Why Do We Write ....Notes and Scribbles from My Desk Official Newsletter of Johnnie Gilpen Author, Adventurer, Over-the-Hill Athlete, Tillman Scholar, & Emergency Medicine PA-C

Issue: 2 09 April 2023

Apr 10, 2023

Dispatch

Hello Everyone,

Welcome to my April Newsletter. My intent is to give bimonthly updates on our progress on our upcoming books Tales from the Greenside and Tales From the Back of the Bus. In February I published my inaugrual newsletter. I said that over the coming months, I would be showcasing some of Rob Creager’s cartoons and my previously published work; however, since our newsletter was originally published, there has been something inside me that needed to put pen to paper. What is a storyteller, without a story to tell? Therefore, this month I am sharing with you my latest reflection. It is longer than the “standard” reflection, I hope that you find something in it that touches that part of you, the part of you where you start to ask questions of yourself. More importantly, start to ask questions those around you. Without further adieu my latest story - Why we write…

Why Do We Write…

Getty Images.

You see I’m trying in all my stories to get the feeling of the actual life across – not just depict life – or criticize it – but to actually make it alive. So that when you read something by me you experience the thing. You can’t do this without putting the bad and the ugly as well as the beautiful. Because if it is all beautiful you can’t believe it. Things aren’t that way. It is only showing both side – 3 dimensions and if possible 4 that you can write the way I want to.

Ernest Hemingway

Why do we write…

Rolling into April, I am rounding the proverbial third base. I have tagged the bag. Toed off with my left foot. Head down. With every step, extending my stride. My eyes focused forward. I am dialed in on the catcher guarding home plate. I am physically and mentally prepared to slide headfirst into my 52nd inning of life. Heading down the home stretch of 51, I have been reflecting on my life. Reflecting leads to thinking. Thinking…let me be specific here, thinking on most occasions, leads me, and those willing to follow me - into trouble. The kind of trouble we may or may not regret, time will tell. However, let's be honest, good stories never come from good judgment and just sitting on the sidelines of life! Like the Jimmy Buffet song Stories We Could Tell, if you ever look at my life and wonder why I ride the carousel, the carousel of life, I do it for the stories we can tell. If you don’t believe me, ask anyone who has jumped on Johnnie’s Crazy Train. Ask Dennis Healy, JD Davis, and Bill Justice, a $ buck ninety-ninety for a pair of pickled pig lips is a good deal, any way you slice it - in Apalachicola, Florida, Oklahoma City, or Brooklyn, New York…Right? Why do we write…

Reflecting on the last year, it is hard to believe a year has come and gone - the void left by the loss of the man who was a cross between a second dad and big brother has narrowed but is still as deep as it was the day he left. I miss my daily conversation with Dr. Max Martin. He was a true renaissance man, whom I wished I had asked more questions, listened more when he spoke, and written down the wisdom he imparted to me during the fifteen years we tinkered, taught, and traveled together. Why do we write…

March 31st was the 20th anniversary of my Dad, John’s passing. Dad was 55 when the remnants of a war he fought 36 years prior claimed his life way too early. A couple of weeks before he passed, we were watching Ollie North on Fox News. Col. North was embedded with a contingent of U.S. Marines providing real-time dispatches on the invasion of Iraq. Dad wanted to watch, at first anyway, then after an hour or two, time does not matter, he asked me to turn it off. He had seen enough. My dad knew all too well the cost war. With one of his high school best friends, Larry Riley, he joined the Marine Corps after high school in 1965. Why? Number seven of nine kids, a sharecropper’s son who was born in a log cabin with a dirt floor, the Corps was the only way out of the life he had been born into. After graduating from boot camp at MCRD San Diego and follow-on training, he found himself assigned to HMM 363, the Red Lions, a Marine heavy helicopter squadron flying primarily medivac missions in the Republic of South Vietnam. He served 15 months as a door gunner, flying first on UH-34s and then on UH-1 Hueys. On December 22nd, 1967, he made it back to the world. He had survived. He made it home. Why do we write…

