Cover Fire
Author: Karen Booth, Karon G. Booth
List Price: $29.95
Our Price: Click to see the latest and low price
ISBN: 0941367304
Publisher: Peach Blossom Publications (03 January, 2003)
Sales Rank: 2,583,093
Average Customer Rating: 3.75 out of 5
Customer Reviews
Rating: 4 out of 5
COVER FIRE - A REVIEW
On a battlefield it matters little whether you fight for a right cause or a wrong one; whether you are decorated with a Purple Heart or a Silver Star; whether you are a proud officer or a humble soldier. When a bomb explodes near your feet, when hostile forces loose hell over your head; when you breath nothing but blood, perspiration and uncertainty, you are shattered inside, unrecoverably. You are at war with yourself. You fail to contemplate the causes and the ethics. You simply refuse to reason. You smile at your enemy and raise your rifle.
...Sounds rung in our ears, sharp, like the blade of grass. The pores of our skin took in the air, searching for sour unwashed uniforms, mingled with gun oil, and the greasy, oily stink of a German. I could hear the heartbeat of a cricket... Cover Fire is less about battlefield than about the psychology of war. The book guides you through the varied 'contributions' of war-the structured disarrangement, the shattered pieces of human anatomies, the plights of the soldiers (very often victims themselves) and the physical and mental scars that once realized will be borne throughout their lives.
The author, Ms. Karon G. Booth, herself a teacher and an active educationist, takes up the challenge of raising fundamental questions about war.
...A war that made life stale as you dragged one foot in front of the other from nowhere to nowhere. Where every wall was broken, every window smashed, every green or fresh thing booby-trapped...
It all begins with World War II, when Lieutenant Morgan and his band of brothers arrive behind the enemy lines with a mission to detect and deter 'The Screecher' from firing on the Allied forces. Their search leads them on series of misadventures, traumas and uncertainities, which form the heart of Cover Fire. The story grips the imagination from the start. Ms. Booth's construction of simple and short sentences aptly suits the subject
...I sneezed again, annoying me. Moved my little finger up, then down. Gasping air trapped between our helmets, I set forth the theory-I was alive. Life brought terror-lost in the dark, buried in the ground, alive in a grave with a corpse on top of me. I screamed out, but only in mind...
Much to its horror, the crew discovers Sergeant Randall buried alive, suffering undescribable cruelties, retaining nothing but the brutal remnants of war life. "Dragon, there's a dragon in the cave" was all that Randall could whisper. Well, where is the dragon? Where is its cave? The answers are however not forthcoming. Morgan, realising the helplessness of the situation, transcends to the role of a psychoanalyst and explores Randall's dispirited psyche to arrive at a "solution".
...The wind from the trigger blew my hair. Each time I wanted it to be the bullet that killed me, and every time I prayed to live just one more second...
The dragon has multiple lives. It never accepts defeat and rejuvenates itself after every downslope. This is not an imaginary beast or a mythological symbol of power, but something that breathes flames of fire and hatred in our midst, blatently. It is hidden from vision, awaiting opportune moment to emerge and strike. Its effects are devastating, and never operate on a smaller scale. It is but a predator in the wildest form, posing serious threat to peaceful co-existence. We need more analytical and reflective works like Cover Fire to identify and slay such a dragon.
...There were limits to what you could do to a man, even in war. This was outside the limits of what humanity, the Geneva Convention and God had agreed upon...
When taken at face value the book is an excellent, action-packed war thriller. If we weigh the plot and its treatment, however, the work is revealed as a penetrating examination of war and its consequences. In Cover Fire, Ms. Booth has succeeded in uncovering a seldom explored side of war-that which bears a haunting human face.
Rating: 4 out of 5
Don't Judge a Book By Its Cover Fire
Warning if you start reading Cover Fire be sure you have the time to spare. The first sentence starts off with a bang (really) and you will be avoiding the bullets just like the rest of the characters.
