Everybody knows War is Hell. Only the Few and the Proud know what fun Hell can be. Here it is, folks: "How the cow ate the cabbage" in the CLASSIFIED words of the President hisself [sic]. TOP SECRET stuff. EYES ONLY. If you want to know the real story (and you know you do)- Nam-A-Rama is Catch 22 meets "Apocalypse Now." It's the wildest, wackiest, saddest and truest war story ever told, because it's all made-up, which means it's all real-from the oatmeal dropped on the VC (the Marines won't eat it) to the naked movie star parachuting into Hanoi; from the jarhead who calls in air strikes from a Bangkok brothel to the "Sky-Kyke" who fills out the Marine Corps' diversity quota; from the businessmen demanding a long inventory-reducing war to the Pentagon brass hoping for a glorious medal-worthy one; from the locals who'll do anything for a Yankee dollar to the grunts nobody ever asked and never will. It starts and ends, like all the best adventures, in the air. Almost-Captain Gearheardt and his buddy, Almost-Captain Armstrong, are ferrying bodies (live in, dead out) for the CIA's Air America, but they have never forgotten their TOP SECRET orders, given when Gearheardt was delivering pizzas to the Oval Office for the CIA: Chopper into Hanoi and buy Uncle Ho a beer. Then either shoot his ass or shake his hand (the instructions get vague at this point). And so they do, Semper Fi, pausing only to get an aircraft carrier black-flagged for bubonic plague, have an affair with Mickey Mouse, cleverly decode the message sewn into a lusty spy's black panties, commandeer a Russian truck complete with a midget Chinese 'Uncle Sam,' avenge themselves on a Cuban torturer, and dutifully experience all the Honor and Glory of the next-to-the-next-to-last war that never (God forbid) made the Nightly News. And they do it all for laughs. Because if they were to stop laughing, where would the heartache end? Phillip Jennings' unpredictable novel of Vietnam is an American classic in the making, a not-so-longing look at the absurdity of a war in which the damned and the innocent share the same hootch, the same Commander-in-Chief, and sometimes even the same body-bag. You won't stop laughing, or thinking.

Nam-A-Rama

Literature & Fiction

JENNINGS, PHILLIP

Humor & Satire

Forge Books

Goodbye Mexico

Intelligence Failure Two words now joined at the hip. Remember when our alphabet agencies - CIA, DIA, NSA, FBI - were actually competent? Are you sure? Maybe they were just better at burying their mistakes. . . . Our spooks have been playing games with other governments for half a century. Allies and enemies alike have gotten tired of our grubby fingerprints all over their national interests. Gearheardt's answer? Be sure to wear gloves! Gearheardt - apparently back from the dead, or maybe Laos - wants to play for all the Mexican marbles, and he insists he needs Jack's help to do it. Just like the last time in Vietnam, he claims to be working for "the Company." Jack really is in the CIA now, temporarily running the Mexico City station at the embassy, and ought to know better, but Gearheardt's sexy assistant with the disdain for clothes is so darn cute and Gearheardt's insane resolve is just so darn convincing. (Even though it's true that the last time around they failed spectacularly in their attempt to get Ho Chi Minh to retire to Hawaii, and then they didn't even shoot him either.) But does the Agency really want the Cubans to take over Mexico? The worlds of espionage and subversion are as unpredictable and absurd as any other form of warfare. Working in the tradition of Graham Greene's Our Man in Havana and his own Nam-A-Rama, Phillip Jennings gives Goodbye Mexico riotous relevance with a clear-eyed look at how the right hand of our intelligence establishment often doesn't know what the left hand is doing. The result is laughter too loud to be covert and the haunting suspicion that truth may be stranger than fiction. If you thought the Vietnam War of Nam-A-Ramawas crazy, you ain't seen nothin' yet. Say hello to Goodbye Mexico and the CIA and our foreign policy will never look the same again.

Everybody knows War is Hell. Only the Few and the Proud know what fun Hell can be. Here it is, folks: "How the cow ate the cabbage" in the CLASSIFIED words of the President hisself [sic]. TOP SECRET stuff. EYES ONLY. If you want to know the real story (and you know you do)- Nam-A-Rama is Catch 22 meets "Apocalypse Now." It's the wildest, wackiest, saddest and truest war story ever told, because it's all made-up, which means it's all real-from the oatmeal dropped on the VC (the Marines won't eat it) to the naked movie star parachuting into Hanoi; from the jarhead who calls in air strikes from a Bangkok brothel to the "Sky-Kyke" who fills out the Marine Corps' diversity quota; from the businessmen demanding a long inventory-reducing war to the Pentagon brass hoping for a glorious medal-worthy one; from the locals who'll do anything for a Yankee dollar to the grunts nobody ever asked and never will. It starts and ends, like all the best adventures, in the air. Almost-Captain Gearheardt and his buddy, Almost-Captain Armstrong, are ferrying bodies (live in, dead out) for the CIA's Air America, but they have never forgotten their TOP SECRET orders, given when Gearheardt was delivering pizzas to the Oval Office for the CIA: Chopper into Hanoi and buy Uncle Ho a beer. Then either shoot his ass or shake his hand (the instructions get vague at this point). And so they do, Semper Fi, pausing only to get an aircraft carrier black-flagged for bubonic plague, have an affair with Mickey Mouse, cleverly decode the message sewn into a lusty spy's black panties, commandeer a Russian truck complete with a midget Chinese 'Uncle Sam,' avenge themselves on a Cuban torturer, and dutifully experience all the Honor and Glory of the next-to-the-next-to-last war that never (God forbid) made the Nightly News. And they do it all for laughs. Because if they were to stop laughing, where would the heartache end? Phillip Jennings' unpredictable novel of Vietnam is an American classic in the making, a not-so-longing look at the absurdity of a war in which the damned and the innocent share the same hootch, the same Commander-in-Chief, and sometimes even the same body-bag. You won't stop laughing, or thinking.

