Proud Legions: A Novel of America's Next War

Recent news stories about North Korea's nuclear capabilities have raised the question of U.S. involvement in a new Korean War, an eventuality the slightly paranoid consciousness of this debut military thriller considers an inevitability. Set in the very near future--a future, Antal suggests, that might even be now--a single U.S. tank battalion is all that stands between the North Korean army and the fall of Seoul. The surprise attack, Operation Daring Thrust, is the brainchild of North Korean Marshal Kim Seung-Hee (aka the Wolf), a man to whom ""Americans were not men but merely targets."" It's up to Lt. Col. Michael Rodriguez, commander of the 2nd Battalion, 72nd Armor Division, to stop him. Antal, whose nonfiction books such as Combat Team draw on his own experience as battalion commander of an armored division, invests his battle scenes with authoritative detail. He nails his patriotic colors firmly to the mast, and there is a rigid moralizing quality to his conception of the opposing U.S. and North Korean armies. American individualism and pragmatism (embodied by the well-trained responsive strike force) go up against the blind tyranny of a political system in which forced loyalty is guaranteed by fear. The focus remains fixed on strategy and response--a subplot that pits Rodriguez against reporter Alice Hamilton is barely a blip on the radar--in this technical and rawly realistic book. An inside view of the machinations of two armies at war will convince the layman that modern society requires a professional warrior caste--a conclusion Antal will certainly approve. (Mar.)