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Private Palmer #1
The Enlisted Men's Club
The Enlisted Men’s Club is the first of a trilogy of stories about military life by the late Gary Reilly, based on his experiences in Vietnam. Private Palmer is stationed at San Francisco’s army base at The Presidio, awaiting orders. He’s trying to find his place in the ranks. And trying to avoid work. While he’s been trained as a Military Policeman, he has no idea what’s next. Palmer keeps a low profile by day and seeks escape in the bars at night. The trick to survival, he decides, is not to care about anything during his time in the Army. To his surprise, that’s the most difficult challenge of all.
374 pages, Paperback
First published April 29, 2014
18 people want to read
About the author
Gary Reilly
19 books15 followersGary Reilly was a writer.
Simply stated, that was the essence of the man.
Born in Arkansas City, Kansas he spent his early years in Kansas and Colorado in a large Irish-Catholic family–seven brothers and sisters. The family moved to Denver where Gary attended parochial high school, graduating in 1967.
He served two years in the army, including a tour in Vietnam as a military policeman.
After discharge, Gary majored in English at Colorado State University and continued studies at the Denver campus of the University of Colorado.
All along, his overarching ambition was to write fiction. And he did, prodigiously. His first published short story, The Biography Man, was included in the Pushcart Prize Award anthology in 1979.
Later he turned to novels, several based on his army experiences. While he wrote both serious and genre fiction, his greatest invention was the character, Murph, a likable, bohemian Denver cab driver. Starting with The Asphalt Warrior, Gary cranked out eleven Murph novels.
His dedication to writing did not include self promotion. Instead of seeking agents and publishers, he focussed on his craft, writing and rewriting, polishing to perfection. He wrote well over twenty novels before he thought he was ready make his work public.
Unfortunately, he passed away in March, 2011, before he could realize that dream.
Friends and family remember Gary as a fun-loving, generous soul who always had time for other writers, helping them shape their work, getting it ready for print.
Now, through Running Meter Press and Big Earth Publishing in Boulder, Colorado, Gary Reilly’s fiction is finally coming to bookstores in Colorado and across the nation.
Simply stated, that was the essence of the man.
Born in Arkansas City, Kansas he spent his early years in Kansas and Colorado in a large Irish-Catholic family–seven brothers and sisters. The family moved to Denver where Gary attended parochial high school, graduating in 1967.
He served two years in the army, including a tour in Vietnam as a military policeman.
After discharge, Gary majored in English at Colorado State University and continued studies at the Denver campus of the University of Colorado.
All along, his overarching ambition was to write fiction. And he did, prodigiously. His first published short story, The Biography Man, was included in the Pushcart Prize Award anthology in 1979.
Later he turned to novels, several based on his army experiences. While he wrote both serious and genre fiction, his greatest invention was the character, Murph, a likable, bohemian Denver cab driver. Starting with The Asphalt Warrior, Gary cranked out eleven Murph novels.
His dedication to writing did not include self promotion. Instead of seeking agents and publishers, he focussed on his craft, writing and rewriting, polishing to perfection. He wrote well over twenty novels before he thought he was ready make his work public.
Unfortunately, he passed away in March, 2011, before he could realize that dream.
Friends and family remember Gary as a fun-loving, generous soul who always had time for other writers, helping them shape their work, getting it ready for print.
Now, through Running Meter Press and Big Earth Publishing in Boulder, Colorado, Gary Reilly’s fiction is finally coming to bookstores in Colorado and across the nation.
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
July 16, 2017
The mundanities of a young soldier's life shaped by Reilly into a read that is both literary and compelling. Having served in the Army at about the same time as the story line in this work, it is significant that Reilly (who is Palmer) apparently had a fabulous memory or kept journals of his time in the Army. The detail with which he describes so many incidental and otherwise boring events compels the reader to turn the page, to wonder what's next, to sympathize with this young man who is not necessarily out of his element, but, rather, trying to find it. Who is he really? Told with humor and a charming innocence (a boy becoming a man) this was an excellent read and I recommend it.
June 5, 2017
Outstanding. Gary Reilly could write. He has an eye for detail and more importantly interpersonal relations that are very real. This is perhaps the best description of barracks life I have found, from the shit details and easy flowing insults to the rifle range and top's office. But that is just gravy because there is a story here and it's good. It's all too real.
