The Wind in the Trees: A Nation Divided

By Bunk Russell

A college professor, the leader of the underground patriot movement, Antifa, Black Lives Matter, and a Russian billionaire find themselves in stark contrast and conflict over the history and the direction of America. This is a fast-paced, suspenseful read that enthralls all facets of the American life including the good, the bad, and the ugly. A little known Muslim sect adds to the mystery and to the impact of the storyline.

Dr. Edward Miller, a professor of history at Coastal Virginia University and a world-renowned scholar of the Civil War, first finds himself in a battle to save his textbooks from historical revisionists.

As Antifa, Black Lives Matter, and others start defacing and destroying monuments, cemeteries, and battlefields of the Confederacy, he comes in contact with Donald Smith, leader of the underground patriot movement—an encounter that will shape history.

This scenario plays out in a post-Charlottesville society and exposes the divide that exists in this country between the Constitutionalists and the Left. The FBI gets caught up in this conflict as it attempts to avoid another Civil War.

Anarchy is the call of the day, and this gives the author, Bunk Russell, the ability to display his unparalleled ability to tell a story. This drama will grip you, and it will never let go. This is evident by a statement from the first person who read the book when they said as they laid it down, “I did not see that coming.”

• Language: English
• Publisher: Page Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Sep 9, 2021
• ISBN: 9781662421839

Book preview

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The Wind in the Trees

A Nation Divided

Bunk Russell

Copyright © 2021 Bunk Russell

All rights reserved

First Edition

PAGE PUBLISHING, INC.

Conneaut Lake, PA

First originally published by Page Publishing 2021

ISBN 978-1-6624-2182-2 (pbk)

ISBN 978-1-6624-2183-9 (digital)

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Acknowledgments

Thanks so much to John Cropper for the use of his photography on the cover.

A special thanks to my wife, Tami, for her editing of my manuscript for this book and others prior to them being submitted to my publisher.

Prelude

As we watch our televisions in the evening and we see the random news headlines of conflicts between the various special interest groups in our population, they almost seem unrelated to our everyday lives. For Dr. Edward Miller and his son, John, this could not be further from the truth.

Antifa, Black Lives Matter (BLM), and other liberal and leftist groups nationally and internationally are pushing for history to be changed. They are illegally and sometimes legally operating through the federal and local governments to remove any and all monuments that honor what they call our racist and fascist past.

This is being opposed by the so-called patriot movement in cooperation with what many refer to as white supremacists. It is no longer a battle of ideologies; blood is being shed in the streets.

Dr. Miller and his son’s normal and inconspicuous lives were changed forever as this almost silent war swept across the country.

Chapter 1

A young boy stood with his father at the perimeter of an abandoned field, trying to envision the story his dad was telling him about a great battle that had once taken place in this very spot—a place where lives had been shattered with much bloodshed and where brothers and cousins fought, maimed, and killed one another. John asked, Dad, would you have wanted the North or the South to win? The answer was one he had heard before: Son, it doesn’t matter. It is history, and there were great people on both sides of the conflict. Every man or woman that has ever played a pivotal role in the history of this country, good or bad, can teach us something if we are just smart enough to listen. Studying history allows them to speak to us from the grave.

Dr. Edward Miller, the young boy’s father, a history professor at a small conservative university in Virginia, had always had a deep love of history, especially that of the Civil War. Born and raised in Southern Indiana, he took his family on four-day weekend trips through the South, and they sometimes vacationed there in the summer months. Even before they moved to Virginia and he accepted a position to teach history at the collegiate level, he never passed a Civil War monument or historical sign without stopping to give his family a history lesson.

Edward Miller developed his love of history very early in his high school years at Vincennes High School, and he later taught there. He loved the school and loved the culture of Southern Indiana until the day he died. Late in life, he decided that he wanted to teach at the next level, so he earned his PhD from Indiana University while working and raising a family. His primary reason for earning his PhD, and perhaps the only pretentious idea in this gentleman’s head, was that when he died, he wanted his tombstone to read, Dr. Edward Miller.

