Does anyone know this book?

[nahbi]

A couple of years ago I read a novel about the "peacetime" 82nd Airborne (I think) of the '80s. Took place in Ft. Bragg and Panama. Painted a somber picture of the peacetime military including drug abuse and corruption (stealing munitions for the local black market), but also captured dead-on life in the field, as well as the esprit de corps among the young soldiers. Kind of smacked a bit of Robert O'Connor's "Buffalo Soldiers..." Ring any bells? TIA Nahbi

[So Cal Rocket]

"Breaking Ranks" by Ed Ruggero?

[A Simple Soldier]

Yeah, that was my guess too. I had to go to his web site to verify the title. He was my English instructor many years ago at West Point.

[BADROTOFINGER]

There was a book that I started (and lost) a long time ago, about these people who were psychic vampires who could control others minds and actions, and used to have little contests as to who could get in the news by making people do things that attracted attention (like the John Lennon shooting). I am sure that there was more to it than that because I only got about 50 pages into it, but I lost it and still owe the person I borrowed it from a copy of it, and she cant remember what it is called either...JFK

[nahbi]

Thanks, So Cal, but I don't think that's it. This one deals with an enlisted troop and his buds at Ft Bragg that are "recruited" by kind of a shady local dude (supposedly former SF) to scam whatever loose munitions they can for him. Other plot elements include a deployment to Panama (actually a jump into Panama for an FTX) a romance with a local, um, "working girl," and not a bad account of field training including cat and mouse games as "OPFOR." The reader is also treated to some of the best and worse that military life had to offer (great buds, but equally bad slime that would steal from fellow barracks-mates in a heartbeat...). I also believe that the "protagonist" was fixated upon letters sent to him by his lady friend in Panama, as well as a copy of "Huckleberry Finn" given to him by a fellow recruit...