Over the next 36 years, he seldom spoke of his military service, when he did, he was usually drinking, drinking a lot, and only with my Uncle J, a fellow Vietnam Vet, an Army lifer – Sergeant First Class John R McClary, USA (ret.). Dad’s green Class A’s with Corporal chevrons hung in his closet. Two green military duffle bags were in the attic for most of my teenage years – he finally opened them after 20 years for the first time. Then he threw all the contents away except for a single OD green cover ( a cover - is jarhead for a hat) with the USMC emblem on the front. A single green duffle still hangs in the barn collecting cobwebs and dirt dobber nests. In Mom’s jewelry box, she still has his government issue plastic cigarette case. To this day inside resides a single-row ribbon bar – the National Defense Service Medal Ribbon, Vietnam Service Medal Ribbon, Vietnam Campaign with Date Bar, a pair of black metal collar Corporal chevrons with crossed rifles, a brass belt buckle, and a zippo lighter. When my grandmother died in 1990, my Aunt Fern, his oldest sister, gave him a stack of letters that he had mailed home while deployed, a cardboard roll with a boot camp class picture, and a small black and orange Kodak box of slides. Like his uniform, they went into a closet somewhere, and we never discussed it. The Vietnam War was something my dad and I never talked about – a regret I wish I could go back and fix. Why do we write…

I did not make that mistake with Max. We talked about his time there often, but damn it, I wished I manned up and asked more, asked often, and recorded it. The stories he could tell. My favorite, while doing a background check for one of our government training contracts, the government agent needed clarification regarding how Max was able to accumulate close to 1000 combat flying hours in a helicopter in less than a year during his tour in Vietnam. So I asked him. In true Max Martin fashion, he nonchalantly told me - “because I am Mormon.” What do you say to that? I was like Ok, and that's exactly what I told the agent. Crickets…that's what I heard, nothing but dead air space on the telephone line. He had nothing else to say except thank you. He was not going to touch that with a ten-foot pole! Later, I asked Max - “What the hell does being Mormon have to do with you flying that many hours?” Simple he said… He did not drink, so all he did was fly, work on helicopters, and fly a hell of a lot more. Anyone who knew Max Martin knows that was the cleaned, PG version of his answer. Why do we write…

While Dad and I never spoke about specifics of his military service nor mine; however, there are two times that are still vivid in my memory. Sometimes they play like an old 8 mm movie reel, rolling through my mind of those times we did talk about military service. I can hear the clicking of the film in my head, the video crisp and clear like it occurred yesterday. When I was a senior in high school, not wanting to go to college, I expressed my thoughts on enlisting to my dad. At first, his eyes were piercing, unimpressed with my intent. To be candid, it was a frank, unpleasant conversation, one where he laid out the reasons I should attend college, i.e., he never had these opportunities, the ones my mother and he had worked hard to afford me. Soon the conversation turned to indirect insults on how I would not fare well in the strict, rigid military culture. Finally, with what I now know and understand was a defeated sense about him, like he knew I was not going to listen to any sensible attempt at reason, knowing he had failed to dissuade me from enlisting. He went from looking at the space between him and the TV that had been off, to turning and facing me with an expressionless face, he started to speak with a calm, almost trembling voice, “Son, there is no glory in watching your friends die.” Then he turned, walked around me, and walked away. Why do we write…

Sadly, we only talked about my military service one time. It was Christmas after I had deployed to the Med in 96’ with the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU-SOC). Dad and I had been to see his best friend Larry Novosad, we were headed back home in his old truck when he looked over at me, “Don’t talk about what you do,” referring to me being a Corpsman and talking to civilians, “they may act like they care, but they really don’t, and they won’t ever understand.” He turned his eyes back to the road in front of us, nothing else was ever said. Why do we write…

The night we were watching the Iraq invasion, was the third Saturday night in March 2003. Dad had just undergone a complete bone marrow transplant, at the OU Medical Center in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. He had asked me to stay with him that night, it was the first, and unfortunately our last. He was tired but hopeful. My Dad believed that he was going home the following week. That is what we were told. We both sat there in silence, watching Ollie North provide a boots-on-the-ground exposition of the Marines' push north, further into Iraq - Operation Iraqi Freedom was front and center on cable TV. At some point, he said he had seen enough. I changed the channel. Just so happened his night shift nurse was in the room. She overheard his response regarding having enough. It was not her first night taking care of my dad, she knew his multiple myeloma was the residual effect of Agent Orange exposure. The exposure he incurred during his service in the Republic of South Vietnam. She finished her patient assessment, then turning toward him, she said what she was thinking.

In a very sincere and apologetic voice, “Mr. Gilpen, Thank you for your service, I am so very sorry you were exposed to Agent Orange.”