After the presidential terms of Clinton, the Bushes, and Obama, it was hard to find a conservative university that actually taught American history. Though he had been an educator his entire adult life, he did not see what was happening in schools and universities until it was too late. History is like a great painting, he would often say, and it should not be altered or eliminated. He knew that studying history was crucial to understanding the past, which in turn helps us understand the present. He taught his students that if they wanted to know how and why the country is the way it is today, they would have to look to history to find the answer. As the often used adage says, History repeats itself. Dr. Miller taught that if we study the successes and failures of the past, we may be able to learn from our mistakes and avoid repeating them in the future.

In today’s casual world, there is no stereotypical professorial look, but Dr. Edward Miller was an exception. Strangers who saw him walking in a hallway or passing in a park would think, I bet that man is a professor. In his career, he had become a renowned writer and speaker known worldwide for his detailed knowledge of American history. He hosted numerous seminars for a wide variety of historical societies and was a frequent guest host on the History Channel and others. His peers always considered his renown a great accomplishment as he had no Ivy League résumé, and his education was from ordinary schools and universities. Most of his teaching career had been at the high school level—a fact of which he was very proud. His career somewhat paralleled legendary NFL coach Vince Lombardy’s who went from high school to the pros by his early fifties.

Most of his years at Coastal Virginia were like a dream come true. Unknown to the administration and others with whom he worked, he would have taught there for free. On many occasions when talking with his now grown son, John, he would say, Son, just look at American history. When taught responsibly and accurately, it is a beautiful study. It is knowledge, and there is no right or wrong or your opinion or my opinion. It is the study of how it actually happened that educates.

He loved the heroic characters and everyday people who helped shape this country: from the American Indian to Christopher Columbus, to Lewis and Clark, to great generals like George Washington and others all the way through the Civil War. Scholars were often amazed at his vast knowledge of WWI and WWII; his lifelong love was studying the Civil War. He was a strict constitutionalist and got very upset when people referred to our form of government as a democracy. Whether giving speeches or just teaching in the classroom, he would raise his voice and proclaim, According to our founding fathers and the Constitution, it is a republic.

Dr. Miller’s great-granddad had fought for the North, but several relatives had fought for the South. It was a complicated time in this country’s history. Old letters that he found in the attic of the old homeplace talked about how his great-granddad fought against and beside many Negro soldiers. He taught that it was never a one-issue war; he did not like that, in some circles, the South was blamed for starting a war over slavery, when in fact, at the beginning of the war, there were more Negros held in slavery north of the Mason-Dixon Line than below.

Later, his son, John, would say, It was a wonderful life learning from my dad and being able to admire someone that loved his job so deeply. Teaching was never a job for Dr. Miller, at least for the majority of his career. A few years before his death, politics and special interests were changing everything. He truly did not like the new textbooks he was required to use in his classroom, and he began to drink more than usual, sitting in his study for hours on end, staring at the walls or out the window. His wife tried to comfort him, but nothing seemed to help. The intellectual powers over the educational world were altering and in some cases, totally changing history to fit their narratives.

Never an outsider or someone that challenged the system, he first tried to go through the normal channels to object to these changes and even sat in on textbook-selection-committee meetings without an invitation. He came home late some evenings and just sat silently in his easy chair in his cherished study. John and his mother, Mary, tried to console and encourage him. When he did acknowledge them, he would make statements such as, History is history. It cannot be changed. It happened the way it happened, like it or not.

Previously, John had very little interest in politics or current events that all changed when he saw what political correctness was doing to his dad, and, in time, to his entire family. The infringement on how his father and others taught started slowly with minor changes in the textbooks. The early changes were barely detectable except to avid historians and constitutionalists. Statements such as, The Constitution is a fluid document that needs to be changed with the passage of time infuriated Dr. Miller. An introduction to one textbook about the Civil War started with, The racist people of the South. This attitude set the stage for major changes and total untruths to become acceptable, and in the face of it, Dr. Miller tried to ignore his superiors and ordered the textbooks that he wanted.

