Meet Lieutenant Flint: hard-edged and muscle-bound, radiating
machismo—a bull of a soldier. In the opposite corner stands Captain Turner:
with his pencil mustache and tailored shirts, he’s a Trick Soldier—smart,
crisply-dressed, and always at attention. They’re fire and ice, oil and water .
. . Sean Penn and Michael J. Fox in Casualties of War.
Ten years ago and a thousand miles away, they attended boot camp
together. They didn’t get along then . . . and they don’t get along now.
Reunited in the Haitian jungles, in the midst of a fierce rebel uprising, they
confront the most dangerous enemy of all—each other.
It’s time for heroes to rise and
cowards to fall, and in the case of Lieutenant Flint and Captain Turner,
bravery runs deep. When brute strength confronts military honor, the true
measure of a man is not in his fists, but in his heart.
Trick Soldier (Military War)
By L. Ron Hubbard
ISBN #978-1592123612
Price $9.95
114 Pages
Rating 5-Stars
“Story Telling At Its Best.”
This volume actually contains three stories: TRICK SOLDIER,
originally published in the January 1936 issue of TOP-NOTCH; HE WALKED TO WAR,
and MACHINE GUN 21,000. These are stories featuring Marines by a Marine.
TRICK SOLDIER takes place in Haiti, ten
years after Marine Boot. Captain Turner and Lieutenant Flint had trained
together. Flint was a big, tough boxer who didn’t like Turner because he was
always tricked out in polish and creases, and knew the regulations. During
Boot, Flint would beat Turner with his big fists, until the smaller man begged
for mercy. Now they are together again, in the jungles of Haiti. Captain Turner
is trying to train natives to fight against the rebels, but the disobedient
Flint undermines his command. When the trainees desert and join the rebels,
Turner and Flint must escape. With both men wounded, Turner brings Flint safely
to HQ before collapsing, proving heroism need not have big fists.
HE WALKED TO WAR: Sergeant Egbert
Zacharia Golingame is a Marine lineman, running wire through the jungle of
Nicaragua, so military posts could talk to each other. He did a lot of walking
with his squad. Since he had studied up on the position of a gunner in planes,
he put in a transfer for aviation to keep from walking so much. However, the
first flight he was on crashed when the engine was hit with weapons fire from
the ground. Now it was up to him to carry his wounded lieutenant to safety. It
seemed no matter what his job, Sgt. Easy Go was always walking.
MACHINE GUN 21,000: Marine Gunnery Sgt.
Blake is an acting captain with the Guardia
National de Nicaragua. He has a tendency to forget things, and lose other
things – like a machine gun. When Major James C. Butterick comes to camp, he
finds the clerk, Sgt. Bautista – better known as Ojos Verdes – with his paperwork in order, but Captain Blake’s paperwork
is missing, along with Blake. But now it seems the natives with the Guard may
be tied in with the rebels, and have the machine gun at their disposal. There’s
only one thing for a marine to do, and that’s to charge the machine gun and
take back his command.
These short stories were a lot of fun.
The author was writing about things he knew first hand, and being a marine he
makes the stories come alive. They almost sound historically accurate, as if he
lived them himself. Highly recommended for lovers of good fiction, and anyone
that likes a good yarn.
Tom Johnson
Author of COLD WAR HEROES
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