G.I. Joe #21

When Pvt. Merkle joins Baker Company at rest camp, his unorthodox baseball skills—honed back in Russell Grove, Kentucky under his Uncle Slade's tutelage—prove far more formidable than anyone expects. As the unit faces a crucial game against a rival company with a former American League pitcher, an injury to Pvt. Joe Burch forces Sgt. Mulvaney to call on the cocky but talented Merkle to save the day on the mound. But when orders come down to move out and engage enemy positions, the soldiers will have to leave the diamond behind and put their skills to a very different kind of test.

Private Bob Yates arrives at Charlie Company as a war correspondent—or "scribbler," as the soldiers call him—only to find himself treated as an outsider by Sergeant Guptill and the rest of the unit. When Yates finds himself thrust into his first combat assignment alongside PFC Reynolds and Dolan, he discovers that documenting a soldier's life means getting a front-row seat to the real thing. This 1953 tale captures the tension of a rookie correspondent's baptism under fire with Charlie Company.

When Pvt. Windy Bragg and Pvt. Whitey Hicks get reassigned from garbage duty to cook and serve dinner for Colonel Fumes and his wife, they're thrilled—until their culinary mishaps turn an important military dinner into absolute chaos. As flaming cocktails and cake batter fly, the two privates accidentally stumble onto something the Army thinks is a revolutionary secret weapon, leading to orders, commendations, and one very inconvenient problem: neither of them can remember the recipe.

During the Korean War, Pvt. Joe Burch and Sgt. Mulvaney are assigned a high-priority mission to locate a hidden Communist anti-aircraft battery—a job that requires them to travel aboard the submarine *Pelagic* and scout behind enemy lines. After successfully pinpointing the target, the sub becomes trapped in an anti-submarine net on the return journey, and Joe must make a desperate underwater rescue when a shark attacks the enlisted man attempting to cut them free. With the battery marked for destruction and the crew safe, Joe discovers that even a soldier's toughest moments can teach him respect for those who fight in the depths.