Fighting Leathernecks #5

Duke Beals and Patrick Quigley, two scrappy Marines stationed well behind enemy lines, meet schoolteacher Emma Grant while helping shepherd local children—and before long, both servicemen are vying for her affection. When a mysterious luck charm sets in motion a plan to impress Emma with a Fourth of July celebration, an oversized Japanese gas balloon spirals hilariously out of control, launching the two brawling gyrenes on an unexpected airborne adventure. Little do Duke and Quig know that their chaotic flight will put them directly in the path of a secret enemy rocket installation hidden in a nearby temple valley.

When Marmaduke Beals suspects his brawling Marine partner Patrick Michael Quigley of opening his mail and courting his girls, he hatches an elaborate revenge scheme—planting a perfumed love letter from a mysterious woman named Pola to lure Quig into trouble. But Duke's prank becomes the least of their worries when both men stumble straight into the crosshairs of Soviet agents searching for a missing wrestling champion and a kidnapped atomic scientist. What starts as a personal grudge spirals into a wild Cold War entanglement neither leatherneck saw coming.