Genre:
Action, Drama
History, War

FINAL DRAFT
July 31, 2008

125 pages

Excerpt

Colonel Disque

Plot summary:

With its entry into World War I, America hopes to avoid the casualties of trench warfare by supplying its allies with a massed fleet of airplanes. But airplanes are made of spruce, a wood found only in remote forests of the Pacific Northwest. There the Wobblies are demanding an eight hour day. Management stubbornly clings to ten. A general strike looms. Colonel Brice P. Disque is sent in to assess the situation. He is instructed to undertake anything that “gets spruce out ... without it we cannot win.”

Memorable quotes:

SEC. BAKER: “The Allies are depending on us, they have no alternative.”

COL. DISQUE: “To a soldier in time of war, any means that are necessary are justifiable. I am determined to ship the ten million feet at the earliest possible date, regardless of cost or whom it hurts.”

LT. CRUMPACKER: “A dozen axes in a Northwest forest can do more for humanity and civilization at this time than a regiment of rifles in France.”