This Is War #7

When a celebrated All-American football star arrives to take command of Mike Rogers' war-weary platoon in Korea, the sergeant recognizes him as Gene Forbes—his old college teammate who once took credit for victories built on Mike's selfless blocking. As the enemy closes in with a counterattack that threatens to overwhelm their position, Mike must convince Gene that survival depends on teamwork, just as it did on the football field. The two former teammates face a desperate choice: surrender to the enemy or attempt a daring breakout that will test whether Gene Forbes finally has the courage to fight his own way through.

PFC. Charlie Todd is a hardened gambler who treats everything—even combat—as odds to be played, but when a fellow soldier needs emergency money to help his ailing mother, Todd's refusal to lend forces the desperate man into a high-stakes poker game for the cash. As battle erupts and both men face enemy fire, Todd discovers that some bets carry consequences no amount of cool nerve can calculate away.

Don Easton has a reputation as an outstanding scout on the Korean front, but his habit of taking shortcuts—a flaw that haunted him even in civilian life—comes back to haunt him when he cuts corners on a crucial patrol and his unit walks straight into an enemy ambush. Now, wracked with guilt and facing a desperate situation at an overrun field hospital, Don must finally confront whether he has what it takes to do the job right, no matter the cost.

Frank Bartell washes out of officer training, told he's all brains and no practical sense—but when he's captured behind enemy lines in Korea, he escapes and finds himself leading a guerrilla force of South Korean fighters against the Chinese supply lines. As the UN launches a major offensive, Bartell times a coordinated strike with the main attack, catching the enemy in a devastating squeeze they never saw coming.