It completely caught him off guard. He was a Vietnam Veteran who was not accustomed to hearing anyone, particularly a young nurse whom he did not know, thank him for his military service. His experience was completely different from mine. Different than what many veterans experience today. I am not sure what Dad was thinking, he was emotionless.

I believe she did not get the feedback from him that she was expecting. Which led to her next statement. Her voice changed from apologetic to frustrated, “Aren’t you mad at the government for doing this to you?” she asked him.

Knowing Dad he did not want to answer. But he did. To his credit, he was polite, “I don’t understand your question?”

She looked at me then turned back towards my Dad, then she said, “Just like those soldiers you were watching on TV, if you had never been drafted you would never have been exposed to Agent Orange, you would not have cancer, and you would not be here in this hospital right now.”

I was astonished, this girl had a pair of cojones on her! To my amazement, Dad did not lose his shit. Instead, my dad calmly told her, “I was not drafted. I enlisted in the Marine Corps. I failed the entrance physical. I am blind in one of my eyes. I gave the doctor a hundred dollars to pass me.” A $100 in 1965 for a poor sharecropper’s kid was a lot of money! I knew he was not drafted, the rest of it was something I had never heard.

He continued, “I would not be who I am today, nor experienced what I have experienced, or have what I have. It’s not always been easy, but it made me who I am.”

She didn’t say anything else to either of us. She turned and made her way to the door, leaving the two of us alone. Dad did not say anything else, and I did not ask. He just laid back in the bed, then he drifted off to sleep. Me? I just sat there in the oversized, uncomfortable reclining chair. Twenty years of reflecting, I wished I had asked him questions. Why didn’t I? Because I thought we would have more time for question-and-answer sessions. We did not. Monday his health took a turn for the worse. Thursday he was gone. Why do we write…

Ten years later, Mom, my sister Sabrina, and I were looking for something in the safe room. When Mom and Dad built a new house in 2002, they put a safe room in the back bedroom. Dad would only go down into a below-ground storm shelter if there was no other option. I heard him tell my Uncle J once that there was a night during his 15 months in Vietnam when every bunker that they had built, had the roof blown out of them by mortar fire. More than one while he was in it. He did not like holes in the ground. Anyway, I found the small faded yellow Kodak slide boxes. Mom told us that they were Dad’s. They were slides from his time in Vietnam. I opened them, holding them up to the light, trying to see what they were pictures of. The idea of having them digitized was raised, and I quickly said I would do it. I know that sometimes pictures get taken in faraway places, and they should stay there. There was a reason they were in the safe room. There was a reason Dad had never shown them to us.

The pictures were all PG, nothing outrageous or inappropriate. Pictures of sheet metal buildings and bunkers surrounded by sandbags, Marines with the smoking lamp lit, flight lines of old UH-34 helicopters, a couple of good pictures of Dad sitting in front of the HMM 363 S2 office, and a few of him and another guy acting like they are fighting. I was excited, so I uploaded them to the HMM 363 Facebook page asking for help identifying the people in the pictures. Nothing! Natta! A couple of people told me they looked like some were taken at Dong Ha, Monkey Mountain, or possibly Marble Mountain Marine air bases, but nobody knew my dad. There was another son of a Marine, Kip B., who like me, had been searching for answers to understand his father Ralph who had served in the same unit after my dad had already rotated home. He was instrumental in sharing with me where and how to search old, archived unit records. Kip found the flight manifest on the day Dad caught the Freedom Bird home on December 12th, 1967. I will always be grateful for his help! Why do we write…

Finally, after a year had passed, I had some form of movement. Someone thought they recognized the guy who was in the fighting pictures with Dad. I reached out to him on Facebook Messenger. He replied thankfully. He told me it was him in the pictures. He was incredibly open and honest - he told me that he had not thought about Dad in almost 50 years. I told him of my plight to find some answers to the who and where of the pictures. I told him that no one remembered Dad.

