The Foot Soldier

By Tom Trujillo

The Summer of Love runs head first into Mississippi Burning and the Vietnam War in a small town in Texas...what could possibly go wrong?Paul and David sour on anti-war demonstrations and the hippie party atmosphere of San Francisco, and strike out to end the war by counseling young men not to join the military. They end up in the isolated ranching town of Beeville, Texas, which finds itself overwhelmed by the nearby Naval airbase which has swollen to over five thousand men training pilots for the war. The young airmen have brought with them psychedelic music, liberal behavior, and drugs. At Alamo-Cola, the local soft drink bottling plant, tensions run high as Tejano workers are fed up with being paid half the wages as the white workers, despite millions in revenue from the base being pumped into the local economy.A worker for Alamo-Cola, befriends David and introduces him to "Mexican Town." Work, poverty and racism are issues the locals fight every day, and David offers to help in their struggle at Alamo-Cola by forming a union. When the union's demands are rejected, a boycott is called.With the strike nearing a successful outcome, they take a trip to the Rio Grande Valley for a weekend of peyote eating. It is here where David meets his guardian, Juan Cortina, and Paul is reborn from the earth itself.Reacting to the boycott Alamo-Cola, a Texas Ranger and an ex-Mississippi Sheriff, abduct David. They violently subdue him and take him to a remote section of a local ranch where they plan on lynching him next to a farm worker they had hanged earlier. David escapes when his peyote guardian angel wakes him and orders him to flee into the woods. "Mescalito is riding to help you-flee!" As David flees, the hanged man, freed from the noose by Mescalito, attacks the Texas Ranger.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1548026719
• ISBN13: 9781548026714
• Release Date: June 2017
• Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
• Length: 270 Pages
• Weight: 1.04 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.0" x 0.7" x 6.0"