Why I Write C2A

Why I Write C2A: A Reason to Live

Why I Write C2A is because, for most of my life, I understood duty better than hope.

I understood showing up when something was burning, broken, dangerous, or beyond anyone else’s control. Also, I understood putting on turnout gear, climbing into the fire truck, and heading toward the problem while everyone else was running away. While everyone else was trying to get as far as possible from whatever “it” was.

So I also understood service, sacrifice, brotherhood, dark humor, and the strange calm that sometimes arrives when everything around you has gone completely wrong.

I was made for this shit. I knew it since I was just four or five years old.

But what I did not understand was how to build a life I actually wanted to live. Because I had spent most of my life looking for a cause to die for. Instead of looking for someone and something worth living for. That realization hurt. And I resisted that lesson for far too long.

I Loved Being A Firefighter

Firefighting was the only work I ever really, truly loved. It gave me purpose in a way few other jobs could. The work mattered. Also, the people beside me mattered. Because the decisions and choices had consequences, and there was no room for empty corporate language. There was no pretending fake, manufactured emergencies born of incompetence, apathy, or complicity were remotely the same as a real one.

The fire service also gave me many of the things that eventually found their way into Countdown to Armageddon. Things like: duty, loyalty, courage, grief, stupidity, competence, gallows humor, and ordinary people doing some extraordinary, heroic shit. Because someone has to do them.

Nearly every other job felt different. Some paid the bills. Some barely managed that. Most felt like trading pieces of my soul for the privilege of surviving until the next financial insult (paycheck). Once I got my head screwed on right, I worked. Because that’s what responsible adults do. But I rarely felt that the work itself meant anything.

My Sin, My Shame

For years, more than I care to admit, I mistook endurance and willpower for purpose.

Additionally, I carried a deeply flawed idea of faith and redemption. Somewhere along the way, I began treating service and sacrifice as a way to earn my place in Heaven. I falsely believed that if I did enough good, helped enough people, saved enough lives, accepted enough danger, and proved willing to make the ultimate sacrifice, perhaps the account would balance in my favor.

But that’s not the way salvation works.

Grace cannot be earned. Salvation is not in our power to obtain. No matter how much overtime, good deeds, public service, physical suffering, or willingness to die for someone else. Those things matter, but they do not come remotely close to purchasing redemption. Because trying to earn salvation is a lie. It is impossible. And it is a form of pride.

I was trying to make myself the one responsible for settling the debt of answering for my sins.

But I did not understand that at first.

Instead, I kept searching for a cause worth dying for.

That may sound noble until you examine it closely. Sometimes searching for a noble death is easier than learning how to live for something. Because dying for a cause asks for one decisive moment. Living for something requires patience, vulnerability, responsibility, forgiveness, and the willingness to keep moving when nothing feels heroic.

Why I Write C2A: The Price You Pay

Over the years, my body was keeping its own running tab of accumulated costs. In 1992, I was hit and run over by a truck, causing a compression fracture to my spine. In 2001, I tore my ACL and MCL in my left knee. In 2006, the left knee again and three knee surgeries. In 2022, it was a heart attack from a 100% blockage of my Aorta.

Broken bones, stitches, concussions, hearing damage, burn injuries, smoke inhalation, and more than a few bumps and bruises. My back and knee are constant reminders that the human body does not come with an unlimited, bumper-to-bumper service agreement. Then, in September 2025, a right shoulder injury and surgery. It is astonishing how miserable that process has been, discovering how much daily life depends on joints working the way their original design was intended.

Those problems did not create the questions. But they sure made them harder to ignore. Because time was no longer an abstract resource I foolishly assumed I would always have. My body had begun sending me increasingly hostile nasty-grams that “later” was not guaranteed.

Want a small view of the bodily punishment I’ve endured? Read about one scenario that gave me first- and second-degree burns over 81% of my body, smoke inhalation, and borderline heat stroke on the About page.

She lived in the Philippines, on the opposite side of the planet. I was not looking for a relationship, and I was definitely not looking for a long-distance relationship. Nor one involving a twelve-hour time difference, expensive flights, immigration obstacles, financial strain, and the largest damn ocean on the planet between us. It made every concern reasonable.

The more we casually talked, the harder it became to dismiss what was growing between us. She believed in me when I didn’t. She kept that line of communication open when I didn’t. I resisted her, the distance, the setbacks, the frustration, and years that did not unfold according to plan.

Ann did not save my soul. That belongs to Jesus Christ, my Lord and Savior, alone. But what she did give me was the future with a face.

What 8,537.34 Miles Away Did To Me

For most of my life, I looked for something worth dying for. Ann became the first person who made me seriously search for a reason to live. Because she made survival personal, as well as blessing me with the role of a provider. That matters. A lot.

She made my tomorrow matter because it may bring another opportunity to be one step closer to returning to her. Marrying her. Building a life together with her. Something we’ve both discussed for years.

That did not erase the damage. It did not magically fix my health, finances, work, faith, or circumstances. Love is a choice, and long-distance relationships are not powered by romantic speeches. They require communication, stubbornness, sacrifice, patience, and an unreasonable refusal to surrender when the situation appears determined to remain difficult.

In that sense, Ann also helped shape the heart of Countdown to Armageddon.

Why I Write C2A: The Story Behind the Books

This is Why I Write C2A books. These books contain war, advanced weapons, hidden government programs, demons, engineered soldiers, collapsing nations, and enough questionable military technology to keep several congressional committees denying knowledge for decades. However, beneath all of that, the series is about damaged people deciding what they are willing to live for.

So many of the characters understand duty before they understand grace. They know how to fight, endure, protect, and sacrifice. But they are often far less comfortable with love, faith, mercy, forgiveness, salvation, or the possibility that their lives may have value beyond their usefulness in battle.

They joke because sometimes humor is the only safe way to admit that something hurts. They keep moving because stopping would force them to confront what they have lost. Yet they still make mistakes because courage does not automatically produce wisdom. Some believe they are beyond redemption. Others believe they can balance the account through service, suffering, or one final desperate, heroic act.

I understand those people.

I write these books because the battle between good and evil is everywhere. Since 2008, the United States, the Christian values it was founded upon, and believers are under attack. It’s in our news media, in every form of entertainment, and parts of our government. So the struggle of good and evil in the books is everywhere. Not just armies, governments, monsters, or weapons. Because the struggle is in each and every one of us.

It comes down to choices. Do you decide to surrender to your bitterness, pride, fear, despair, or the false belief that they are too damaged to be saved? Do they choose to make the world a better place or serve themselves?

I write about brotherhood because I have lived it.

I write about sacrifice because I once misunderstood it.

But I also write about dark humor because sometimes laughter is how people remain human while standing in places no one should have to stand.

Also, I write about grace and salvation because none of us can earn it.

Why I Write C2A is about imperfect people finding reasons to keep going. Since I spent much of my life looking for the wrong answer.

Then I met Ann, and she helped me understand that life and living require far more courage.

Why I Write C2A: Explore the C2A World

That’s what I based the C2A world upon, start exploring it here:

• Learn more about Book I: The Book of Daniel
• Read a critical review: The Book of Daniel Review
• Who is Daniel Penn?
• Learn more about The Man Behind Daniel Penn
• Look behind the secrecy surrounding The Hidden War
• Highlights, “history,” and lore of PIRDD