Jerry Calame provided the answer that I was not expecting, he said that every Marine in Vietnam knew that your life expectancy was longer with the Wing than it was with the infantry, hence the difficulty getting an aviation billet. However, HMM 363, a Marine helicopter air asset whose primary mission was flying medivacs at the time unexpectedly needed a large, urgent influx of non-aviation MOS enlisted replacements. When Jerry got to the unit, he learned the need was due to casualties and KIAs from recent mortar attacks. Jerry told me that my dad was one of four enlisted Marines from the Administration shops (S-1/S-2/S-3/S-4) who served as door gunners on the helicopters who survived the attacks. Jerry told me that he knew that two of the others were KIA’s at some point later and was not sure what happened to the Staff Sergeant. He told me Dad rotated home not long afterward. That explained a lot. Not only why nobody recognized my dad in the pictures, but it explained why my dad never spoke of his time in Vietnam. It also told me a lot about why Dad was the way he was. Now I knew why my dad had tried so hard to deter me from enlisting, he was trying to save me from having to experience the soul-crushing experience of seeing your brothers or sisters die in front of you. Now I know why - Survival Guilt is a bitch! I wished I had asked more questions. Ironically, the document that I received from Kip B. that showed my dad leaving Vietnam, also had Jerry and the Staff Sgt he had told me about on it as well going on a four-day R & R - that was how I got the Staff Sgt’s name. I did track him down. He had retired from the Corps as a Master Gunnery Sergeant, unfortunately, he died in 1989. Why do we write…

My mother recently told me at some point the Wall That Heals - Traveling Vietnam Memorial came to Oklahoma. She went with him to see it in Shawnee. She told me it was extremely difficult for him to even get out of the vehicle, much less find his friends on the wall. I know from my own experience of walking through the white tombstones of Arlington searching for names how hard it is. I wished I had talked with him about my experiences, and maybe he would have shared his. We were more alike than either of us knew. From my own experiences of losing Marines, and fellow Corpsmen, you are never the same afterward, it changes who you are. My Dad was not perfect, he made mistakes, he came home, he went to work, and he tried like many other veterans before and after him, he tried to put the horrors he had witnessed behind him. Did he do the best he could? That is not for me to question nor to judge. He told me that he had failures in his life that night in the hospital, and I believe that he regretted at least one of them. He was a stubborn proud man but had hoped he would be able to make up for some of the wrongs, but life did not work out for him or who he had wronged before he died. But those failures are not my story to tell, not today. I wished I had asked more questions. Why do we write…

When I was applying for the Pat Tillman Foundation Scholarship, there was a section on your military family pedigree - I stopped by my Uncle J’s to ask him a few questions about his service to make sure that I got it right. A few questions turned into hours. During those hours, we had 20 years of his life in photo albums spread across their old kitchen table, military citations – a Bronze Star, The Republic of Vietnam Gallantry Cross…My uncle got up and went to find something, and my aunt thanked me for what I was doing. I did not understand why she was thanking me. She proceeded to tell me that other than my dad, I was the first person he had ever shown in a single setting, all his military history too. I asked why? She replied, “You’re the first person to ever ask.” That answer crushed me. Why do we write…

A few weeks ago, I had a long in-depth conversation with my cousin Heath Claborn, we discussed the underlying nuances of my forthcoming book Tales from the Greenside. Then we began to broach the characteristics of our favorite authors – Twain, Dumas, Wayne Stennet, Terry Weaver, David Goggins, and Jeff B Evans, when he asked me if I had read Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried. It is an exceptional fictional humanization of the men he served with in Vietnam. It had been 30 years since I had first read it, so I got on Amazon and ordered a copy. I have been reading it. I think he captures the concept of Why We Write…

Forty-three years old, and the world occurred half a lifetime ago, and yet remembering makes it now. And sometimes remembering will lead to a story, which makes it forever. That’s what stories are for. Stories are for joining the past to the future. Stories are for those late hours in the night when you can’t remember how you got from where you were to where you are. Stories are for eternity, when memory is erased, when there is nothing to remember except the story

Tim O’Brien - The Things They Carried

In Randy Brown and Steve Leonard’s Why We Write: Craft Essays on Writing War, Leonard talks about writing is our legacy. He writes “that writing those stories down ensures that our thoughts, our very ideas, live beyond our short time in this life. Those stories help others see into your mind – how you think. And they ensure that others can learn from you – your stories, your thoughts, your ideas – long after you’re gone. That magic is only possible, however, if you write things down.