August 27, 2017
An interesting premise for a military book, an unsympathetic character that occasionally manages to do the right thing.
Fun book that compels me to finish the series.
Fun book that compels me to finish the series.
April 13, 2015
Given To Me For An Honest Review
The Enlisted Men's Club by Gary Reilly is the first book in a Trilogy. If this is anything then I am anxious for the next two. Once you begin to read this book you will find it hard to put down. This book will grab you and then you'll just watch those pages turn and turn and turn some more. The story line is based on the author's military experience and his time as a military policeman. The was he talks about could be any war. As you read you'll read the serious undertones but you'll also read the humor that there is. I highly recommend this book to everyone. I look for the next two books and am anxiously waiting for them. Gary Reilly hit it out of the ballpark with this book. Unforturnately, he passed away before he knew it.
The Enlisted Men's Club by Gary Reilly is the first book in a Trilogy. If this is anything then I am anxious for the next two. Once you begin to read this book you will find it hard to put down. This book will grab you and then you'll just watch those pages turn and turn and turn some more. The story line is based on the author's military experience and his time as a military policeman. The was he talks about could be any war. As you read you'll read the serious undertones but you'll also read the humor that there is. I highly recommend this book to everyone. I look for the next two books and am anxiously waiting for them. Gary Reilly hit it out of the ballpark with this book. Unforturnately, he passed away before he knew it.
May 15, 2015
So, I requested this book on NetGalley in a whim, during the time I was sort of obsessed with military and, ahem, military guys. Not only did I get what I wanted from this book, I also had a great time reading it. Who could say that reading about military life could be this entertaining?
First of all, Gary Reilly had great humor, that I can say for sure. While I couldn't be fully sure about whether these all were actually his memories or at least based on his memories as it is said, or just fiction and nothing else, it was entertaining and, at some points, enlightening to read. It is a book I would recommend.
First of all, Gary Reilly had great humor, that I can say for sure. While I couldn't be fully sure about whether these all were actually his memories or at least based on his memories as it is said, or just fiction and nothing else, it was entertaining and, at some points, enlightening to read. It is a book I would recommend.
June 8, 2014
Gary Reilly pulls the pin on the grenade that is The Enlisted Men's Club, then slow rolls it across the table at you. You pick it up - you just know - it's going to explode. And it does. With the relentless, rising burn of a dark Doors song from 1968, Reilly's electric novel of The Viet Nam War, steeped in loneliness and pain, is about your war, my war, his war. Any war. Read this book.
June 23, 2014
I was given this book in exchange for an honest review.
This was am amazing book and even with a serious undertone, there is humor. I enjoyed every word of this book and hope to read more from this author.
This was am amazing book and even with a serious undertone, there is humor. I enjoyed every word of this book and hope to read more from this author.
April 2, 2017
The Enlisted Men's Club (Private Palmer Book 1) by Gary Reilly is a realistic look at the army life in the 1960's. It's about Private Palmer who wants to be left alone, stay away from NCO lifers and drink beer. His brother Phil is in another branch of the service and they both receive orders for Vietnam. He doesn't want his brother, who is in the infantry to go. He goes about trying to get those orders changed. Somehow his plans seem to go awry, regardless of his best intentions.
He's on the firing range. "A ground-level breeze starts blowing his way, he can see the airborne debris coming, and he lowers his head with his face to the ground and lets the steel helmet take the brunt of a spray of grit which rattles against his steel pot like hail on a Quonset roof."
It was a surprisingly quick read and a bit different from my usual reading choices but enjoyable. I gave it four stars.
I received a Kindle copy from Running Meter Press and NetGalley. That did not change my opinion for this review.
Link to purchase: https://www.amazon.com/Enlisted-Mens-...
He's on the firing range. "A ground-level breeze starts blowing his way, he can see the airborne debris coming, and he lowers his head with his face to the ground and lets the steel helmet take the brunt of a spray of grit which rattles against his steel pot like hail on a Quonset roof."
It was a surprisingly quick read and a bit different from my usual reading choices but enjoyable. I gave it four stars.
I received a Kindle copy from Running Meter Press and NetGalley. That did not change my opinion for this review.
Link to purchase: https://www.amazon.com/Enlisted-Mens-...
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews