WHERE THE HELL'S THE ENEMY?

About the Book

Where The Hell’s The Enemy is the story of a small army reserve transportation unit.  For those unfamiliar with transportation unit, that means, “truck drivers.”  Now, there are far more glamorous jobs in the army, but the guys hauling supplies, ammo and troops around are about as important as any.  Without the proper transportation, an army would quickly find itself mired down, unable to advance on the enemy.

At least, that’s how the folks assigned to this particular unit thought of themselves, even though they seldom did anything on training weekends, except read girly magazines.  A number of the men are without jobs and live at a Salvation Army Center for homeless men.

When Gerry Thompson retires from the regular army and joins the reserve unit, he quickly realizes their commander, First Lieutenant Larry Noble, knows as much about being a soldier as he, himself knew about being a rock singer.  Which was nothing!  Thompson suspected they might be deployed to the Persian Gulf, so decided he had better try to make soldiers out of the bunch of pot smoking “ne’er do wells.”

A few months after joining the unit, they were deployed to California for their summer encampment so they might learn to drive the Bradley Fighting Machine.  Lieutenant Noble lays out a route which will take them hundreds of miles out of the way, so they can stay a couple of days in Las Vegas.  When Noble loses all his money, he sells one of their deuce and a half trucks to a rancher that he might continue to gamble.

After Thompson recovers the truck and takes over command from the hapless lieutenant, they continue to summer encampment.  Thompson has been extremely hard on the men to try to make soldiers of them, but they do well at Fort Ord and stay out of trouble.  Thompson relents and allows a stop at Disneyland on the way back to San Antonio.  He cannot help but laugh at the men, including Lieutenant Noble, because they are like a bunch of little kids at Disneyland.

Then, the call comes that they have been activated for duty in the Gulf.  Now, Thompson is worried!  He has to get this bunch of misfits shaped up.  Hell, half of them don’t even have uniforms.

When they arrive is Saudi Arabia, Thompson is nervous as hell they’ll get into trouble after they learn there is absolutely no fraternizing with the local women and absolutely no booze of any kind allowed.  But, he is pleasantly surprised, when even Anderson, the worst of the lot seems to take their job seriously, as they ferry munitions and vehicles to the border with Iraq.

The ground war begins, as they are delivering Bradley fighting vehicles to the Second Armored Division.  The division pulls out before they arrive and Thompson makes the decision that they should try to catch up with the 2nd to deliver the Bradleys.  Of course, they become lost in the desert and wind up farther north than any allied troops were supposed to go.  They are in dire need of fuel, and learn there is fuel at a scud missile site close-by.   Against all odds, and against Thompson’s better judgment, they do manage to take out the missile crews and fire the missiles off at an Iraqi oil refinery.

Now, they all think they are heroes of the first order, but find themselves being chased across the desert by an Iraqi armored force.  But, it turns out the Iraqis want to surrender rather than fight.  They accidentally come across an underground bunker and destroy it by dropping a missile from the Bradley down a vent pipe.  Thompson and Anderson damned near kill themselves in the effort.

After an American aircraft spots them so far north in Iraq and reports it to the commanding general, Thompson’s gang of misfits are ordered to the rescue of a group of army rangers trapped in a small town and surrounded by enemy armor.  They enlist the

About the Author

Bill MacWithey has written many articles and columns on everything from writing to politics. A political advisor and newspaper columnist for 15 years, he conducts fiction writing seminars and teaches creative writing in adult education programs. With fourteen novels in various genres to his credit, Bill MacWithey is one of today’s most prolific authors.