I agree, believe, and promote what O’Brien and Leonard are saying, and I believe they are foundational reasons why we should write. However, to be honest, that was not why I started to write, it is not why I write now, and it’s not why I will probably continue to write – I write because it became and continue to be an outlet for my stress, for my frustrations. I have chosen to continue a profession where stress, grief, and loss are probably more of a constant now than they ever were during my military service. For me writing is cathartic – but my road there was arduous at best. Every VA counselor that I have ever seen has told me to journal, journaling will set the demons free - I have bought and started more journals than I can count, but I hate to physically write. My hands hurt so bad, and I get frustrated, more frustrated than I was when I started! However, a friend told me just to sit at the computer and type. Free type. Who cares what you type, what you say, just type. Put it pen to paper using a keyboard or dictated it - who cares, just get the words out on a screen or paper so that you can read them. Read them aloud, so your brain can process them. Why do we write…

My writing started in 2016, the 20th anniversary of Operation Purple Star, the 20th anniversary of losing my Marines - I sat down and started writing, but what I wrote was not journaling, not a reflection, I started with something that I now have come to use daily when I write. Channeling my best inner Hemingway - “All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence you know”. I wrote was this:

05:13 May 9^th, 2015

Latitude: 24°34'10.62''N, Longitude: -81°45'10.98'' W

Days Inn Motel

Key West, FL

I heard somewhere that Zoë Castillio[1] said:

“Every story has a beginning and an end, but sometimes they are one and the same”.

Do not ask me who in the hell Zoë Castillio is, but for me, it rings too true for comfort. Standing here, staring at a reflection of a man I no longer recognize… Where did all this gray come from? The hollowness in my eyes; my face bears the lines and scars of more miles than I can remember. Damn sure more than I want to!

“Damn, it hurts to breathe!” Holding my side, still staring at my reflection. I keep asking myself “When do you call it quits, hang it all up?”

The tattoos on my arms have begun to fade; the EGA, a reminder of a lifelong past; the caduceus of who I once was… The helmet, rifle, bayonet, and combat boots and the 14 names etched on my side, a permanent reminder of those who did not come home, a permanent memorial, a promise to never forget. Twenty years and the ghosts of my past still haunt me. Most days they come like an old black and white home movie; others, like a Hollywood horror film. Today, they are weighing heavy on my soul…Twenty years ago today, I lost them. Twenty years ago, a piece of my soul was ripped from my body…

Today is my birthday. My driver's license says I am 48, the reflection in the mirror is twice that.

Where do I start?

What I wrote was the beginning of my first book, the yet to be published novel Two Minutes: A Semi-True Story - A Walter Claborn Adventure. I plan to get back to it after my Tales series gets published. But for me, I write as an outlet for stress, to use my frustrations. I did not know that I had a voice until I met Dr. Catherine Mintler, a writing professor at the University of Oklahoma in Norman, Oklahoma. Dr. Mintler volunteers her time helping veterans and spouses find their voices and craft their stories and responses for the annual Pat Tilman Foundation Tillman Scholar Scholarship (https://pattillmanfoundation.org) applications. If it were not for her I would not be a Tillman Scholar. I would never have been able to draft a voice that expressed who and why I was deserving of the scholarship. Since then my wife Leslie, Dr. Mintler, and others have encouraged me to continue to find my voice and to continue to write my story. Through the Pat Tillman Foundation, I was introduced to The War Horse Journal (https://thewarhorse.org/). The journal provides an avenue for veterans to publish their individual stories. Every Wednesday a new reflection is published. I am honored to have had three published (2019, 2020, and 2021). Why do we write…

I wrote this piece first to remind those who are reading this to ask more questions of those around them. To understand those closest to them. Do not be like Kip and myself searching old archives trying to understand the men and women in our lives. For those Veterans, Parents, Firefighters, Police Officers, EMS, Doctors, Nurses, Teachers, or whatever your occupation, take the time to author your stories- put your story to pen and paper. We are storytellers by nature, continue the story, there is somebody who wants to know your story!

Secondly, the last six weeks have been nothing short of a shit show at work. I am eight months into my new job, and at 51, I am the new guy on the block! I have been a lifelong learner – every day I head to work, every day knowing I will learn something I did not know when I left home that morning. I am grateful for the opportunity that God provided me, and the job Dr. Bogie offered me in February of 2022. I have found my dream job. I know at the end of my shift; I will have made a difference in at least one person’s life. While not necessary, though extremely rewarding all the same, I know that even if the patient does not appreciate my efforts, there is a family member who will. I cannot think of greater job satisfaction than that. Some will question that line of thinking. Recently a patient’s family member, like so many before said – “I do not know how you do it! I could never do it. Seeing all the kids hurting would crush me!”

