People like to act shocked when I tell them I used to sell weapons for a living.
Correction: I still do.
Before the White House, before the cameras, before the Secret Service started calling me "Mr. President," I ran Rockwell Dynamics—the biggest private arms manufacturer on the planet. Jets, tanks, destroyers, nuclear missiles, even two aircraft carriers with my name practically spray-painted on the hulls.
If there was a war anywhere on Earth, odds were good someone was fighting it with my toys.
So yeah, becoming President wasn't exactly on my to-do list. I was already the most dangerous man alive, and I didn't even need a country to back me up.
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I used to be Major Colton Rockwell, U.S. Army.
Served ten years, saw combat on three continents, got more medals than I have room on my dress blues. But eventually I realized two things:
1. I hated saluting every overpaid desk jockey who walked past me.
2. My side hustle—selling the machines of war—was making me more money in a month than my entire military salary combined.
So I retired early. Took my pension, my contacts, and my reputation, and built an empire.
By thirty, I was sitting on a mountain of contracts so big the Pentagon had me on speed dial. I didn't need politics. Politicians needed me.
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Then one night, I got drunk.
Not "wake up in Tijuana with a face tattoo" drunk. Just "expensive scotch, skyline view, watching CNN blather about the presidential race" drunk.
The candidates were the usual suspects: gray-haired career politicians who couldn't order a cheeseburger without polling three focus groups first. I laughed so hard I nearly spilled my drink.
"God, America," I said out loud to no one. "You deserve better. You deserve… me."
And just like that, the idea dug its claws into my brain.
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I didn't launch a campaign. I launched an invasion.
Step one: weaponize the media.
I knew how to sell destruction in bulk; selling myself was child's play. I dropped a viral video at 3 a.m., standing on the deck of one of my aircraft carriers, the American flag billowing behind me.
"I'm Colton Rockwell. I built the machines that keep this country safe. I fought on the front lines. I made my fortune giving America the teeth to bite back. And now I'm running for President, because frankly? I'm tired of watching amateurs screw it all up."
By breakfast, it had fifty million views.
By lunch, every major news outlet had picked it up.
By dinner, I was enemy number one to every other candidate.
And I loved it.
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The debates were a massacre.
Seven career politicians tried to hit me with talking points and rehearsed smiles. I just stood there, hands in my pockets, grinning like a wolf.
"You want change?" I said, locking eyes with the camera. "You want a leader who isn't bought and sold by lobbyists? I don't need their money. Hell, half of them owe me money. I'm Colton Rockwell, and I don't take orders—I give them."
The crowd went ballistic. Twitter melted down.
And my opponents? They looked like kids who'd just been told Santa wasn't real.
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By the time election night rolled around, it wasn't even a contest.
I wasn't running a campaign. I was staging a hostile takeover.
And when the final votes were counted—35-year-old Colton Rockwell, youngest President-elect in U.S. history—I didn't feel awe. I didn't feel fear.
I felt the same thing I always feel when I win:
Ready for the next conquest.
Because the Oval Office isn't the finish line.
It's just another toy in my arsenal.