It was during this time that John started to spend more time with his dad. He encouraged him and told him that they were living in an ever-changing world which just made his dad mad and explained, Son, I am not against change. I, more than you, know that change is just a part of living. However, the schools and universities are changing history and, in some cases, erasing history totally by changing textbooks.

Eventually Dr. Miller was not allowed to monitor the textbook selection process. At that point he started to draw up his lesson plans using the university’s selections supplemented by books from his massive personal library. Even this became more difficult because of the growing disconnect between true history and what was being represented in the textbooks. He strongly believed that the books should include more about the issue of slavery and race throughout US history, especially as it related to the Civil War. He said, Its exclusion makes history, like teaching physics and stopping at Newton without bringing in Einstein. History is full of the good, the bad, and the ugly, often all at the same time. By including all of the American story, we get the full picture of our history.

That summer was the beginning of the end of his teaching career and ultimately of his life. First, he was removed from all of the committees and then removed as department head. But he knew he was right, so this did not bother him much until they started reducing his classroom presence and finally assigned him classes to teach outside of his expertise. Dr. Miller was nothing but a teacher and a damn good one, so this maneuver cut his heart out, but he would not quit. His fight to protect basic history became his calling, and he had discovered that there was more to this than just the subject of history. The minor changes in textbooks had become a nationwide movement to change our whole culture and way of life.

Dr. Miller once wrote, It matters that the general public knows of the individuals, the events, and the movements that shaped our nation. He would argue that the fundamental premise of our republican form of government is that political power derives from the consent of the people. Informed consent in its most basic sense requires citizens that are rational and knowledgeable. If we are to remain free, then citizens should not only know how to judge candidates and their competing claims but also how our institutions evolved. An understanding of history does not lead everyone to the same conclusions, but it does equip people with the knowledge to reach independent judgments on current events. Without historical perspectives, voters are more likely to be swayed by emotional appeals by stirring commercials or by little more than a candidate’s good looks or charisma.

At night he would tell his son over and over again, Our universities were once the haven of all knowledge, but today, they have become the political tools of the left to make our country and the world look a certain way. I love teaching and studying historical facts and then giving my students and others the freedom to interpret them. This creates thinkers. Our universities have now decided what they want our history and our future to be so through revisionist policies they change factual history to fit that narrative.

The battle that he started, To save our history, took its toll on him and his family. He would go home after losing a fight over a new textbook that in his words, revised history and did not teach history, and complained all evening and half the night. This conviction was especially true when these new textbooks addressed the Civil War.

According to Dr. Miller, The rewriting of history in any area is possible only if (1) the public does not know enough about specific events to object when a wrong view is introduced or (2) the discovery of previously unknown historical material brings to light new facts that require a correction of a previous view. However, historical revisionism, ‘the rewriting of an accepted, usually long-standing view, especially a revision of historical events and movements,’ is successful only through the first means.

John Miller often said that his dad was like Bill Nye, the Science Guy, but his love and passion was history. He fought against the changes and the absence of thinking with regard to this passion for historical accuracy. But unlike Bill Nye, Edward Miller was actually educated and degreed many times over in his chosen field. Bill Nye, playing scientist in support of his chosen passion, thrives on emotion and unprovable theories to attract attention and money to support his theories about global warming. Bill Nye’s degree is in mechanical engineering. So he does not have an educational résumé to give credence or foundation to his thinking and teachings. Conversely, Dr. Miller had provable facts and recorded documented historical evidence. He never twisted anything in his thinking or teachings to benefit himself monetarily or in any other way. In fact, John would say, my dad’s support of and for history cost him his career, and, in the end, his life.

There were times, John said, my dad was like a Newt Gingrich, a historian’s historian. He was not as political, but he was a stickler for detail and accuracy.

