But One Reply

This War's Ending Was Inevitable

Did honor and loyalty still matter?

In this sequel to Not to Reason Why, the reader meets three of its main characters again: Sue Guerri, her husband Rick, a former Air Force pilot, and his fellow ROTC instructor, Jeff Nickerson, now an intelligence officer in Saigon. The trio finds themselves tangled in another battle. This one is far from the streets of a college campus; it is South Vietnam in the spring of 1975. As South Vietnam crumbles under the advancing Communist forces, Rick and Jeff are called once again to help in what may be the final chapter of the war. Sue is with them - as is danger.

New faces join them who share their call to action:

• Marcel Dubois. A former French Foreign Legion paratrooper who has been a Hmong freedom fighter for twenty years. He thrives as a guerrilla leader.
• Lieutenant Colonel Bill "Dobie" Starbuckle. A Special Forces veteran who suspects unfinished business lurks in the jungles of Southeast Asia.
• Captain Eugene "Clicker" Cruthers. An ex-Marine fighter pilot. Rick joins him near Saigon to train Vietnamese pilots.
• Mai. At first, she is only a house girl for Clicker and Rick's family. She quickly becomes Sue's only friend in this foreign land.
• Lieutenant Colonel Ngo Tinh. He eagerly accepts the help of Vietnam War veterans Clicker and Rick as he leads his pilots in the defense of their besieged country.
• Ashley Peabody. Publisher of a soldier-of-fortune-type magazine. He knows more about this war than his last big story reveals.
• Master Sergeant Jimbo Atkins. Also a Special Forces veteran, he flees a North Carolina jail to resume his favorite pastime: killing Commies.

The characters meet in Southeast Asia as the dominoes fall while the American people - and a polarized Congress - idly watch. Rick must decide which is more important: risk his life and fly another mission or save his family and flee? Clicker came for the jets - and for the women he loves. But now he must choose between escape and honor. For Dobie and Jimbo it might be just another adventure. Perhaps it's something deeper: the unbreakable code of brotherhood. When a comrade calls for help, a soldier can give but one reply.