Recently, for those in the DMV (DC/Maryland/Virginia), Phil Walter graciously hosted the first Military Writers Guild BBQ on a warm summer evening. Jumping at the chance to meet (in person) other Guild members, I packed a cooler with a few adult beverages, grabbed my voice recorder, and braved I-95 traffic. It didn’t take for long the coals to get hot, beer to get cold, and the sea stories to get long.

Roger Misso regaled us about how he single handedly un-stuck an escape hatch that was impeding his E-2C Hawkeye, precariously low on fuel, from a night-time carrier landing. Leo Cruz reminded us of how the Constitution directs we are to maintain a Navy and only raise an Army — I wonder how he gets along back at the office. And Dave Mattingly told us about the time the Iranian Chief of Naval Operations was welcomed aboard the USS Midway.

Wait….what did Dave say? Iranian CNO on the USS Midway? It appears Dave’s sea stories are a testament to his “seasoned” citizen status. The Midway was decommissioned in 1992.

Since welcoming the Iranian CNO aboard a US aircraft carrier, Dave had an illustrious career in the naval intelligence community. He is a US Navy Master Chief (Retired) involved with the Association of Former Intelligence Officers and Naval Intelligence Professionals. He regularly writes for The Spyglass, The Bridge, International Social Science Review, US Naval Institute Proceedings, and War on the Rocks.

Before departing for the evening, Dave volunteered for a quick interview about his writing and reading habits.

[John DeRosa] What time do you typically wake up? What does the first hour of your day look like?

[Dave Mattingly] Usually I am up about 6:00 AM. The first thing that I do is a quick review of emails where I have subscribed to different new services to see what has happened. Then I step over to a few selected sites. One site is Medium where I have posted some of my writing on The Spyglass. I also review The Bridge. I look to see what has been written and see what people may have said about what I have written. The last thing I do is review Twitter. I am looking to see if people are talking about what I have read and to see what new things I might learn about it.

[JD] And then you are off?

[DM] I am off, but I am supposedly semi-retired.

[JD] What are some of your daily writing routines?

[DM] Since I am not tied to a desk for a specific job I have a little bit more freedom. I can mix my writing day with my work day. So when I get a spark of a writing idea, I will begin to collect the pieces and parts that I need to put together. Then I will create a spider graph of how I am going to link multiple ideas together. From there I will start writing my draft and reach out to others in the Guild to spring ideas off of. Lastly, a good friend of mine does a read for final edits for me.

[JD] Describe your writing space.

[DM] I arrived in Virginia after three years working in Baghdad for the J2. When I arrived here, I had no intention of going back to school or being a writer. So I rented a very small apartment where I now have dedicated a corner of it for my writing. It should be the dining room of my apartment. I have a dual screen computer system and a tablet for when I am mobile.

[JD] When you are mobile, what does that writing space look like?

[DM] The flexibility of my schedule allows me to attend events in DC. I attend a lot of think tank discussions and seminars. If I am going to DC for an event, I will use my iPad with a voice to text app or type out ideas I am interested in following up on.

[JD] How do you determine what you are writing about?

[DM] I look a lot to what is happening in the news. Also, a lot of my writing recently has been book reviews. I tend to look at military or veteran topics but also the intelligence issues around the war on terrorism. I look to current events, but I keep a link to history — especially in book reviews. For example, my recent book review through the US Naval Institute is on The First SEALs which is a look at World War II Office of Strategic Services unit that its lineage links most closely to our modern day Navy Sea Air and Land teams.

[JD] What does your note taking system look like? How do you gather information for your writing?

[DM] Note taking is a mix of two things. “Hard notes” are mostly written in Moleskin notebooks. Otherwise, it is software that allows me to highlight and take notes on PDF documents I have found online.

[JD] What are you reading lately?

[DM] Right now I just started They are All My Family by John Riordan. It is about a Marine serving in Vietnam and how he got his family from Vietnam during the Fall of Saigon to the United States. I was there during that time so it is an area of super interest to me. Since I am not one to only read one book at a time, I am reading Team of Teams by Stanley McChrystal. I have also found that if I download a book to my iPad I can listen to books while I am stuck in DC traffic.

[JD] When you are not reading for book review purposes, how do you find what to read? Is there a genre of reading you prefer?

[DM] In fiction is usually law and crime — the John Grisham sort. A lot of fiction I read is historical fiction. Then I choose biographies.

[JD] What is the book you’re most likely to give as a gift or one you’ve given as a gift the most?

[DM] Probably General Zinni’s Before the First Shots are Fired. He emphasizes the idea that so often things are missed when people talk about war or things that may escalate toward war. We need to think through the things that we should do and think about the impact on things if we don’t do them before we send troops into combat. We went into Iraq somewhat half-cocked. We have done so many military expeditions without really thinking through the second and third order effects. We have put ourselves in a strange predicament. We are not trusted by some countries. The Sunnis in Iraq were left hanging in 2010 when we left Iraq — we’ll have a hard time recruiting them to fight against ISIS. We’ve created a bad space for us and we need to get out of that space. The message of his book is very strong.

[JD] What’s your drink of choice?

[DM] I really enjoy good rum. One that I really like is Hawaiian rum; it’s a dark rum called Whalers. Over ice with a couple of drops of ginger ale with a squeeze of lemon and that’s it. I’ve also recently found perhaps a new favorite in Mount Gay Black Barrel Barbados Rum. It’s a rum that is aged in bourbon barrels returning me to my Kentucky roots.

[JD] You’ve already shared a few sea stories during the BBQ, but where’s the most adventurous place you have been?

[DM] The most adventurous thing I did was getting deported from Iraq. Coming off of leave I decided to fly into the commercial airport rather than the military airport. That required an exit and a re-entrance visa. I thought I secured both. I came back off of leave only to be put back on the plane and sent back to Bahrain. I made my way over to Kuwait City and checked into a hotel there. I called my unit and found I couldn’t take a military flight because I didn’t have my helmet or gear with me. I booked a flight on Griffin Air to the military side of the Baghdad airport. I went to the travel agency and asked them why I couldn’t use the visas I had purchased. It turns out they had sold me two exit visas. They refunded my $100 but not my $1500 for the additional plane ticket and hotels.

[JD] What bold steps would you like to see the MWG take?

[DM] I think a bold step would be publishing a quarterly journal of our writing.