By Duty Bound

Joel Engel is a Daily Standard contributor, a brilliant author, and a good friend; beginning tomorrow his latest book, By Duty Bound : Survival and Redemption in a Time of War, will be available.

If you don't recognize Joel from his brilliant Standard essays (see this one on Ronald Reagan and The Twilight Zone; or this one on the rise of Mussolini), you'll probably recognize him as the author of the amazing Jim Morris book, The Rookie.

Joel's latest, written with Ezell Ware, Jr., tells the story of a soldier who finds honor in Vietnam. Ware grew up poor and black in Mississippi and became a helicopter pilot in the Marines. Shot down in Vietnam, he and another soldier (who's a Ku Klux Klan member), spend three weeks fighting through the jungle together. I won't tell more, but it's crackerjack stuff.

Despite what you may have heard, good writers are awfully hard to come by. Joel Engel is on my wall of pinups alongside Ferguson, Lane, and Grann. Don't miss By Duty Bound.