You're listening to software, radio, special operations, military meals and straight talk with the guys in the community.

Hey, welcome back to another episode of software, radio. This is rad, your host, and I have the fortunate pleasure to hang out with Lucky and Kevin Marr of writing the book.

Go ahead and tell me the name of the book. It's damn lucky, right?

Right. Damn luck. Hey, Kevin, did I say your last name right?

It's Bauer with an M, so Mauer, but yeah, looks like Joe Mauer, the former catcher for the twins.

Perfect. And then Kevin, you've written books like No Easy Day, Damn Lucky, and how long have you been writing like this for?

I started covering the military in 2003, officially. When I moved to Fayette, Illinois, Carolina, and I covered Fort Bragg right there.

So I got there in January of 2003, and by March I was in Iraq with the 82nd, so since then I've been sort of chasing these military stores.

Okay, and then you've chased down Lucky. You've done one thing that a Messerschmitt could not do, and that was catch lucky.

She caught Lucky to tell his story in a book, huh? So Lucky, welcome to software radio.

Well, actually the connection between us was my phone out of the blue.

Kevin called me and said that he had heard some of my stories and wanted to read my book, and I said,

well, I don't have a book. Never had a book. And he said, well, certainly your story should be told.

And would you be willing to, or would you consider collaborating on a book with me?

And so I said, well, I don't know you, and you don't know me, and I don't know your writing style.

So what have you done? And he said, well, he written 10 books, and he'd be happy to show me, or send me copies, and let me see for myself.

If I thought we were compatible to work together to relate what I thought were stories about one of the most, if not the most notorious group in the 8th Air Force,

the bloody hundreds that I accidentally became a part of, and if he thought that was something that he would like to write about and convey it because I was not a writer, I was able to,

fairly well, maybe speak about my experiences, but writing them was something else for a narrative people to read and to document,

because I was certainly intrigued by the idea of having something in writing that could be referred to historically for future generations,

particularly my grandchildren and great grandchildren to read about what my experiences were.

And unfortunately, just as we reached agreement, COVID happened.

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