Why this book?

Because of Corporal Scan M. Pulliam, a

twenty-two-year-old American marine from Damon,

Texas, who wasn t at his wife s bedside when their first

child was born. Since mid-August, Corporal Pulliam, a

tank gunner, has battled 120-degree temperatures and

a variety of poisonous snakes which inhabit the Saudi

desert. To avoid a confrontation, he has taken to sleep-

ing on top of his tank.

Because of Karin Oliver, age thirty, who has worked

for nearly ten years in the public library in Blooming-

ton, Indiana. A former Navy Seabee, Oliver was in-

formed in mid-August that her reserve unit might well

be called up on twenty-four hours notice for service in

the Persian Gulf. She was told to be reachable by phone,

day or night, and to ensure that her legal affairs were in

order--including her will.

Another reason is Barbara Bodine, an intrepid State

Department foreign service officer who serves as the

number two at at the U.S. embassy in Kuwait. The em-

bassy s skeleton staff refused to leave Kuwait City when

the Iraqis ordered all diplomats out in late August and

then cut off electricity and water to encourage their

departure. With hundreds of Americans in hiding in the

capital or held hostage in Iraq, Bodine and her col-

leagues were intent on staying. They survived from