Böcker av Bob Rockwell

Bob, Josephina, and their pet goat live along the US/Mexico border. They often provide food and comfort to the poor and desperate people passing by their ranch seeking a better life. Bob, an old Marine, has declared war on the invasive Border Patrol spy drone that is invading his privacy and the stinking javelinas that are ruining is garden. But when Bob uncovers a group of young Middle Easterners, masquerading as Latinos, he enlists the help of his drinking buddies and they set out to find and to thwart the mission of what must be, Arab terrorists. Ride the bumpy desert roads with Bob and his colorful collection of misfits as they execute Operation Raghead.

Mostly True Tales These stories might better be called historical fiction because they are about real people and/or real events in history. Bob's taken the liberty to tell a bit more about little-known people, interject himself into the lives of historical figures, and tell us about real events from the pens of fictional characters.

It was late April 1955 and spring had finally come to the high plains. I was suffering from a serious case of spring fever. Baseball season was already underway, my Brooklyn Dodgers were 10 and 0, and I was stuck in my seventh-grade English class conjugating verbs. I had lots of plans for the summer break, if it ever comes. When one of the cutest girls in my class invited me for a coke after school I was torn between being with her and listening to my beloved Dodgers on the radio. So goes my last summer in Gering, Nebraska. I was thirteen and confused as my interests were somehow shifting from sports to girls. I had my first crush on the prettiest girl in class but ? but the Dodgers were having a pennant winning season. I didn?t know what to do with all these new feelings.

The Marine CorpsÕ motto ÒSemper FidelisÓ still echoes through my head after all of these years. ItÕs the Latin phrase for Òalways faithfulÓ, and totally appropriate to the lifelong brotherhood that is the United States Marine Corps. It was just over fifty-eight years ago that Semper Fi and all things Marine were etched permanently into my being, my character, and my memory. And when my DIÕs singsong cadence isnÕt bouncing around in my brain, my bedroom is shaking with the roar of F-8U Crusaders screaming overhead. IÕm still at El Toro. IÕm still a Marine. IÕll always be a Marine.

Bob Lockwood, a cameraman in the early days of Hollywood, takes us on a journey through northern Mexico as he films Pancho Villa. Bob is captivated by the spirit of the revolution and the passion of the Villistas but he's sickened by the wanton slaughter and the tragic waste of young lives he sees on the battlefield. He drops his camera, crosses the river, and heads back to California. On route he learns that he no longer has a wife or job to return to so he starts a new life in the small railroad town of Deming, New Mexico. His fondness and compassion for the young, bedraggled Villistas he met in Chihuahua haunts him when he meets and befriends the seven Mexican prisoners captured during and after Pancho's disastrous raid on Columbus, New Mexico. Bob tells the tragic story of Juan Sánchez, a sixteen-year-old Villista, who was forced into the battle. Juan never fired a shot yet he was captured, held, tried, and hanged for murders he never could have committed.