The Soldiers Of Summer

ISBN: 0595099181

Author: Phillips, Joseph

Condition: New

Product Description Set in 1978, my novel deals with a group of police officers doing their two-week summer camp for the Army Reserve. What they think will be a "vacation" turns into a nightmare of forced marches and battle simulations under adverse conditions, due to their nearly psychotic commanding officer.Along with these ordeals, each man must face ghosts from their pasts in the recently concluded Vietnam War. During their off time, they travel to Lake George, NY and Kingston, Canada where some comedic situations occur.In the end, their expertise as police officers is needed when their Captain holds a Division Colonel hostage at gunpoint after his mind snaps. Adding to the pressure, if they cannot disarm him, a Special Forces sniper sits on a rooftop waiting to resolve the crisis his way.I am a retired NYPD police officer with one published novel, Beyond This Place Of Sin And Tears, and a number of published short stories, print and online. From the Author When I began writing this story culled from my experiences in the Army Reserve after the Vietnam War, it was well before the catastrophic events of 9-11-2001 were even on the horizon. Up until then the police and the military were truly separate entities, one to defend the country from foreign enemies, the other to defend its streets from domestic ones, but the destruction of the World Trade Center changed all that forever combining the function of the two in a way no one would have envisioned, working together to preserve national security. In my novel, I try to correlate what it is like to be a part of both and to have to deal with the pressures of both that oftentimes lead to drinking and marital problems. I have tried to do this in a humorous way at times so the reader is not subjected to a steady diet of dramatic incidents and because humor often diffuses violent emotions before they turn to tragic ones. Here's hoping you will enjoy the read. About the Author Mr. Phillips is a retired NYC police officer who has been writing for about 30 years. His first novel, Beyond This Place Of Sin And Tears, was published in 1987. As far as short fiction goes, his story, Last Call, was published in The Griffin of Gwynedd-Mercy College and he has also had a number of short stories published in online magazines, most notably The Lighthouse, a timeline fantasy that was nominated for Story of the Month in Eternity Online Magazine a few years ago. He has also written screenplays, one of which, The Cloak of Judas, was a semifinalist in the Texas Film Institutes Screenplay Competition two years ago and his screenplay adaptation of Beyond is being considered for film production by Global Entertainment Productions & Management of Los Angeles, as well as an original screenplay Requiem For A Lonely Trumpet, which is also being considered for production now by Armin Hofmann of Brave New Work Productions of Hamburg, Germany.