Even when the first skirmish ends, the pacing doesn't let up. 2nd Lt. Bruce Stuart Morgan, the main narrator of the story, leads his men behind enemy lines into Nazi Germany as they search for their missing Sgt. Matthew Randall, who knows the location to a Super Cannon (called the Screecher) the Germans are using to nail down the Allied Forces.
They find their beloved Sgt.Matthew Randall -- who has been a father-figure to all of them -- but he has been tortured and literally left for dead. Unable to return back to base they hide in a German castle.
At this point, Cover Fire begins to lag. 2nd Lt. Morgan's narration is interrupted by the other men in the company. The technique fails mostly because the characters are distinct enough (the opposite of the brothers in As I Lay Dying) to justify such a change. Morgan could've continue being the narrator and nothing would have been lost.
Yes, readers will never forgot a soldier such as Grease, who scalps his German kills, but he doesn't tell the story any differently from Morgan. POW Randall's testimony becomes vital towards the end of Cover Fire but still it could've been told effectively from Morgan's POV.
Which brings up the main purpose for Cover Fire. Author K. G. Booth of Bowling Green, KY wrote the World War II novel as a tool to help abused boys.
"While teaching male juvenile offenders I found I had no materials to reach their emotional needs," Booth said. "To help promote trust in their unit, I began using episodes of Combat! in class. The boys were fascinated by the interaction of the squad. From that the novel grew. I read an early draft to a class who volunteered to sit in hard desks on a Saturday when they could have been out playing ball. The boys listened for 3 hours as I finished the story."
A play and study guide based on Cover Fire have been designed as a way for the boys to role play to understand their own emotions. "These young men, who have been abused and who had abused others, found an expression for their feelings and needs," Booth continued. "The play and study guide was added later to allow the reader to project their experiences into the story and remain safe emotionally.
"My co-author on the play and the study guide added valuable insight into how a victim feels. As a woman, she underscored the point that a female reader can see men enduring and suffering mush as abused women."
And that is how the Cover Fire ends, Randall confiding to his company about the tortures he endured. He wants to die but Randall lives on thanks to his men, whom he rescues when they are captured by Nazis.
Thankfully, no Hollywood ending ruins Cover Fire. It ends the way it should end -- Randall isn't miraculously cured. But his is better off, especially with all the guys pooling for him (as well as each other). They are each others family. They may not always seeing eye to eye, they argue and bicker, but they stick together when times are tough. What more could a abused boy ask for (because not being abused at all)?
Rating: 4 out of 5
Powerful WW II fiction -- Highly recommended
During World War II, Second Lieutenant Morgan leads his men behind enemy lines. The Captain orders Morgan and his men to protect a pontoon bridge that engineers were working on. Meanwhile, the Germans possess a devastating weapon called "The Screecher", a powerful cannon with such long range that it tears huge holes in the American offensive line. When battle wounds force Morgan to report to the field hospital, his Sergeant receives orders to locate the cannon for air strikes.An interrupted message sends Morgan and the remaining four men of Randall's rifle squad on a search and rescue mission. They intend to find both Randall and the location of The Screecher. They find a scene of unbelievable horror with Randall, still alive, lying in a shallow grave. Incoming strikes and a dangerous grass fire send Morgan and his men toward a distant castle and a rumored resistance cell.
COVER FIRE by K.G. Booth explores the devastating psychology of war where the most deadly enemy is within. On the surface, COVER FIRE is an excellent, action packed war novel; but it also something more. Booth brings her 25 years of teaching experience to bear as she forges a powerful emotional link between the reader and the characters of her novel. Her students began as her audience as Booth struggles to reach incarcerated youth through fiction, allowing them to explore their own battle scared psyches in a safe environment. But others will find COVER FIRE powerful reading as well. Fans of war fiction, victims of posttraumatic shock syndrome, and others who bear the deep emotional burdens that can only heal by exposure and exploration will find COVER FIRE a useful tool to begin their own healing. Booth's deep understanding of the psyche brings the novel immediacy and depth that will linger long after the last page is turned. Highly recommended.
Book Index