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Books > Fiction > Genre fiction > War fiction > General
When retired Special Forces soldier Kurt Andrew Atwood receives a
call in July of 1991 from "The Company," he can't imagine what the
CIA needs from him. Now running a security firm, Atwood is older
and has changed since his service in the Vietnam War.
He discovers he's being recruited to run an unauthorized,
undercover mission to rescue General Fong and his family from
Vietnam. Atwood clearly remembers Fong and his involvement in the
Gulf of Tonkin incident in 1964. Fong helped stage a hoax attack on
American ships in the Gulf of Tonkin to escalate the war and
persuade President Johnson to send more troops. Now, authorities
fear someone will discover Fong's collaboration and wage an attack
against the CIA.
Atwood is more than willing to attempt the mission, as he has
some unfinished business from the Vietnam War days. He assumes the
identity of Paul Carper, a casual tourist on his way to Bangkok,
and returns to a country that holds a plethora of both painful and
joyous memories. But his efforts must concentrate on the dangerous
task of getting Fong, his wife, and their two daughters out of
Vietnam and to safety in the United States.
"Carl and I must make twenty trips back and forth carrying wounded
to those who can offer comfort and medical aid. Each time I look at
our litter-now covered with blood and gore-and wonder whether we've
done our bit in time. Others scurry about clearing the aftermath of
the battle. Burial details are already working to inter the dead
before daylight and scavengers descend on this killing ground. The
smell is worse than any hog butchering I was ever a party to.
Already I can hear the buzz of flies and see the beady little eyes
of small animals drawn to the smell of fresh blood. We stand over
one soldier writhing in this "sacred ground" as the sergeant called
it and lift him ever so gently onto the litter. These men's blood
may make the ground sacred, but by now I can see this place for
what it actually is-a sea of Virginia mud trying to clutch and
claim the dying. This wounded boy wears the blue of the Feds. He's
calling out a name and reaching toward me, grasping at me with his
trembling fingers as I lean closer. A strange feeling of
comradeship comes to me when I realize how like my own fellow
soldiers this Yankee fighter looks-just another man doing his duty,
whatever his beliefs may be."
Set during the 2nd World War, Mushroom Cloud is an account of what
could have happened if Germany had developed the nuclear bomb
before America and the Americans could not support, or help Britain
anymore. What if Adolf Hitler had such a hold over Britain that
Churchill had to surrender to Germany? What would have become of
the Royal Family, the Prime Minister and the government? But most
importantly, what would have happened to the British people and
their way of life? This gripping, sometimes harrowing story follows
the lives of four different groups of people as they react to a
cataclysmic event in war-torn Europe. In the cause of freedom, some
risk their lives, some lose their lives and others find true love.
Alan Whichello's first novel demonstrates a natural story-telling
ability, which will have the reader hooked from the start
It begins with the terrifying nightmare of a young woman, pregnant
with her second child. It ends, nearly forty years later, with an
old widow, a former queen, crawling amidst the wreckage of her
city-her family butchered, an old age of slavery and abasement
ahead. The young woman and the old queen are the same person:
Hecuba, queen of Troy. To this day, Hecuba remains one of the great
women of Greek drama, supported by a cast of characters whose names
are forever enmeshed in our language and culture: Priam, Achilles,
Odysseus, Agamemnon, Hector ... and more. Here is a look at a
famous war from a different perspective: not from those who took
part in the glories of battle, but from a not-so-innocent
bystander, deeply affected and ultimately devastated by the horrors
wrought upon her family. It is not a happy story, admittedly-but it
is not one you will easily forget.
When Mark, an American soldier serving in Germany in the early
1950s, meets Lauren, a young German girl, their lives change
forever. But love is never easy, and for these two it may well be
impossible. In a world still reeling from the horrors of war and
genocide, the budding love between a Jewish soldier and a German
Catholic girl is controversial and dangerous.
It is a time in history that demands the same dedication and
focus on duty as in the war years. Both of the lovers are pressured
from all sides, and each feels the impossibility of their love-but
neither can deny or forget it. Mark is faced with military duty, a
possible court martial, and a threatening sociopath. Lauren is
expected to play the role of the dutiful German daughter who
follows the path dictated by her father. In addition to her
obligations to her father, she is expected to focus only on school,
work, her church, and her duty to country.
Their very different backgrounds stand as obstacles they can't
disregard. Neither is so naive as to ignore the considerable
cultural and societal pressure they face. But the heart does not
always listen to logic, and soon they are irresistibly drawn
together-come what may.
Despite all the many forces they face, can they find the
strength to stay together in a world that propels them apart?
Oblivion Rouge follows the career of a young teenage villager named
Oumi as she becomes embroiled in a conflict that threatens a
futuristic Africa and the world itself. In the near future, a virus
called the LEUP has infected half the population. The resulting war
between the people of Liam, known as the infected, and the people
of Galoum, known as the immune, becomes a bloody and brutal affair.
When a mysterious army called the Hakkinen emerges to quell the war
between the two countries, they adopt children of war to aid them.
Oumi and her friends are enlisted to help find a cure and end the
bloodshed. With an all-African cast, Oblivion Rouge stems from the
roots of West African philosophy. It is both a brutal dystopian
depiction of the future and a beautiful adventure that explores the
depth of the human spirit. Oumi has made a promise to never suffer
the losses and humiliation she has already seen in her young life.
But with strange forces gathering against her continent, can she
overcome her own insecurities to lead her people to paradise?
Oblivion Rouge is rated OT for Older Teen, recommended for ages 16
and up. Saturday AM, the world's most diverse manga-inspired
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The spawn of the devil, the elite of the Russian Red Army were
playing football with what looked like a doll's head. They were
using the head of a newborn dead baby. He tore himself away as his
abdomen muscles contracted and reached to their maximum. He felt
sick but there was nothing more to give, his stomach had been empty
for days. If a token gesture of defiance was required. He finally
bought up his own bile.
Blair Beebe, M.D. Medical lessons from Vietnam; what did we learn?
Almost fifty years after the beginning of American involvement in
the Vietnam War, we still remain embroiled in military actions that
generate disease, disability, and death. Frontline physicians who
were in places like Afghanistan, Iraq, Bosnia, Herzegovina, and
Vietnam faced the medical consequences of war every day. My new
novel, Doc Lucas USN, based on real people and real events, brings
the war down to a human scale, one person at a time. History gives
us statistics and dates, but fiction helps us to better understand
the meaning behind those facts. One of my old professors defined
history as "lies we tell about dead people." We understand more
from reading Homer, Sophocles, Shakespeare, Margaret Mitchell, and
Stephen Ambrose than we ever learned from dry history textbooks.
Paradoxically, the truth comes out in fiction. During my time in
Vietnam, and for many years after, I listened to stories from other
physicians who served during the war and from naval aviators and
marines who faced combat every day. I also heard different points
of view from Vietnamese civilians who had come to America to escape
the chaos after the war. Their eyewitness accounts are the true
history, but unless someone writes them down, we lose them forever.
Moreover, individual stories may have little meaning to us if they
lack context. I've often heard both veterans and civilians say, "I
don't talk about my experiences, because anyone who wasn't there
could never understand how bad it was." That's why we need a novel
to give us a complete account in an organized way. Each character
and each scene moves the action to develop a central theme about
the war. We want more than anecdotes. We want to understand the how
and the why of the unfolding tragedy. Doc Lucas not only recounts
the stories, he lives them. We feel his anxiety, his terror, and at
times, his joy. When things go wrong, we know why, and we can feel
his despair. In the good times, and there are many, we laugh along
with him. In the end, Doc Lucas learns important lessons about
himself and his values centered on human rights and the relief of
suffering. He emerges from the war better equipped to take his
place with stronger convictions about his role in his society.
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