War Author Signs Books in San Clemente

When Dan Caldwell walked out of his house and stepped onto the beach at T Street, frustrated with the way his latest book was coming along, he thought it was just another stroll on the shore.

Then he came upon two Marines building a sandcastle.

"I thought they were just spending some time reliving their childhood," Caldwell said during a book signing at Mathom House Books on Saturday. 

"Then one of them stood up and I realized he had two prosthetic legs. That inspired me to keep going," Caldwell recalled. 

Caldwell, who teaches political science at Pepperdine University and spends summers in San Clemente, sometimes devoted 12 hours a day to the project.

Vortex of Conflict, a scholarly analysis of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, started as an article for Columbia Press titled, "The Wrong War at the Wrong Time with the Wrong Strategy." 

"When I was finished, people just assumed I was going to write a book ... and that's just what happened," Caldwell said. "There are lots of books about the Iraq war and the Afghanistan war, but there aren't many about both together."

Vortex aims to explain how we got into the war. This fall, the book will be used in college campuses across the nation, he said, but that isn't the only audience he wanted to reach.

"I wrote partially for veterans to figure out what they are fighting for," Caldwell said. "I have a friend who asked me quite simply, 'Dan, why was I there?' I wanted to answer that question."