Thirty-Eight North Yankee

The author, a career officer currently teaching English at West Point, sets his first novel in the near future, when North Korea once again invades the South. Spearheading the U.S. response is a light infantry division from Hawaii. Eschewing questions of policy and strategy, Ruggero centers his story around the maneuvers of a rifle company. He takes the unit from its deployment through initial patrols and rear-guard actions to the climax of an air assault behind North Korean lines. While the characters are adequate for the novel's purpose, this military procedural emphasizes doctrine, training and weapons. Ruggero presents the capacities and weaknesses of light infantry troops in an easily assimilable form and highlights an underlying irony: the strategic mobility of these troops invites their use in emergencies which often involve the kind of high-intensity combat for which they are least equipped. (June)