| |  Devon sometimes wished he were back in the Carolina swamps puffing his grandpa's pipe instead of tromping the Iraqi deserts and mountains with the French woman. But his Grandma told him to follow the eagle and watch out for the crow, and the mountains of Iraq are where the hawk led. But why was the crow cawing so loud, Devon wondered, as the Iraqi sighted down the barrel of the AK?
US Army Major Nash Devon, a Carolinian claiming ancestry back to the Croatan Indians and Sir Walter Raleigh's Lost Colony, was a hero and a murderer in the Gulf War, but haunted over the years by his actions. Assigned back to Saudi in enroute to the UN weapons inspection team in Iraq, Devon is shanghaied by US military intelligence and sent to the Northern Iraq Sanctuary Zone for duty with the UN High Commission for Refugees. Dispatched to Iraq before the launch of Operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom, Devon's real mission is to locate a hidden Iraqi nuclear research facility. In his search Devon discovers more than he bargained for: a nuclear conspiracy and an opportunity to have the family he thought he had lost forever. What he really finds will make your faith soar as he follows Renee Granwin behind the green water and together they solve the mystery of the Image of Christ.  Is there a contemporary Image of Christ - contemporary meaning created in His own lifetime? If one exists, who and what would it portray? A majestic man, ruler of all? A humble teacher and his flock? A father surrounded by family and friends? Together, Devon and Granwin discover the mystery of the Image of Christ hidden in Behind the Green Water. Like Brown's fictional Da Vince Code and Starbird's Lady with the Alabaster Jar, Behind the Green Water's secrets lead to a startling presumption about Christ and his family. (Original art from Behind the Green Water, copyright by Charles W. Zietlow.)
Behind the Green Water is a military thriller, a story of a man's search for his soul, a romance and a story of survival. Some of the stories behind researching and writing Behind the Green Water:  | Follow Nash Devon across Iraq and Syria to his final destination. A 101st Abn Div soldier recently returned from Iraq commented that he had driven Sinjar Mountain looking for the monastery described in Behind the Green Water. Then a helicopter pilot reported that he had flow over the Sinjar monastery - two of them, in fact - one in ruins and one in use. Track the real action in Iraq on the unmarked maps, and follow the fictional action in Behind the Green Water on the marked maps. Click HERE to read Iraqi Destiny, the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) weekly newsletter issued throughout the year the men and women of the Division fought and served in Northern Iraq. Click here for a note from a member of the 101st Airborne Division the day after Christmas while still in Mosel, Iraq. | | Lumbees, Croatan, and the Lost Colony - North Carolina's Native America mystery - part of Devon's heritage - and religion. | | 173rd Airborne Brigade, U.S. Army Southern European Task Force (Airborne), paratroopers parachuted into northern Iraq on the cloudy, moonless night of March 26, 2003 to seize the airfield at Bashur in support of the Combined Forces Special Operations Component Commander (CFSOCC). Bashur is the airfield fictitiously used in Behind the Green Water to resupply the Irbil refugee camp. | | Colonel T. E. Lawrence of His Majesty's Royal Intelligence Service...Private Lawrence of the Royal Armoured Corps and Corporal Shaw of the Royal Air Corps... a true enigma, but a wonderful source of material about the Middle East lands and people. | |  The Riddle of the Image - discusses cryptology and how it was used during the time of Christ, and how it is used in Behind the Green Water. | | The UN High Commission for Refugees is the sole support for thousands of homeless refugees displaced by conflict. The UNHCR operates in many different countries, and a refugee camp outside Irbil, similar to the one described in Behind the Green Water, once existed. The conflict between the ethnic Kurds (Kurdistan - a country that want to be) and the national governments of Turkey, Iraq and Iran - and opposing factions within the Kurds - still continues, as does the strange mixture of Christianity and Islam found in the Yezidis tribe where the members believe the Devil is a fallen angel. This brings an interesting legend to the surface, the story that the Kurds are descended from 400 virgins who were raped by the Devil. | | Canadian Peacekeepers are the unsung heroes of international freedom, alongside American, Japanese, Austrians, Fijis, Swiss, Filipinos and others, but overwhelmingly the Canadians, in every theater of conflict, or so-called peace. In Behind the Green Water their presence in the Golan Heights was inspired by the excellent description of their operations on the Peacekeepers own web site and helpful emails from members of the force. | | Operation Northern Watch was established by UN mandate to defend the Kurdish population north of the thirty-sixth parallel (the Northern Iraq Sanctuary Zone). One of the units supporting Operation Northern Watch is the 333rd Fighter Wing, a F-15 unit home based in Seymore Johnson AFB located in Goldsboro, NC, very close to the Manteo home of the Lost Colony legend and the Lumbee Nations home in Robeson County. | | The Slave Medallion, a Wedgwood cameo discovered on display in Charlotte, North Carolina's Mint Museum and described in Behind the Green Water, is a very real part of history, reminding us that many influential Americans, in particular Benjamin Franklin, joined with many British such as the parliamentary leader William Wilberforce in opposing slavery. Behind the Green Water uses the medallion and the motto "Am I not a man and a Brother" as a key element in the relationship of Nash Devon, Rene Granwin and Wilbert Baker. The referenced article, courtesy of the Wedgwood Museum located in Barlaston Stoke-on-Trent, England, appeared in a 1982 issue of the Wedgwood Review. | |  My hand carved pipe was the inspiration for Devon's grandpa's pipe, the one Devon used as a deadly weapon in a lonely mountain pass in Iraq. |
From a member of the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) while operating out of Mosel, Iraq across the same locales of Behind the Green Water: "...The book is a great read (a lot like Clancy)..." From Down Under:"...I find myself thinking about them sometimes, wondering if it would all work out in the end for them and then I laugh to myself, knowing firstly that it would have been fine and secondly that I am even thinking about 3 people that do not really exist. Not many writers have the ability to pull your soul into their stories." - Felicity Baker, Rolling Sea Reviews Click HERE to order Behind the Green Water eBook! eBook ISBN: 0-7599-4298-6
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Also available at many Military Exchanges.Trade Paperback ISBN: 0-7599-4299-4 New ISBN-13: 978-0-7599-4299-8 Read Flash of Emerald, a Suncoast Thriller and winner of the EPIC Best Thriller award for 2004.    
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