United States

Having survived the Vietnam War’s wildest secret mission, Jack Armstrong is happily working for the CIA in Mexico City, until an unexpected reunion has him wishing he were back in Nam, face down in a rice paddy. The incorrigible Gearheardt – evidently, not as dead as Jack thought -- arrives with the daftly righteous mission of saving the world’s prostitutes by handing them a country of their own. And he’s sure he can trick ‘the Company’ into helping him do it. Setting up his HQ in Mexico City’s best bordello, Gearheardt naturally expects his old buddy Jack to pitch right in. After what happened in Hanoi, Jack ought to know better, but . . .  In the tradition of Graham Greene’s Our Man in Havana and his own phantasmagorical Nam-A-Rama, Phillip Jennings hilariously demonstrates that espionage isn’t hard – if the right hand knows what the left hand is doing! Do the headlines give you a headache? Read Goodbye Mexico and discover that the only cure for some kinds of pain is laughter. 

Contemporary

The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Vietnam War: Library Edition

History

Military

Blackstone Pub

The Vietnam War was a tragic and dismal failureat least that is what the mainstream media and history books would have you believe. Yet, Phillip Jennings sets the record straight in The Politically Incorrect Guide™ to the Vietnam War. In this latest P.I.G.”, Jennings shatters culturally-accepted myths and busts politically incorrect lies that liberal pundits and leftist professors have been telling you for years. The Vietnam War was the most importantand successfulcampaign to defeat Communism. Without the sacrifices made and the courage displayed by our military, the world might be a different place. The Politically Incorrect Guide™ to the Vietnam War reveals the truth about the battles, players, and policies of one of the most controversial wars in U.S. history.

The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Vietnam War (The Politically Incorrect Guides)

Biographies & Memoirs

Leaders & Notable People

Regnery

From Publishers Weekly (starred review): "This highly entertaining, provocative lampooning of the Vietnam War is reminiscent of Catch-22 and David Mamet's Wag the Dog. Marine helicopter pilot Gerard Finnigan Gearheardt, in the Oval Office on CIA pizza delivery duty ("They don't let freckle-faced teenagers deliver pizza to the White House, you know"), overhears President Larry Bob Jones and the Joint Chiefs of Staff brainstorming the idea of escalating the American advisory presence in Vietnam into a full-fledged shooting war to enhance Larry Bob's image and beef up a flagging peacetime economy. To make sure the situation doesn't get out of hand, Larry Bob concocts a loony-tunes scheme to parachute Gearheardt and his buddy Lt. Jack Armstrong, along with antiwar movie sex kitten Barbonella, into Hanoi to meet with Ho Chi Minh and negotiate peace just in time to get Larry Bob reelected. The two hapless Marines rendezvous with Barbonella, but, thanks to the meddling of an American agent and a Cuban operative, the zany scheme goes haywire and Armstrong and Gearheardt wind up flying for the CIA in Laos. In this wonderfully irreverent novel, evocative of vintage Max Shulman, hearty belly laughs contrast with chilling insights into high level political machinations."

NAM-A-RAMA (The Gearheardt Series)

Regnery Fiction

Remember when our alphabet agencies--CIA, DIA, NSA, FBI--were actually competent? Are you sure? Maybe they were just better at burying their mistakes... "This book is almost too funny to be fiction. Phil Jennings' tales of hilarity and criminality are matched only by the front pages of Amercia's newspapers, and my laughter only stopped when I wondered: could this be true?" -Nathaniel Fick, former U.S. Marine Captain and author of One Bullet Away

Goodbye Mexico (The Gearheardt Series)

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by JENNINGS, PHILLIP. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by JENNINGS, PHILLIP

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by JENNINGS, PHILLIP. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Nam-A-Rama

Goodbye Mexico

Nam-A-Rama

Goodbye Mexico

The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Vietnam War: Library Edition

The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Vietnam War (The Politically Incorrect Guides)

NAM-A-RAMA (The Gearheardt Series)

Goodbye Mexico (The Gearheardt Series)