ON VALOR'S SIDE

A few months before Pearl Harbor, author Gallant gave up at Atlanta's Emory University, answered the call of the Marines and whizzed off to Parris Island's boot camp. Now with a gung-ho surge of heartfelt sentiment, sincerity and just about no sophistication at all, leatherneck Grady recreates the real-life training, fighting and comradeship of men at arms, from North Carolina to Guadalcanal. Neither profane nor angry, the book attempts a small scale celebration of pup tents and rifle ranges, DI's and chow lines. On Valor's Side remains strictly a clean-cut-kid-next-door opus (""If this book stirs young men to serve their country in the world's finest military organization, then I will be proud""). Gallant can probably be proud.