Fightin' Army #21

Sergeant Kalek fights a constant internal battle—his men see him as fearless in combat, but he's terrified, struggling to hide his panic while leading his platoon through relentless enemy fire. When headquarters orders his unit to hold the line against a massive Red assault, Kalek nearly breaks under the weight of command, but finds the strength to lead his men through the charge anyway. A quietly powerful story about the gap between the soldier others see and the frightened human underneath the uniform.

When a scouting detachment in the Philippines encounters a massive Moro force armed with new guns and whipped into a frenzy by the guerrilla Juan Danjero, Sergeant Cliff Bayles finds himself separated from his unit with a badly twisted ankle—and volunteers to hold off the howling mob alone so his comrades can reach the safety of the garrison. Outnumbered and isolated in a palm tree with limited ammunition, Bayles must buy time any way he can, knowing the odds are stacked against him but determined to give Lieutenant Clayton's troops a fighting chance.

When the American assault on the Argonne stalls against German defenses, a hillbilly sharpshooter named Hank Schiffer mysteriously survives a devastating barrage that his company believes killed him—returning to the front looking distinctly ghostly. Hank uses an unconventional trick to turn the Germans' own superstitions against them, managing to round up a handful of high-ranking prisoners in the process. It's a lean tale of grit and quick thinking in one of the war's toughest battles.

In the heat of Korean combat, a nineteen-year-old soldier lies wounded and pinned down as enemy artillery rains down on his position—with one shell on a collision course straight for him. When a fellow soldier hears his desperate cry, he makes a split-second decision that might just pull them both from the jaws of death. A quiet meditation on the role of chance, courage, and faith amid the chaos of war.

Captain Martin's Charlie Company sets its sights on the Chateau de Briand, a heavily fortified French objective that German defenders are willing to fight tooth and nail to keep—and the determined soldiers under Martin and Sergeant O'Brien won't let anything stand between them and victory. After a grueling room-by-room battle through the massive cellar, the Americans finally secure the prize, only to discover that their hard-won rest is just the calm before the next order to move out.

When enemy forces mass north of the Yalu and drive hard against U.N. lines, Captain Jim Crosley's tank outfit is forced to retreat—but the captain has a trick up his sleeve. Stranded with low fuel and ammunition, Crosley discovers an abandoned cave that once served as a supply dump, and he devises a daring plan to turn the tables on the advancing enemy. It's a high-stakes gamble that just might change the course of the battle, if Captain Crosley and his men can pull off the audacious counterattack brewing in his mind.