Born In Blood And Fire: A Concise History Of La...

Born in Blood and Fire spans six centuries and covers twenty countries in a concise, compelling narrative of the Latin American experience animated by stories about men and women from all walks of life and enriched by insightful analysis. Rather than a country-by-country history, Chasteen takes a more integrative approach within a chronological outline. Chapters are broken down into recognizable periods from 1492 to the present.

Born in Blood and Fire: A Concise History of La...

The church has a school and a youth center, hosts food and blood drives, and does prison outreach. It employs about 150 people. At times, the church has boasted membership of 28,000, a number the family says encompasses parishioners throughout its history.

M/Sgt. (then S/Sgt.) Roy P. Benavidez, United States Army, who distinguished himself by a series of daring and extremely valorous actions on 2 May 1968 while assigned to Detachment B-56, 5th Special Forces Group (Airborne), 1st Special Forces, Republic of Vietnam. On the morning of 2 May 1968, a 12-man Special Forces Reconnaissance Team was inserted by helicopters in a dense jungle area west of Loc Ninh, Vietnam, to gather intelligence information about confirmed large-scale enemy activity. This area was controlled and routinely patrolled by the North Vietnamese Army. After a short period of time on the ground, the team met heavy enemy resistance, and requested emergency extraction. Three helicopters attempted extraction, but were unable to land due to intense enemy small-arms and anti-aircraft fire. Sgt. Benavidez was at the Forward Operating Base in Loc Ninh monitoring the operation by radio when these helicopters returned to off-load wounded crewmembers and to assess aircraft damage. Sgt. Benevidez voluntarily boarded a returning aircraft to assist in another extraction attempt. Realizing that all the team members were either dead or wounded and unable to move to the pickup zone, he directed the aircraft to a nearby clearing while he jumped from the hovering helicopter, and ran approximately 75 meters under withering small-arms fire to the crippled team. Prior to reaching the team's position he was wounded in his right leg, face, and head. Despite these painful injuries, he took charge, repositioning the team members and directing their fire to facilitate the landing of the extraction aircraft and the loading of the wounded and dead team members. He then threw smoke canisters to direct the aircraft to the team's position. Despite his severe wounds and under intense enemy fire, he carried and dragged half of the wounded team members to the awaiting aircraft. He then provided protective fire by running alongside the aircraft as it moved to pick up the remaining team members. As the enemy's fire intensified, he hurried to recover the body and classified documents on the dead team leader. When he reached the leader's body, Sgt. Benevidez was severely wounded by small-arms fire in the abdomen and grenade fragments in his back. At nearly the same moment, the aircraft pilot was mortally wounded, and his helicopter crashed. Although in extremely critical condition due to his multiple wounds, Sgt. Benevidez secured the classified documents and made his way back to the wreckage, where he aided the wounded out of the overturned aircraft, and gathered the stunned survivors into a defensive perimeter. Under increasing enemy automatic-weapons and grenade fire, he moved around the perimeter distributing water and ammunition to his weary men, reinstilling in them a will to live and fight. Facing a buildup of enemy opposition with a beleaguered team, Sgt. Benevidez mustered his strength, began calling in tactical air strikes and directed the fire from supporting gunships to suppress the enemy's fire and so permitted another extraction attempt. He was wounded again in his thigh by small-arms fire while administering first aid to a wounded team member just before another extraction helicopter was able to land. His indomitable spirit kept him going as he began to ferry his comrades to the craft. On his second trip with the wounded, he was clubbed from additional wounds to his head and arms before killing his adversary. He then continued under devastating fire to carry the wounded to the helicopter. Upon reaching the aircraft, he spotted and killed two enemy soldiers who were rushing the craft from an angle that prevented the aircraft door-gunner from firing upon them. With little strength remaining, he made one last trip to the perimeter to ensure that all classified material had been collected or destroyed and to bring in the remaining wounded. Only then, in extremely serious condition from numerous wounds and loss of blood, did he allow himself to be pulled into the extraction aircraft. Sgt. Benevidez' gallant choice to join voluntarily his comrades who were in critical straits, to expose himself constantly to withering enemy fire, and his refusal to be stopped despite numerous severe wounds, saved the lives of at least eight men. His fearless personal leadership, tenacious devotion to duty, and extremely valorous actions in the face of overwhelming odds were in keeping with the highest traditions of the military service and reflect the utmost credit on him and the United States Army.

The Scarlet King was originally one of the many citizens of the city of Audapaupadopolis ruled over by the First Man Adam el Asem. There the King used his own blood to write a chronicle known as the Codex Archaic for his descendants the Daevites. Following Asem's defeat and the destruction of Audapaupadopolis, the King became worshipped by the Daevite civilization, with the matriarchs and other monarchs believing themselves to be his direct descendants. However, his worship began to diminish and soon Queen Cynewise of Azidahaka started her own cult known as the Many Hands of the Serpent which worshipped the Paragon of All Knowledge, the Serpent. This caused the King to become jealous and wage war on those who betrayed him, summoning his seven wives to assist him. Thankfully, Cynewise was joined by other Daevite monarchs, Rafenild, Agatha and Moros, but it was the heroine Stella who struck the King down with her hammer and burying him alive while Moros sealed his tomb with his magic. In the aftermath, the King became separated from his body which remained buried underneath Moros' palace, while awaiting for his sons to be born and wreck havoc on the world.

As a living idea born from humanity's dissatisfaction with the lifeless modern world and the desire to return to the violent premodern one, the Scarlet King was created and shaped by humanity, acting as premodernity's vengeance against modernity and as long as modernity exists the Scarlet King would also persist existing. As a result, the Scarlet King exists as an entity in the noosphere, the human collective consciousness, just like SCP-3125, WAN, SCP-6820-A and the Neon God, and could both affect and be affected by humanity: the idea of the King would haunt those who learned about his true nature, inflicting dreams in them and corrupting them, while various incarnations of the King would be created from the belief of various legends, such his origin as a god which would be retroactively written as somewhat being the case. When people began messing with the idea of the Scarlet King, he would also affect reality by creating portals to a hellish dimension, create sound of hymns sung about him, manifest human blood in specific places and manifest fires that formed imagery about him. However, the Foundation would later use SCP-6659 to completely destroy the idea of the Scarlet King from the noosphere, trapping him inside a sacrificial dagger acting as his totem and liberating humanity from his influence. 041b061a72