial hotel in some third world capital city. A hotel that was once beautiful and glorious but which is now shabby and dilapidated due to the folly of independence and the end of Empire. Have you pictured this staircase? If so then it has far too many steps to it. That is a staircase far greater than we need. No, we need just a few steps. A small staircase such as might join one part of a house to a slightly lower part. Perhaps a house built on a slightly sloping block of land such that the back garden is at higher altitude than that of the front.

Now each of those steps is a stride beyond the past. Picture each of them.

The first is what we call the first generation of warfare. On this step we find the brute who simply throws sticks (or perhaps his own fifth) at his fellow man. He is disorganised and without strategy. From here he can either descend down the staircase, taking him closer to the corridor to the front door and the small table on which we keep the phone. It has a rotary dial but it no longer works. We have a different phone in the kitchen but I can't be bothered using it. My son put it there but I don't approve of it.

Our brute can ignore the phone and the temptations of the front door and the small garden beyond. Instead the brute can make a leap up the ladder of progress and reach the second rung. We call this rung the Second Level of Warfare.

On the Second Level of Warfare (or 2LW as we call it the forces) the warrior is enabled by the use of crafted weapons, tactical knowledge and appropriate undergarments. These may be a simple loin cloth or some more sophisticated arrangements of straps to provide adequate support during the vigorous movements of battle.

Our now proud and well supported warrior is ready to take a further jump upwards on the escalator of martial achievement. This lurch onwards we call War Three Footing (or WTF). In WTF our warrior is now the beneficiary of industrialisation. This includes cannon, tanks, and also mass produced cotton garments. WTF is characterised by supreme strategy and war on a global scale as both woven and knitted garments are shipped from one nation to another.

Surely this then is the pinnacle of warfare?

Not so. For there are yet more steps. 4G Warfare makes use of mobile phone technology and EMF shielded protection for the warrior procreative faculties. It is vital that stray radio waves do not interfere with the fundamental virility of the warrior. It is from this virility that the warrior derives his martial strength and drive to victory.

Nor is our upward journey complete for we must face the false peak of the First Fifth Generation of Warfare. In the F5GW the warrior must fight against the oppression of the narrow minded and the gutless. For in this generation the warrior is no longer given their true place in society but is repressed by the feminising influences of soy-milk, mass media propaganda and liberal college professors.

Finally we reach the true of Second Fifth Generation of Warfare. The warrior must still face the threat of the forces of so called 'progressive' society but he does so with undergarments suitably designed for the task.

It is to enable this "S5GW" apex of military prowess that I have devoted my latter years of work. I can now say, despite the naysayers and dullards who tried to prevent me, that I have succeeded. In conjunction with Cattimothy House Publishing I can offer to the discerning military man access to my unique invention. The S5GW under-short is a miracle of technology - flame proof, water resistant and proof from invasive surveillance methods. The S5GW makes use of sophisticated 'nano' materials that utilise unpatentable technology to provide the God-fearing warrior for justice to face the trials and tribulations of the modern 'cyber' battlefield in the secure knowledge that his most precious treasure is protected.