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Securing Red Tails: Excerpt from Chapter 29, Will and Dena:
Joe was outraged. "Well,
I'ma tell y'all one damn thing. I didn't sign up to guard no muthaf___in' airplanes!"
Nixon stood erect and brought himself to his full height. "Private
First Class Bevins, that's enough. You don't get a say in what assignments are made. So, can it! Understood?"
Joe snapped to attention and avoided eye
contact with Nixon. "Yes, Sergeant!"
For the first time since the regiment was formed, companies and platoons were split apart and assigned to provide anti-sabotage
security for the Fifteenth Army Air Force at aerodromes scattered over Sardinia and southern Italy. Company N boarded a Navy
LST for the slow voyage around the sole and heel of the boot to Ramitelli Aerodrome near the city of Termoli on Italy's Adriatic
coast.
* * *
"Red alert! Second Squad, saddle up. You're going out on emergency patrol. Briefing in ten minutes!" Nixon's head
was gone from the tent flap before Will could comprehend that he was being ordered into action. The Four Musketeers stood
slowly and exchanged unbelieving glances. It was late June. This was their first red alert.
Will dropped his bid whist hand on his folding cot and ran with his squad
members to the latrine. Eight minutes later, the squad, in full gear, with rations, ammunition, and water, assembled in the
briefing hut used by pilots of the 99th Pursuit Squadron. He was surprised to see the Fourth Squad arrive. Lieutenant
Black conducted the briefing using a large map of Ramitelli and an M1 cleaning rod as a pointer. Will's hands trembled, not
unlike the night the Klan came for a visit. He noted Black's words: "kill or capture" and "capture if possible"
and "two to five possible enemy saboteurs."
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| In 1943, they said Dena looked like Lena. |
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| Library of Congress public domain photo of 24 year old Lena Horne by Carl Van Vechten, 1941 |
Synopsis
n the spring of 1943, Hitler and Mussolini were near the apex of their powers. During
the same spring, Will, a lumberjack and amateur baseball player, falls in love with Dena, a Lena Horne-look-alike and
head-strong co-ed. While a world war rages, their dreams are threatened, first by classism when Will is
declared “not good enough” to be a suitor for Dena’s hand. Meanwhile, a group of powerful
businessmen have designs to exploit his extraordinary baseball skills for their financial gain until the Ku Klux Klan intervenes.
Will finds refuge in the US Army’s 366th
Infantry Regiment and the famed Buffalo Soldiers of the 92nd Infantry Division fighting Hitler’s Wehrmacht
in Italy. He bonds with three members of his infantry platoon. Their leader called them
the Four Musketeers. Their generation has been called America’s greatest.
Together, the friends become a tight-knit family,
at times fighting among themselves, and at other times, uniting to take on all-comers – other American servicemen, perverse
use of courts-martial, and the Wehrmacht. They pool their skills to make the best of army life while continuously
evolving their own unique reasons why they should fight the Germans. They meet and embrace Italian partisans
in their homes and side by side on the battlefield against the Germans.
In the face of hardships and death, Will is challenged with finding purpose for his
life. During Italy’s harsh Tuscany winter in the middle of a war, can Will find his path to the life he and Dena dreamed?
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