The First Casualty of any Battle is Always the Plan.

I had planned to regale you with half a hundred tales of heartbreak and suffering.

I had planned that our journeys together would last until I ran out of stories to tell, or just had nothing else more to say that anyone wanted to hear.

As of about noon today, however, "Wading the Euphrates" the blog has been mortally wounded, and is slowly bleeding out.

I hade made a query to a literary agency a few nights ago, and today they contacted me to let me know that they are interested in my writing of a non-fiction book about my proverbial journey across the Euphrates, and they believe that the blog will make it nigh on impossible to sell the story to a publisher.

So while the blog is dying, hopefully, one day you'll be able to curl up on the sofa with a book packed with stories I never got to tell you here.

I sincerely appreciate the loads of people who've visited and read here, and all the undeserved praise they've heaped upon me when they did.

The motto of the Engineer Corps that I dedicated half my life to is "Essayons", which means "Let us try" in French. There are no finer words in the world than those to describe a unruly lot who'd do anything to win a fight for their country, even if they don't know what the hell they're doing.

That's where I am at the moment.

I have no experience as a writer, no experience in contracts, or with agents or agencies of any sort.

But it's the experience that I gained as a Sapper in the United States Army that makes me long to meet the challenge, and get past the obstacles in front of me, no matter the cost.

So I'm clearing the net with one final word that sums up everything about myself and my Corps so well.

Essayons!