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Josh Haman #4
Forgotten
The Forgotten are six Americans who did not come home at the end of the Vietnam War. Kept hidden in a remote camp in the jungle near the Laotian/Vietnamese border, their captor – a People’s Army of Vietnam lieutenant colonel - has them converting raw opium into morphine base. His ransom them back to the Americans for millions years after the war ended. Before she married Randy, Janet Pulaski was an anti-war activist and a member of the Students for A Democratic Society’s Action Wing. After he’s shot down, she’s sent to Cuba to learn how to be an assassin and makes an interesting life style choice. When the U.S. learns of their existence in 1982, two men, one a former POW and the other a CIA operative want the POWs dead. Their existence could send one to jail and the other to a firing squad. Forgotten by Marc Liebman is a great read. It’s one of those stories that grabs hold on page 1 and takes you on a rollercoaster ride. The plot is amazing, something quite unique, and is full of twists and turns. Anne-Marie Reynolds for Readers Favorite
580 pages, Kindle Edition
Published March 8, 2019
4 people are currently reading
910 people want to read
About the author
Marc Liebman
24 books47 followersMarc Liebman is an experienced writer as well as a Naval Aviator combat veteran of both Vietnam and Desert Shield/Desert Storm. He retired as a Captain after twenty-four years in the Navy and a career that took him all over the world. Marc has worked with the armed forces of Australia, Canada, Japan, Thailand, Republic of Korea, the Philippines and the U.K.
He has just under 6,,000 hours of pilot-in-command/co-pilot flight time in a variety of tactical military, civilian fixed and rotary wing aircraft. In the business world, he has been the CEO of an aerospace and defense manufacturing firm, an associate editor of a national magazine and a copywriter for a advertising agency. Marc lives in North Texas with his wife of 50+ years and Standard Poodle and spends a lot of time visiting his seven grand-children.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
May 29, 2017
In the 1980s there were many action packed movies such as Rambo and Missing in Action as well as various writings concerning American prisoners-of-wars that were believed left behind in Vietnam.
With Marc Liebman's novel, FORGOTTEN the spectre of POWS left behind is once again back in the public eye.
Structured as a kind of double narrative, Liebman's deals with six American POWS who were captured in 1970 and spent twelve years in captivity. Incidentally, they were never reported as being POWS but rather missing in action. When the war ended and although the Vietnamese claimed to have returned all POWS, there were rumors that some had been left behind in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos, but nothing had been confirmed.
During their captivity, the American prisoners were used as slaves by an organization turning raw opium into morphine that eventually found its way to the USA and elsewhere. The leader of the prison camp, a defector from the South Vietnam military to the North, Lieutenant Colonel Pham was aided and abetted by corrupt North Vietnamese military officials as well as some members of the Vietnam government. After the war ended, the leader had hoped to ransom off the prisoners to the Americans for considerable sums of money believing that they would consent to pay for their release, failing which they would be killed.
The second tale concerns the wife of one of the captured naval aviators who becomes an expert and ruthless unemotional hit woman known as La estrella roja de la muerte (The red star of death). Apparently, she spent four months in Cuba with the help of an American militant radical left-wing organization, The Weather Underground, whose goal was to create a clandestine revolutionary party to overthrow the U.S. Government. As she turns to embracing the world of an opportunist capitalist, she evolves into a free lance gun-for-hire murderer and travels all over the world where she has disposed of people in Chile, Argentina, Italy, England, Australia, Canada as well as the USA. Using several aliases she doesn't care whom she kills as long as they pay the substantial fees she commands. Her work is referred to her by someone known as The Broker. She also finds herself attracted to females and becomes a lesbian involving herself in numerous liaisons.
FORGOTTEN is a smartly plotted work of fiction with strong writing, although, if there is one fly in the ointment, it is that it could have been shortened by about 150 pages. It will take more than one sitting once the reader picks up the novel, nonetheless, he or she will be well-rewarded and undoubtedly will not wish to put it down until the last page of the frenzied ending. There is quite a bit of double-cross and vengeance that color several pages in this fast paced thriller. In addition, readers are treated to vividly rendered characters and deeply affecting vivid scenes wherein Liebman brings to life the horrendous conditions and experiences of American who were POWS during the Vietnam war.
Thrown in is the cowardice of a US aircraft commander who, although had the opportunity, did not come to the rescue of one of the POWS before he had been captured. Also mixed into the yarn is a former POW and a CIA operative who are determined to have the six survivors killed because what theses POWS know what incriminate the two who had been involved in a devious plot that would lead to their imprisonment.
Follow Here goo.gl/ge4lN0 To Read Norm's Interview With Marc Liebman
With Marc Liebman's novel, FORGOTTEN the spectre of POWS left behind is once again back in the public eye.
Structured as a kind of double narrative, Liebman's deals with six American POWS who were captured in 1970 and spent twelve years in captivity. Incidentally, they were never reported as being POWS but rather missing in action. When the war ended and although the Vietnamese claimed to have returned all POWS, there were rumors that some had been left behind in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos, but nothing had been confirmed.
