John Sebastian Alexander Suicide Squad

Annotation

Pound for pound, Japanese Kamikaze pilots were the most efficient and deadly weapons of World War II. They achieved maximum effect with minimum expense-and were virtually impossible to defend against. The underlying theory is that you can blow up almost anything, assassinate almost anybody, commit practically any act of violence or terrorism as long as you don't give a damn about the consequences to yourself. This is the basic premise of The Suicide Squad, a psychological thriller set in the closing years of the Cold War.The U.S. Army has applied state-of-the-art profiling to the recruitment of suitable Kamikaze operatives: men who want to die anyway; men who will, without therapeutic intervention, almost certainly kill themselves; men who do not resist-nay, who actually embrace-the idea of voluntarily sacrificing themselves for the greater common good. Not only do they manage to get the job done, but when they conveniently get themselves killed in the process or gratefully swallow their cyanide capsules afterward, there are no internal security leaks, no loose lips that can sink ships; you don't even have to give them their final paychecks.The fun begins when an especially well-qualified Suicide Squad volunteer, Pvt. Luchars, changes his mind and decides he doesn't want to die after all. But "gifts have been given, hostages exchanged," and there's no turning back. Luchars discovers his real struggle is not with the outside world, but with his own psyche, and he must use all his skills to battle to reverse the suicidal spiral and climb back up into the light.