Once A Marine

About the Book

Gunnery Sergeant Lewis B. Williams felt as if he were on top of the world. This highly decorated Marine hero, who happened to be an Afro-American, was married to the woman of his dreams. Their young son was "the apple of his daddy´s eye". Sergeant Williams was the most successful Drill Instructor in Marine Corps Boot Camp history. Lew Williams was one happy man. Then tragedy of unimaginable proporations changed his life! First, Sergeant Williams was a helpless witness to the fiery deaths of both his wife and his son! Then,to escape the pain and the guilt, he turns to drink. When the drinking made him no longer fit to command recruits, Lew is transferred to Marine Corps headquarters in Washington, D.C. for "re-assignment. At exactly the same time, a group of racial bigots opened a training camp for skinheads in rural Maryland. To train the skinheads in the "proper" handling of Blacks, the bigots kidnap Black drunks from the streets of Washington. They turn the drunks loose inside their camp that has an electric fence to prevent their escape. The drunks are then hunted down and they are killed! The bigots make a HUGE mistake! They kidnap Lew Williams. They turn him loose as they had done with all the others. This time, however, the intended victim escapes their attempt to track him down. They can find no trace of him anywhere. Still trapped inside the electric fence, the Marine is forced into sobriety. He then becomes the hunter as well as the hunted. Unable to completely escape, he mades the bigots and their forty plus armed skinheads wish that he had. Complications in the form of more Black "prisoners", who he feels he must rescue, make life more difficult and more dangerous for Sergeant Williams. These complications grow as the bigots begin a systematic section-by-section search of their camp that they feel certain will eventually lead them to the unarmed (but not for long) Marine. Fighting the three-pronged problem of the bigots, his own alcoholism and the fatigue that he has brought on himself, the Marine must not allow himself the rest that his body and mind are demanding. Ultimately, he mades a mistake, one that places him, unarmed, staring at the wrong end of a rifle. The rifle is in the hands of one of the skinheads. Lew Williams must convince this young man to let him escape or he will be killed! The boy became a skinhead only because he believes that a gang of thrill-seeking Black thugs killed his older brother. He believes that to be true because it is what the local Chief of Police told him had happened! You will not soon forget "ONCE A MARINE"!

About the Author

The author, Fred Mathis, is an Ex-Marine. That fact is evident in these pages. Mr. Mathis is a life long storyteller and holds a passionate disgust for bigotry. These Two facts are also evident in these pages. Retired from a career in sales, Mr. Mathis now resides in Martinsburg, West Virginia with his bride who is also his best friend and advisor but never his critic. Well, almost never. “Kidnapped Marine” is his first novel. “The story took less than Six months to create itself. It took me another Ten years to get that story onto paper in a fashion that I felt did it justice.” Is Mr. Mathis’ explanation for the labor of love that produced “Kidnapped Marine”. Mr. Mathis is, by the way, A “WASP”, a White, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant. While not a direct victim of prejudice, he firmly believes that bigotry makes victims of us all.