William Roskey

Muffled Shots: A Year on the DMZ William Roskey

Overshadowed by the events in Vietnam, a "low-intensity conflict" was waged along the windswept 151-mile long Korean DMZ from 1966 through 1969. During this time, North Korea shot down U. S. aircraft, captured the U. S. S. Pueblo, and infiltrated its special forces troops to ambush U. S. and South Korean patrols. One North Korean 31-man commando team was sent to decapitate the South Korean president and got to within 800 meters of his residence before being discovered. This novel, set in 1966 and 1967, tells the tale of a 5-man U. S. Army Intelligence team stationed on the DMZ who lived on black coffee and blacker humor, and who came in  time to trust and depend on no one but each other. You'll be able to smell that black coffee as well as the diesel exhaust on the cold winter air and the night soil used to fertilize the rice paddies. You'll taste the warm beer, the kimchi and rice, and C rations. Most of all, you'll feel the loneliness the cynicism, the camaraderie, and adrenaline rushes in the night as the linecrossers approach your position and your index finger begins to take up the slack on your trigger.