"Captain Henry" & Iran
Doubts and Worries of an author
On the 6th of January 2022, one year after violent events at the U.S. Capital, I wrote the dedication and intro to the novel that is expected in September of 2026, yeah, over a year from now. Sure I wrote and finished the book in a few months, finishing by early summer 2022. I shoved it into a digital drawer for later. My wonderful editor spent time with it a year ago (June of 2024). The novel is called “Captain Henry.”
The novel was a bit of self-indulgence placing my personal history along side that of my ancestor. What I didn’t see then is that my personal history and my family’s history intertwine with this history of the United States in interative loops that my government does with frequency.
First, I had spent a year in Iraq as a civilian member of a military unit. I was with the unit for 18 months, spending time in Texas training, staging in Kuwait, then flying into Baghdad 21DEC2005 for a one year tour. I wrote a journal in lieu of letters. I could not publish them at the time but I played by the “New York Times Rules”. Rule #1: What ever I wrote could be verified in a recognized and currated news organization. Rule #2: What ever I wrote must be clean enough, truthful enough, and free of secrets to be published by a news outlet. In other words: don’t accidently publish anything that may violate operational security (‘Opsec’ is the term we’ve all heard recently when discussing war plans and digital communications). While I worked around Iraq with my tiny platoon, Iraq bubbled with an internal civil war. We felt pressures from Iran and some from Turkey (especially related to Kurds). As we worked outside doin’ our thing, I read and researched everything to understand my own context, then I wrote and quietly sent these home and saved on a secure server.
Second, I come from a storied family. While doing genealogical research, I dug into my own family and found Captain Henry, my grandfather of a few generations back. He was the police chief of Springfield MA (about an hour from where I live). He lead combat troops in Cuba during the Spanish American War recieving a wound that likely killed him a year later (think: blood clot).
Young Henry enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1870. The private got sent to Chattanooga Tennessee to join the army’s Department of the South. He and his unit travelled northern Georgia thump KKK members on the head, hauling them to jail for violations of federal laws and the Civil Rights Act of 1866. In the US Archives, I found the official Army and Marshall Service orders for these raids and arrests. Many of the members of the unit were Civil War Veterans and had faught alongside Sherman and rode these same rails as they pushed the rebels towards surrender.
The folks that the army and marshalls arrested were all set free by all white juries in the local courts. Apparently the slaughter of humans whilst stealing farm land, burning properties, and lynching humans was acceptable behavior given folks followed the traditional rules of the area - cultural norms, as it were.
The result of the U.S. Government using U.S. Military on soil now repatriated to the U.S. resulted in the passing of a new law called posse commitatus. During this period, the U.S. Government suspended habeus corpus (‘show me the body’) for these suspected criminals who engaged in a simmering insurrection against the federal government by local communities and their leaders.
The 2,000 black folk had been elected into various offices in the south. They found themselves pushed out (pushed, killed, threatened, pick your verb). Former criminals (insurrectionists, rebels) regained political control locally then in nation’s capital. It is at this moment, the government decides that using the army for law enforcement is suddenly a bad idea. One might suspect letting former criminals and insurrectionists into the government may sway law enforcement priorities? The army and my ancestor’s unit were effective. They arrested a lot of law-breaking baddies.
While in Iraq in 2006, I feared America deciding to poke Iran back. Iran’s influance and funding was evident everywhere around me. Boom.
While researching Captain Henry (my ancestor), I learned a great deal about American history that was not in my textbooks.
Suddenly in June 2025, “Iran”, “Posse commitatus”, “Habeus Corpus” swirl heavily in the news.
Over three years ago, I wrote a novel that interweaved pre-Jim Crow efforts to support the Civil Rights Act. I wrote about the flakey, inconsistent and often unfocused fighting in the Middle East, North Africa and the western Asia following the terrorist attacks of 2001. It has been 20 years this month (June 2025) since I got my letter inviting me to Texas (civilians get “invited”, soldier’s get ordered). In August of 2005, I flew off with a bag packed (being invited likely resulted from my long history with the army, my then existing clearances and military ID).
I spent 12 hours re-reading my novel last week (85K words/240 pages). I had forgotten some of what I wrote. I finished the effort not knowing what the hell I had done.
Yes, the book hits the market 14+ months from now. In the recent week, I’ve been sending it to friends asking: “What is this that I wrote?” “What does this novel mean?” Likely nothing more than the personal experiences of a few humans on tiny and forgotten battlefields. While writing, I revelled in the parallels of the Spanish American War (“Remember the Maine, and Screw Spain”) and my Iraq War (go find the WMB and knock out an evil-doer). No plan for the reality of putting soldiers in harms way. It was less: “Oh look at what my nation keeps going” and more “oh, look my family keeps going and thumbing folks on the head.” (My first warrior ancestor in the Americas was born in 1620 in Massachusetts.)
Most of what we all write is garbage. Once in a while a writer resonnates with readers, or resonnates with contemporary events. Ok, maybe your writing is more better than most. Yay for you. This month, I have the odd sensation of looking at my own work asking “Is this a thing?”
We’ll find out in a year and a half, huh?
“Captain Henry” is a work of fiction written by I.M. Aiken being published by Catalyst Press of El Paso Texas. The publication date is slated for September 2025. The narratives, characters, and stories are derived by Aiken’s journals written in 2006 in Iraq and research she did on her own family.
I.M. Aiken is the author of:
“The Little Ambulance War of Winchester County” (Catalyst Press/Flare Books 2024) : https://www.northshire.com/book/9781963511024
“Stolen Mountain” (Catalyst Press/Flare Books 2025)
“Trowbridge Dispatch” - a series of short stories that take place in and around the events in the novels. https://TrowbridgeDispatch.iamaiken.com. Also found on Libro.FM, Audible, and Amazon.
My notes:
In the recent weeks, I heard a government agency head define habeus corpus as the legal principal that allows the executive to imprision then deport human beings without due process. I fear she was a bit wrong.
In recent weeks, the executive federalized state national guard members to support federal law enforcement efforts an action that explores the legal boundaries of Posse commetatus.
And this week, the executive first telegraphed, then narrated the use of B-2 bombers in Iran, a feeling that brought my youth back to me when Iran held hostages and we chanted “bomb-bomb bomb Iran” following the melody of a then popular tune.
And it is American history that links these 3 events over the span of 150 years: our failures with Reconstruction in the 1870s; the Spanish American War of 1898; Iraq War II.
(this saves me from digging into Wikipedia for answers later).