Josh Haman

In combat, there is a fine line between being overly cautious and cowardice. It's Josh Haman's first tour in Vietnam and he's fresh out of the training command, a "nugget" in Naval Aviator parlance. Josh Haman has to figure out on which side of the line the combat search and rescue detachment's officer-in-charge stands. Untested and without a lot of experience, he has to make a career and life and death decision and live, with the consequences. Josh gets his first taste of the unpredictability of Naval operations when he is, picked to be a pioneer in flying helicopters in Navy special operations. He, and Marty Cabot, a Navy SEAL, become pawns in inter-service politics. The two of them are, ordered to fly missions that could, if not carried out successfully, have international consequences beyond the war in Vietnam.

Liebman skips macho combat images to plunk us into the deeper connections of war, from fear and courage to the truer realms of human relationships. His detail is authentic, and he lends even greater validity to the operations he describes with valuable author notes at the back of the book including a historic analysis of the time, military glossary, and roster of characters.

The Forgotten are six Americans who did not come home at the end of the Vietnam War. Kept hidden in a remote camp in the jungle near the Laotian/Vietnamese border, their captor, a People's Army of Vietnam lieutenant colonel, has them converting raw opium into morphine base. His goal: ransom them, back to the Americans for millions years after the war ended. Before she married Randy, Janet Pulaski was an anti-war activist and a member of the Students for A Democratic Society's Action Wing. After he's shot down, she's sent to Cuba to learn how to be an assassin and makes an interesting life style choice. When the U.S. learns of their existence in 1982, two men, one a former POW and the other a CIA operative want the POWs dead. Their existence could send one to jail and the other to a firing squad.

After John Walker and Jerry Whitworth are, arrested for passing top-secret information to the Soviet Union, the project Inner Look is, initiated to determine if there are any other spies operating within the government intelligence agencies. Navy SEAL Marty Cabot and naval aviator Josh Haman are, assigned to the project in the hopes that their unconventional approach and out-of-the-box thinking will yield more answers. Cabot and Haman discover that the security leaks go higher up than anyone imagined. Furthermore, the leaks have compromised many of their missions. For Josh and Marty, it's not just about, national security, it's personal. Their pursuit turns international, taking them into dangerous waters. Nothing but their skills will keep them alive when the KBG sends assassins to silence the traitor and neutralize the threat they pose.

In 1991, Gorbachev signs the historic US/Soviet grain deal, committing the Soviets to purchasing eight million tons of grain over the next five years. In response, inflation in the Soviet Union rises almost out of control, the government loses its iron grip on the population, and the Soviet parliament votes to dissolve the Soviet Union. Hardliners want Gorbachev out of power, and the Iranians see the turmoil as a chance to acquire tactical nuclear weapons. The United States realizing it was receiving conflicting intelligence on the situation in the Soviet Union sends Josh Haman to Moscow as an independent set of eyes and ears. On the day he arrives, a KGB general promises to give him the names and addresses of the man who ordered the killing of his first wife's parents. Almost immediately, Haman's mission expands from gathering intelligence on the volatile political situation to stopping the delivery of the nuclear weapons to the Iranians, all the while tormented by the desire to exact revenge. In 1991, Gorbachev signs the historic US/Soviet grain deal, committing the Soviets to purchasing eight million tons of grain over the next five years. In response, inflation in the Soviet Union rises almost out of control, the government loses its iron grip on the population, and the Soviet parliament votes to dissolve the Soviet Union. Hardliners want Gorbachev out of power, and the Iranians see the turmoil as a chance to acquire tactical nuclear weapons. The United States realizing it was receiving conflicting intelligence on the situation in the Soviet Union sends Josh Haman to Moscow as an independent set of eyes and ears. On the day he arrives, a KGB general promises to give him the names and addresses of the man who ordered the killing of his first wife's parents. Almost immediately, Haman's mission expands from gathering intelligence on the volatile political situation to stopping the delivery of the nuclear weapons to the Iranians, all the while tormented by the desire to exact revenge.