Dr. Miller was a Democrat all of his life, but as time went by, he began to sound more and more like a Republican. He said, Political labels did not matter. How we perceive and view our history and our Constitution is what matters. Without our Constitution, we are nothing more than any other country trying to usurp power for the government by taking it from the people.

At some point during his metamorphic transformation, his strict constitutionalist stance positioned him in the same sphere with some of the so-called patriot movements. The left and the revisionists helped this change along with their ever-growing influence on the national media. Patriot leaders such as Donald Smith, a former Ku Klux Klan (KKK) member, and others would contact him constantly and would show up at his home unannounced and uninvited. In the beginning, Dr. Miller would discourage these visits. That was until the university started to welcome and even invite speakers who were promoting a subversive agenda against the mainstay tenets of this country and its Constitution.

Mary was the first to leave, and this hurt Dr. Miller deeply. He did understand her feelings and fears, but he had determined that this fight had to be fought. If left unchecked, the revisionists and the socialists would destroy the country and trash the Constitution. In this belief he found common ground and support from within the patriot movement.

Mary moved into their condo in Virginia Beach, which is just a short twenty-five-minute drive from Coastal Virginia University. They had purchased this unit when the coastal property of Virginia was at an all-time low. It was a great deal on what was essentially a three-bedroom penthouse. In the summer months, you could leave a window open in the master’s bedroom and immerse yourself in the sounds of Chesapeake Bay. The condo has a seventy-five-foot balcony, floor-to-floor ceiling glass, and incredible views of Virginia Beach. They kept the condo completely furnished, including a second wardrobe for each of them so they could go there on a whim without having to pack any clothes. It was an amazing place and she felt blessed to be able to go there now.

Life at the condo enabled Mary to experience peace from her anxieties—to develop a blue mind. There is something to the blue mind phenomenon as written about in a book of the same title by marine biologist Wallace J. Nichols. He wrote about the scientific evidence that proves that being close to bodies of water promotes mental health and happiness. That study, I believe, inspired the writing of a song by Scott Kirby titled, Lucky Enough.

John Miller was a highly educated millennial who had never left home except for his time serving his country in Afghanistan. But feeling the same pressures and fears of his mom, John left after she did. The main difference between John and his mother lay in the fact that John’s main fear was that his father was buying into some of the radical views of Donald Smith and the patriots.

Dr. Miller was saddened at the departures, but he could not let go of his need to save history from the revisionist movement in government and the universities. John not only changed his address; he changed his career path, at least for the time being. John had a double major in accounting and finance; but he understood that in a way, the history of this country and the history of finance had a direct correlation. As the early founders were shaping the type of government we would have, they and others were also shaping the style and spectrum of our financial institutions. The expansion of the country had to be financed, and there were very few taxes. Money for this expansion and the development of the financial structure was, therefore, cultivated by entrepreneurs. This created an enormous amount of wealth in the private sector.

Looking back in time, this may be where the current resentment that is being expressed in politics and in the mainstream media for older White men was born. This was the beginning of the split in the relationship of the government and the people. For decades, the two had grown together with very little conflict. But in time, that began to change. During this early disconnect, there was never any doubt or question about a person’s or institution’s love and respect for God and country. By the end of WWI, WWII, and the Korean conflict, America had proven that its military might was second to none.

Soldiers came home to a hero’s welcome, and yes, that even included Chicago and Washington, D.C. The people not only respected the military; it was an out-and-out love affair with the men and women who had served so faithfully until Vietnam, of course, but that’s a different story. The soldiers of the Great Wars and Korea fought and many died on foreign soil to keep the war from coming to our shores. These heroes saved our allies in Europe and beyond. WWII created a great economy at home as we converted many of our industrial machines to producing much-needed supplies and equipment for the war effort and ultimate victory. Again, our private sector and our government operated as one in this time of need. It was a partnership that was the envy of the world.

Later a study of government, industry, and economics ran parallel in our colleges and universities as we attempted to balance guns and butter in this new economic boom. History tells us that our country did struggle after these wars to keep a great economy without a war to fuel the growth. It helped that we went to work to rebuild Germany and Japan in addition to our allies. This process fueled more economic growth and employment. Little did we know that this was the first ripple in the water for the coming tidal wave that was globalism. Over time this produced an enormous number of entrepreneurs and government agencies that elevated this globalist type of thinking. While it did produce growth and jobs at a much-needed time in our history, it also allowed that silently and gradually the globalists were taking over the management of these industries and government agencies. It was impossible to see how debilitating this was going to be at the time, but it became another crippling factor in the weakening of our freedoms and our love for our God and our country. Clearly globalism was a wolf in sheep’s clothing that later became a contagion of discontent for every generation of Americans that followed.

Dr. Miller called his son almost nightly after John had moved out, especially on the nights after he had met with Donald Smith and his comrades in Virginia. He was becoming more convinced that this contagion that had started decades ago was manifesting itself in the form of the New World Order (NWO).

On a call one evening, he told John, This is happening, son, because of the profits that were being made by our multinational corporations, our financial institutions, and of course, our corrupt politicians via the expansion of globalism. The power elite in this country and around the world are promoting this globalist agenda to eventually rule the world through an authoritarian world government that will replace sovereign nation-states.

John tried not to respond because it was obvious his dad was being heavily influenced in his thinking and analysis by Donald Smith. He did ask the question: Dad, why do you continue to go deeper into these conspiracy theories? You know the NWO conspiracy theory has been around forever. Every time we get a major change in political leadership, segments of the population start crying about the New World Order. The two most popular countercultures are primarily the militantly anti-government right and secondarily that part of Christianity concerned with the end-of-time emergence of the Antichrist.

Edward Miller responded to John’s comments with, Son, I have no choice.

After that particular conversation, the nightly calls ended and things went silent between them for a spell.

Mary visited with her husband from time to time and reported back to John about his father’s health and welfare, but neither of them ever had any inkling of what was about to transpire.

Chapter 2

John Miller had accepted a position at Midway University near Fayetteville, North Carolina, as an associate professor of finance when he moved out. He leased a small cottage in the town of Red Springs, North Carolina. It was a great job opening for John and less than a four-hour drive home.

There was a time that this community was comprised of a third white, a third black, and a third Lumbee Indian. Through the years, the black population was growing and the Indian population was decreasing. John was hoping to get away from so many of the race issues and be able to hide in the classroom. That was getting harder and harder to accomplish with the divisions in our culture that were getting more complicated. John would say to himself and others that the good news is that it is hard to politicize or alter a finance textbook.

John soon discovered that it was not the textbooks that were changing in this field of study; it was the students. When he was teaching the concepts of budgeting, financial planning, and interpreting financial data, all was well. However, one day, while teaching cost behavior and profit maximization, the subject drifted to a critical analysis of Wall Street and their lack of compassion for the world. John would try to draw the conversation back to the subject to no avail, so he just sat back for a minute and listened to the debate. It began to sound a lot like a debate between a small number of constitutionalists and a larger group of globalists. The subject went from global warming to Brexit to the election of our populist president. John was astounded at their global knowledge and at the depth of the divide in this small classroom when it came to politics. He finally had to stop the discussion and insist that they get back to the study of finance as it was being approached today in the text.

While driving back home that evening, his mind started drifting back to some of his conversations with his dad. The debate in the classroom that day, at least, partially took him back to the days before he moved out, listening to his dad. John had spent the past several years working in private industry as a financial advisor for Payne-Elliot in Norfolk, Virginia; he had not been in a classroom or on a campus for a while.

As John watched the rain get wiped away from his windshield, he wondered if it was a metaphor for something that he could not understand, at least for now. He rolled the window down just a little to keep the windshield from fogging over. As he leaned forward to keep the rain away, he could hear the wind in the trees. He called his dad immediately after he got home.

Hey, son, how are things at the university?

"Going, good, I guess. I was just thinking of you and Mom. You know that I have not been in the classroom in years, so there is a learning curve. I