Jay Cadmus describes his second book, Constable Outreach 35, as a “slice of military life.” It is set in Central America in 1985 in the midst of the Contra War that pitted Nicaraguan rebels backed by the United States against the Sandinistas.

Constable Outreach 35 takes its title from a covert base in Honduras used to launch supply missions. Lester Russell is a designated “cargo handler,” but he actually builds airdrop pallets and flies the missions to airlift and drop them. His latest mission, the last before the program is shut down, goes awry, leaving Russell in a coma and in the hands of Sandinista troops. Tom McKay, the operations manager, is determined to rescue him. 

Cadmus, 74, retired in 1998 from the Air Force. The Pennsylvania native’s father served in the Air Force in Korea, and the family moved around a lot. Cadmus enlisted in the Marines out of high school, served in Vietnam with the Army’s 101st Airborne Division, and was later involved in the invasion of Grenada. “Being raised in a warrior-type atmosphere, I like to tell stories that affect humans, and there’s nothing on the face of the Earth that affects humans more than war,” he says. He leaves explanations and philosophical discussions on the causes of war for professors and historians. 

Kirkus Reviews calls Constable Outreach 35 “a thrilling peek into a tumultuous era” and praises Cadmus’ “remarkable” research: “He provides astute insights into the historical currents that ushered in the plot’s moment in time and displays a mastery of Latin American politics. In addition, he deftly dramatizes the way in which craven political interests can stymie the effective management of military operations.”

Not coincidentally, one of the jobs on Cadmus’ eclectic resume was as a stringer for Maryland and Virginia newspapers. His reportorial eye and own military experience in the region provide authenticity and insight, as when he writes about Russell’s less-than-fluent grasp of Spanish: “As an American, the locals had to think of you as a tourist. Not a want-to-be native. And definitely, not a long-time local operator for the United States government.”

Cadmus cites Rudyard Kipling as an influence as well as Ernest Hemingway, with whom Cadmus shares an affinity for short, spare sentences, as when the severely-injured Russell finds himself a captive of two revolutionaries: “He moved slowly. She, half-supporting him. Let him do all the work. Keeping her right arm free. Hanging toward the scabbard. She was a professional. Her husband was professional. He needed her to lead when the time came. This was one time.”

Cadmus drew on his own experiences in crafting this story. “I was in the Air Force Reserve at that time,” he says. “I enlisted in 1981 and was working out of Charleston. I saw a lot of Central America and Panama; we did a lot of embassy runs.”

“I’ve always been interested in Central America,” he continues. “If I could live anywhere, I would probably live in Panama. [It’s] mostly jungle; I can say I never got that out of my system from Vietnam. It was one of those places where I felt comfortable.”

This elicits surprise from his interviewer. “I love the jungle, I love vegetation,” he insists with a laugh. “It’s a comforting place for me.”

Cadmus currently lives in Las Vegas, where he moved less than six months ago. “I have only been on the Strip once,” he says. “I’ve been downtown once. I’m not a gambler. Everything I need is within walking distance. I spend my time writing.”

Constable Outreach 35 is a departure from Cadmus’ first book, Anger’s Journey, a fictionalized account of his diagnosed PTSD, which in his own life led to a divorce. He called writing that book cathartic. “That was the reason I started it,” he explains. “It was time I made a change in my life. I wrote that book in 30 days and then went back on the road as a [truck] driver.” (He’s rewriting the book and plans to rerelease it under a different title.)

Cadmus relates that he picked up writing “as something to do.” In addition to the trucking and moving industries and his various military stints, he has also been a teacher and a salesperson (real estate and cars). He calls himself a musician (his mother was a concert pianist). “Having been in a number of different fields,” he says, “I have learned a lot from mentors, partners, and friends. Their experiences, good and bad, have informed my writing.”

But while his protagonist, Russell, is an aircraft loadmaster, as was Cadmus, the author does not cast himself as the hero of his books. “I’m not in the book,” he emphasizes. “Some of the folks I knew who were military people inspired me to produce the book. I’m not the hero of anything. I was the worker bee, doing what he should be doing to protect the airplanes.”

“We need our military,” he says, a strong supporter of the armed forces. “I would go back any day to protect what we need to do.” But if readers take away anything from his book, he says, it is that “countries trying to force their ideologies [on others] create most of our problems. We’ve got to learn to find a way to get along, to get together. It would be nice. I have my hopes. I still pray for peace.”

Donald Liebenson is a Chicago-based writer.