ZAPPING THE ZEBRA

by Robert F. Burgess

This fiction story is about real people during the Vietnam War. Their names are changed but if you were a combat soldier there in 1966-1967 you know who the real life characters were. The Zebra was an elusive devil. This devil tormented the troops day and night torturing prisoners in jungle camps within earshot of the soldiers on Hill 55. Try as they might they could not locate the devil. It was as elusive as a ghost, and sniper Harry Landon knew only too well how that went. Yet Colonel Radar Ryan hands him the assignment and Harry takes it on, aware that to catch a ghost you have to be one step ahead of it all the time. Before this nightmare is over Landon and his faithful Montagnard bodyguard will find themselves tied spread-eagled on a bamboo rack in the camp’s firelight. The Zebra devil with a long-curved knife plans to work them over for the night’s entertainment. For the first time, Harry realizes they are not getting out of this one because no one knows they have been caught like spiders in this devil’s web. Hang on tight for this one because it’s a nail-biter!

27 pages, Kindle Edition

First published November 16, 2014

About the author

Robert F. Burgess grew up in Grand Rapids, Michigan and as a youth often trout-fished the same creeks and streams as Ernest Hemingway. At the end of World War II he served with the U. S. Army 88th Blue Devil Division Ski Troops in northern Italy. After the war he returned to Europe on the GI Bill to study foreign languages at universities in Italy and Switzerland; then completed his education in Journalism at Michigan State University. He became a Florida magazine writer/photographer specializing in sport fishing and scuba diving adventures. Later he returned to Europe with his wife to travel and write for various magazines there and abroad. The author lives in North Florida. Mr. Burgess has been called a Renaissance man because his books cover a wide spectrum of time and events. He writes real-life adventures about shipwrecks and sharks; treasure diving, cave diving; underwater archaeology, meeting Hemingway in Pamplona and short e-book stories about Marine snipers during the Vietnam War. His writing style puts the reader in whatever adventure he describes so that they themselves become part of that adventure.