Brief description:
From the dust jacket:
There have been many novels of modern warfare and the men who fight it, but beyond the fire and smoke of battle, most cannot approach the raw, personal truth of combat. 38 NORTH YANKEE is the exception—a brilliant tale of what it is like to be an untried, unproven fighting man in a war the U.S. has been trying to prevent for nearly forty years. In one savage thrust the North Korean People's Army has crossed the 38th parallel and invaded South Korea, viciously ambushing a routine American convoy. The shock waves reach across the globe to the glimmering beaches of Oahu, Hawaii, where U.S. Army Captain Mark lsen is a twenty-seven-year-old second-generation professional soldier and the commander of C Company, part of a light infantry division. Like most of his peers, lsen has never seen combat.
While the President addresses the nation, and the anti-war activists organize, the Army's lightest, most mobile units are rushed to Korea. Charlie Company—three rifle platoons, a thirteen-man anti-armor section and a six-man mortar section—reaches Korea weeks ahead of the Army's heavy forces. ln a matter of days, lsen's men are at war.
Backing up a South Korean tank assault, a C Company patrol ignites an ambush. As they withstand a withering attack by an NKPA Special Purpose Forces battalion, the platoon leaders, NCO's, and front-line grunts of C Company -- and lsen himself -- are exposed to the white heat of battle. When the first engagement is over, lsen sees their situation clearly. His men will be outmanned and outgunned in every battle they fight.
While the North Koreans move on Seoul, South Korea's capital, desperately trying to score a quick knockout blow before the U.S. can marshal its full military might, C Company follows sometimes baffling orders, engaging the North Koreans wherever they can. From a daring extrication of a joy-riding divisional chief of staff trapped in a Korean village to dangerous counterattacks against advancing NKPA units, lsen's men learn how to fight in the brutal confusion of combat, armed with high-tech weapons that don't always perform the way they did in training. Exhausted, numbed, and low on ammunition, C Company is airlifted north of Seoul, where the NKPA is running out of time. lsen's orders: help stop them from retreating over the Demilitarized Zone before the U.S. reinforcements arrive.
From the spine—tingling tension of a fon/vard observation post to lightning-fast air assaults, author Ed Ruggero captures modern, high-speed, long-range war as only a gifted novelist can. Here is the fear, the exhaustion, the doubt among men testing their inner resources for the first time—and discovering the flaws and strengths of the men beside them. Most of all, here is a company commander fighting to make the right moves at the right moment, holding his emotions in check even as he knows that for every mistake he makes, someone will pay with his life.
Reaching a thundering climax with one of the most extraordinary battle sequences ever written, a heroic stand against a desperate enemy force, 38 NORTH YANKEE is more than a war novel. It is a story of men facing the ultimate challenge -- a striking portrayal of courage, commitment, and, in the hell of war, humanity.
Ed Ruggero was an infantry officer, VMI graduate, teaching English at West Point when he wrote this novel, his first.
There have been many novels of modern warfare and the men who fight it, but beyond the fire and smoke of battle, most cannot approach the raw, personal truth of combat. 38 NORTH YANKEE is the exception—a brilliant tale of what it is like to be an untried, unproven fighting man in a war the U.S. has been trying to prevent for nearly forty years. In one savage thrust the North Korean People's Army has crossed the 38th parallel and invaded South Korea, viciously ambushing a routine American convoy. The shock waves reach across the globe to the glimmering beaches of Oahu, Hawaii, where U.S. Army Captain Mark lsen is a twenty-seven-year-old second-generation professional soldier and the commander of C Company, part of a light infantry division. Like most of his peers, lsen has never seen combat.
While the President addresses the nation, and the anti-war activists organize, the Army's lightest, most mobile units are rushed to Korea. Charlie Company—three rifle platoons, a thirteen-man anti-armor section and a six-man mortar section—reaches Korea weeks ahead of the Army's heavy forces. ln a matter of days, lsen's men are at war.
Backing up a South Korean tank assault, a C Company patrol ignites an ambush. As they withstand a withering attack by an NKPA Special Purpose Forces battalion, the platoon leaders, NCO's, and front-line grunts of C Company -- and lsen himself -- are exposed to the white heat of battle. When the first engagement is over, lsen sees their situation clearly. His men will be outmanned and outgunned in every battle they fight.
While the North Koreans move on Seoul, South Korea's capital, desperately trying to score a quick knockout blow before the U.S. can marshal its full military might, C Company follows sometimes baffling orders, engaging the North Koreans wherever they can. From a daring extrication of a joy-riding divisional chief of staff trapped in a Korean village to dangerous counterattacks against advancing NKPA units, lsen's men learn how to fight in the brutal confusion of combat, armed with high-tech weapons that don't always perform the way they did in training. Exhausted, numbed, and low on ammunition, C Company is airlifted north of Seoul, where the NKPA is running out of time. lsen's orders: help stop them from retreating over the Demilitarized Zone before the U.S. reinforcements arrive.
From the spine—tingling tension of a fon/vard observation post to lightning-fast air assaults, author Ed Ruggero captures modern, high-speed, long-range war as only a gifted novelist can. Here is the fear, the exhaustion, the doubt among men testing their inner resources for the first time—and discovering the flaws and strengths of the men beside them. Most of all, here is a company commander fighting to make the right moves at the right moment, holding his emotions in check even as he knows that for every mistake he makes, someone will pay with his life.
Reaching a thundering climax with one of the most extraordinary battle sequences ever written, a heroic stand against a desperate enemy force, 38 NORTH YANKEE is more than a war novel. It is a story of men facing the ultimate challenge -- a striking portrayal of courage, commitment, and, in the hell of war, humanity.
Ed Ruggero was an infantry officer, VMI graduate, teaching English at West Point when he wrote this novel, his first.
Publication
Atria (1990), Edition: 1St Edition, 395 pages
Series
Original publication date
1990