Reluctant Warrior: A novel about a hitch in the U.S. Army

“Never fear, the Army is on its way!” Jim Dudley, a cocky youngster and newly minted ROTC Lieutenant, finds that the tank corps is not for him. As luck would have it, he qualifies by college training as a Medical Service Corps entomologist and serves on active duty as an instructor and sanitary specialist. Serving among scores of Army stalwarts and rouges, he soon learns to discern armed forces reality from illusion. All the while, war in Southeast Asia, increasing civil rights conflicts and racial prejudice in the U. S. weigh heavily on Jim and his young family as they experience the ins and outs of Army life. After war games in Carolina, he is unexpectedly assigned to duty in Viet Nam where he is wounded. Relieved from active duty, he leaves the Army for college teaching, but encouraged by his wife, Laurie and a college buddy, he volunteers to help returning veterans reconstruct their lives in the face of an ungrateful public, a challenge equal to anything the Army threw at him. Jim and Laurie persevere, but find that military and social conflict often lies waiting within the human conscious, affecting for every generation including their own children. Counting on a little bit of luck, they hope damage control will again carry the day.