THIS BOOK HAS BEEN SOLD
THE FOUR DEUCES:
A KOREAN WAR STORY
C.S. Crawford
Presidio Press, 1989. NEW copy. Hardcover with dust jacket. First Edition. 288 pages. "The war was winding down when C.S. Crawford, a very young Marine, came Korea. Crawford had been a telephone operator at Quantico, but the war called. Then, a series of administrative foul-ups resulted in his assignment first as a cryptographer, a highly technical position for which he had not recxeived training, and then as a forward observer for the 4.2-inch chemical mortar company, 1st Bn, of the 1st Marine Regt. Having an uncanny talent for judging distance, Crawford excelled at his job. At this time the fighting in Korea had been mostly reduced to holding the high ground. The troops sat in their trenches in the bitterly cold weather, occasionally shooting at the enemy, being shot at, ambushed on their way to chow, killed, wounded, or simply managing to stay alive and whole, longing for some hot food and the whiskey distilled by the resident "chef." Crawford is a marvelous teller of tales and though some of his characters are composites of themen he knew, they live on the page as unforgettable individuals: the Funny Gunny who took young Crawford under his wing; Big Dog Ondrak who taught the novice about the Four Deuces; Red, who had all his possessions attached to his clothes with strings; the Armenian Jew who was neither Armenian nor Jewish but a great provider; the Candy Bar Kidd who lost his life fighting the Gook; and McLaughlin who staked his life on a dirty sock... Some of the tales may be tall (though, says the author, Marines never lie), but their basis is real. Crawford approached his war as a young man's adventure, but he matured rapidly under fire and a too-intimate knowledge of life and death. Originally published at $18.95, now OUT OF PRINT.
$25.00
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