During their captivity, the American prisoners were used as slaves by an organization turning raw opium into morphine that eventually found its way to the USA and elsewhere. The leader of the prison camp, a defector from the South Vietnam military to the North, Lieutenant Colonel Pham was aided and abetted by corrupt North Vietnamese military officials as well as some members of the Vietnam government. After the war ended, the leader had hoped to ransom off the prisoners to the Americans for considerable sums of money believing that they would consent to pay for their release, failing which they would be killed.
The second tale concerns the wife of one of the captured naval aviators who becomes an expert and ruthless unemotional hit woman known as La estrella roja de la muerte (The red star of death). Apparently, she spent four months in Cuba with the help of an American militant radical left-wing organization, The Weather Underground, whose goal was to create a clandestine revolutionary party to overthrow the U.S. Government. As she turns to embracing the world of an opportunist capitalist, she evolves into a free lance gun-for-hire murderer and travels all over the world where she has disposed of people in Chile, Argentina, Italy, England, Australia, Canada as well as the USA. Using several aliases she doesn't care whom she kills as long as they pay the substantial fees she commands. Her work is referred to her by someone known as The Broker. She also finds herself attracted to females and becomes a lesbian involving herself in numerous liaisons.
FORGOTTEN is a smartly plotted work of fiction with strong writing, although, if there is one fly in the ointment, it is that it could have been shortened by about 150 pages. It will take more than one sitting once the reader picks up the novel, nonetheless, he or she will be well-rewarded and undoubtedly will not wish to put it down until the last page of the frenzied ending. There is quite a bit of double-cross and vengeance that color several pages in this fast paced thriller. In addition, readers are treated to vividly rendered characters and deeply affecting vivid scenes wherein Liebman brings to life the horrendous conditions and experiences of American who were POWS during the Vietnam war.
Thrown in is the cowardice of a US aircraft commander who, although had the opportunity, did not come to the rescue of one of the POWS before he had been captured. Also mixed into the yarn is a former POW and a CIA operative who are determined to have the six survivors killed because what theses POWS know what incriminate the two who had been involved in a devious plot that would lead to their imprisonment.
Follow Here goo.gl/ge4lN0 To Read Norm's Interview With Marc Liebman
March 30, 2020
To me Forgotten was like five books in one! There were several stories incorporated in it that in the end all played out. It had a somewhat personal attachment for me in several ways. Marc's references to Air America, Koloa, Kauai and the A7 Light Attack Community all meant special things to me personally.
The O'Reilly incident was similar to several incidents and we were taught in SERE School the issues and ramifications of same.
I can remember reading in the Stars and Stripes about sightings of Americans in Viet Nam during the post Viet Nam era. One in particular was about a Black Man in the Dak To area who was working as a diesel mechanic. Why that one sticks out is unknown to me. So Forgotten brought to us not only the fact that there could have been POW's that were left behind but also there were and are others who stayed of their own accord. Deserters? One can only Assume.
I actually knew some folks that flew the A26's for Air America and an old Girlfriend of mine lived on Pe'e Road in Koloa, Kauai. I was an A7 Plane Captain and ran the line crew in VA122 which was the RAG for the A7's 73-76. I worked for several of the returning POW's in Lemoore and pulled liberty in Hanford and Visalia.
What Forgotten is about is real and tho fiction has real time incidents and action. You feel the Helicopter vibration and smell the smell of Hydraulic Fluid and gunpowder and all the things that make this adventure feel real. FLY NAVY....
The O'Reilly incident was similar to several incidents and we were taught in SERE School the issues and ramifications of same.
I can remember reading in the Stars and Stripes about sightings of Americans in Viet Nam during the post Viet Nam era. One in particular was about a Black Man in the Dak To area who was working as a diesel mechanic. Why that one sticks out is unknown to me. So Forgotten brought to us not only the fact that there could have been POW's that were left behind but also there were and are others who stayed of their own accord. Deserters? One can only Assume.
I actually knew some folks that flew the A26's for Air America and an old Girlfriend of mine lived on Pe'e Road in Koloa, Kauai. I was an A7 Plane Captain and ran the line crew in VA122 which was the RAG for the A7's 73-76. I worked for several of the returning POW's in Lemoore and pulled liberty in Hanford and Visalia.
What Forgotten is about is real and tho fiction has real time incidents and action. You feel the Helicopter vibration and smell the smell of Hydraulic Fluid and gunpowder and all the things that make this adventure feel real. FLY NAVY....
January 20, 2018
Thrilling, fast paced story of POW's during the Vietnam war. Men held after war's end by corrupt officials, forced to work in an illegal drug operation. One POW's wife, an advocate against the war, sidelines as a hit women. The story never slows, and I found myself turning pages pretty fast.
September 29, 2021
Liebman Change of Pace
Liebman adds a new twist by interjecting romance/sex into the more military and political focus of previous writings. Makes the book interesting in a different way but does take away from other intrigue.
Liebman adds a new twist by interjecting romance/sex into the more military and political focus of previous writings. Makes the book interesting in a different way but does take away from other intrigue.
August 27, 2020
A good novel and heartbreaking about 6 aviators who were held as captives in Viet-nam for 12 years before being rescued. This is a bit different focus than the first 3 of this series, Josh Haman not the main character and only had a "bit" role in the story. It was well written and hard to put down.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews