We Were Boys

By Robert O'Brien

Robert O'Brien was born in the late '60s in Pasadena, Texas. Growing up as a boy in the '70s before the age of video games, VCRs and cable television, Robert and his friends used their vivid imaginations to create a fantasy world around their real-life events. We Were Boys is the retelling of these events, cast in the fantasy in which they were first imagined. Hilariously funny, and retold in great detail, we follow Robert and his friends as they parachute into enemy territory, travel down the Amazon River and make the first landing on Mars. The stories and antics of Robert and his friends remind us that imagination is how dreams begin, And that without imagination we might have never taken the journeys that expanded our minds and hearts.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Robert O'Brien
• Release date: Oct 2, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223112419

Robert O'Brien

Robert M. O'Brien is a seasoned Data & AI Associate Director with an esteemed career in a large consulting firm in the Houston area, Texas. Drawing from his extensive expertise in technology, Robert has published numerous studies and documents that have made significant contributions to the field of IT Consulting and Advanced Analytics. A man of diverse talents, who has traveled the world, he has also ventured into the realm of literature with his self-published book, "We Were Boys," a unique collection that captures real events of teenage boys through the lens of imagination. Robert aspires to devote his time to full-time writing and his current projects, weaving more intricate narratives and engaging tales that resonate with readers and expand his literary repertoire and further explore the realms of historical fiction, dystopian narratives, and beyond.

Book preview

We Were Boys

By Robert O'Brien

Prologue

​What are young boys doing with their free time today? What do they dream about, think about and act out as they discover the world around them? The answer; not as much as in the days before multi-media and technology leaped past the ability of young little minds to conjure up imaginable settings and stories.  Oh, I know, I have heard the argument from the twenty or thirty-something year old parent that their little boy has a real good imagination. What they fail to understand is that they too are affected by the changing technology of the world. What they think or define as a great imagination is paltry when compared to the imaginations of the children and especially boys who grew up in the ’70s. You really have to be a parent above the age of 40 to realize such things, however imaginable your think your little boy is, reading this book may enlighten you to the truth about the imagination of boys long before the Big Toy Book from the local toy store filled their room with gadgets.

​Children today have a huge selection of electronic, interactive and virtual reality toys in which to play. Cable and satellite TV provide hundreds of channels of entertainment, including as many as 20 channels with nothing but cartoons. XBox, Playstation and Gamecubes rule the world of gaming with games so realistic that it pales by comparison to a couple of boys with toy pistols and holsters playing cowboys and Indians. The amount of visual and technological stimuli is astounding when compared to 1970. We merely think we are raising our children to think on their own when the truth is that most of what they learn is on television or in a game where reality and fantasy often become blurred.

​As a young boy growing up in the age before personal computers, I had none of these new toys, games, etc. There were only four TV stations, and rarely except early morning and early afternoon were cartoons on the schedule. Board games were the big items, such as Life, Monopoly and Risk. Last but not least, the only video game we had at the time was Pong, a tennis game that children today could not even imagine. The computer chip in my cell phone today has more memory than a whole warehouse of Commodore 64 personal computers from 1975. True, technology has changed the platform by which young boys use to act out their fantasies, but for while, let me take you back to 1975. Let me tell you some true stories of my childhood, the friends I had and the adventures I took into fantasy. Let me take you back to a time without technology, where young boys created some of the most vivid and imaginable memories, including the trouble they used to get into that lasts as a lifetime of memories. Far better than hitting the save button in the middle of playing a video game.

​The stories you are about to read are all true, experienced over a childhood that I still remember as if it were yesterday. As a parent now, I always tried to let my daughter use her imagination to play with her dolls and toys. True, not being a boy, her fantasies were far more different, but they were just that, fantasy and imagination. I know one day she will look back at what her and her friends imagined as make believe, rather than saying, One day, we were playing this video game..... Although she enjoys video games today, she is at an age where the imagination becomes grounded because of television, books and technology.

​At a young age, children must be able to leap beyond reality to imagine places, people and events of their own creation. It drives the maturing side of their creativity that transcends into adulthood. To quote a cliché‘, it helps them think out of the box. Today as I interview young candidates for positions in my firm, I find the skills of creativity and critical thinking absent among even some of the most talented students and scholars from the finest schools. Their inability to generate creative solutions to problems is an exercise in futility. They often get discouraged, and in the end, perform far below the medium of those persons who feed their creative nature by dreaming and imagining.  I hope that as technology continues to evolve, society and parents will realize what truly develops the mind of a child to become successful adults and community leaders.

​Let me begin the journey by saying, many of these stories are told from the perspective we had in imagining them, while some are told from a narrative point of view. While most existed in the imagination of a handful of boys, some of the stories show how an imagination can run wild extending reality into fantasy, and the funny things that can happen. It is these types of stories and events experienced as a child that helped generations of children before the computer age imagine the impossible and make many a reality. It was these children as adults that looked at the moon and said, Why not? It was these adults that coined the phrase when asked why they climbed the mountain, Because it was there! In the end, I hope you enjoy the journey. I know that I did.

Incoming

It was a hot and dry afternoon in the waning days of August. My fellow soldiers and I were kicking back at the club putting away some frosty mugs when we heard the news. My commanding officer Lieutenant Richards had been at a briefing earlier in the day and was given vital information he was about to reveal to us. He called Private Dean, myself and Sergeant Devon into his office and closed the door.

​Men, he said, I have been given our new orders. It appears that many high ranking enemy officers and officials are planning to gather tonight at an encampment behind enemy lines. My understanding is that this meeting is not only to discuss the business of war and the pending invasion of our borders, but also a fancy party to celebrate the birthday of one of their high ranking officials.  We have been ordered to attack this gathering, and kill as many as we can. There is hope that this attack may act as a deterrence of any forthcoming invasion. We attack tonight at 19:00 hours. Go prepare! Equipment check will be at 18:00 hours.

​Private Dean and I looked at each other in excitement. We had only been with the unit a short time and a mission behind enemy lines would be our first. The brass must have great faith in our ability to assign us to this important mission.  Of course, Sergeant Devon was a war hero; well know for his countless incursions behind enemy lines. The stories of his valor are currently told to new recruits as an example of a true patriot.

​Lieutenant Richards dismissed us as we began to make plans for the attack. He wanted us to use the new mortar cannon we had just acquired for this attack. We could set it up a safe distance away from the enemy encampment and bombard them with our ordinance from a distance. Only after that, would we make a frontal assault of the building and destroy the survivors.

​We had not had the chance to use the new mortar cannon in real combat. The specifications on the cannon stated that its range of fire is directly proportionate to the weight of the ordinance being used. The angle of trajectory would be dependent on that weight. 

​After studying the terrain around the encampment, we chose an area bunkered by hills and a few short trees in which to fire. The enemy encampment had only one viable entrance located directly in front of the guard house. The walls around the courtyard were too high and well lit for an assault. We needed to soften up the target before storming the entrance to the compound.

​After surveying our launch area, we estimated the range we needed to fire our mortar at 300 yards.  We quickly went out back behind our own encampment and marked off that exact distance from our mortar cannon and made a fake target of a few sand bags in which to test our cannon. We decided to use dummy mortar shells of approximately the same weight as the specialized ordinance we were going to be issued for this assignment. We could not use live ammunition as this would certainly alert our enemy as to our intentions. After many test rounds, we determined that an angle of 56 degrees would launch the weight of our shells the required 300 yards. We also discovered that by altering that angle one degree either way, and rotating the mortar cannon by one inch left and right, we could hit all points within the enemy encampment. The more damage we could inflict with the mortar shells, the less chance we had of being injured during the full frontal assault.

​As the evening sun faded, we gathered our gear and headed to the front of our headquarters for inspection and equipment check. This mission could not fail; otherwise, we may not be trusted again with such an important assignment. Success would mean that each of us could probably name our next assignment as this would be viewed as a true