I replied, “Taking care of kids is like taking care of Marines, the only difference is – the kids don’t cry as much, nor do they eat as many crayons!” That always makes people, cock their heads a little, look at me, and I can see the wheels turning inside their heads. Think about it, kids have little to no fear. They do not know they are supposed to hurt, to be afraid of something, they just pick themselves up, rub some dirt on it, and keep driving on!

As I said, I love what I do, but in the eyes of my coworkers, and rightfully so when it comes to pediatric emergency medicine, I am the new guy on the block. As a PA (Physician Assistant), I am still wet behind the ears, the new smell has yet to wear off after three years. I am proud I survived my Emergency Medicine Fellowship and passed my NCCPA Emergency Medicine certification test; I know that my tires have yet to wear the little knowbies off. However, this is not my first set of tires. Just because you are the new kid on this block, does not mean you have never lived anywhere else! I am new to pediatric emergency medicine as a PA, but I am not new to emergency medicine, to the ghosts, the demons, and spirits, who are always ever present in the halls of the ED, and worse, the ones who set up residence in our heads, hearts, and souls, the ones that we carry with us to the grave. I have seen Death darken the doorstep and leave carrying a soul more times than I care to remember in my close to 30 to year career in medicine. Over the last six weeks sadly six young lives were lost, and three of them were patients whom I treated - my patients. I have prayed and cried with, and held co-workers, and we have questioned the why’s, the what if’s, the should of’s, the could of’s, and the why didn’t I’s. It was at this point I went from being the new guy to the old gray-bearded curmudgeon. I have told them that sometimes there are no answers, and sometimes there are no reasons why!

This past week I have been in a conversation with a good friend and fellow Emergency Medicine PA, Jeff Evans, about the physical and emotional burnout among medical professionals since the beginning of the pandemic. I hope that those of you who are on the front lines reading this can find your voice…put your experiences pen to paper, and like me will help you find some emotional resilience that allows you to keep moving forward.

We ALL MUST find a reason Why We Write...

I HOPE that you Can Find Your Reasons Why You Write…

Glossary

ED: Emergency Department

HMM: Marine Heavy Helicopter Squadron

KIA: Killed in Action

MCRD: Marine Corps Recruit Depot

MEU-SOC: Marine Expeditionary Unit - Special Operations Capable

NCCPA: National Commission on Certification of Physician Assistants

OD: Olive Drab

PA: Physician Assistant

PTF: Pat Tillman Foundation

USA: United States Army

USMC: United States Marine Corps

Updates

Just a quick update, this past month Rob launched his Facebook page Tales from the Back of the Bus ( https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100090103466460 ) highlighting his EMS and Fire drawing. Please check out his drawing and follow his Facebook page. If you have never seen his Tales from the Greenside Facebook page ( https://www.facebook.com/Creagersection8 ) showcasing his military-related drawing please check those out too and follow the page as well.

For those that don’t know we are writing a book series titled The Barstool Short Story Anthology Series. The series consists of books that are made up of short stories based on his drawing like the one above. The first book we hope to publish in late summer 2023 will be Tales from the Greenside, then Tales from the Back of the Bus based on his EMS and Fire Drawing in the Winter of 2023, and Tales from the ER in the Spring of 2024.

This past month we have finished two more chapters and we hope to have Tales from the Green Side to the editors by May 1st. Check out the drawings below and some of the promotional quotes from HN (FMF) Tobias Thomas Stanley and LCpl Frankie the Freak!

As we get closer I will also be posting updates on the following social media platforms below. Please follow us and help us build our following.

Thank You

Johnnie and Rob

My Official Facebook Author Page ( https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100089807086753&is_tour_completed=true ),
Official Instagram ( https://www.instagram.com/pa_author/ ),
Official Twitter Page ( https://twitter.com/pa_author ),
Official YouTube page ( https://www.youtube.com/@pa_author ),
Tales From the Green Side ( https://www.facebook.com/Creagersection8)
Tales from the Back of the Bus (https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100090103466460)

If you use any of these social media platforms, I would greatly appreciate your support in following me on the platform. Also by the end of March, I hope to launch my official author webpage at www.johnniegilpen.com home of Johnnie Gilpen - Author, Adventurer, Over-the-Hill Athlete, Tillman Scholar, and Emergency Medicine PA-C. I have already launched a new contact email address for my writing - johnnie@johnniegilpen.com.