By Mar-Vic Cagurangan
Variety News Staff

A CHICAGO author recently released the first of a two-volume historical novel about Guam, framed in the wartime period, narrating events from April 1944 until the day the island was declared secure on Aug. 10, 1944.
A self-published book by Pat Hickey, “The Chorito Hog Leg: A Novel of Guam in Time of War,” is a narrative fiction that brings together fictional and historical characters including Congressman Lyndon Johnson, Texas State Rep. Roper Buck of Giddings, Father Jesus Duenas and Pastor Sablan.
The 408-page novel, printed by the AuthorHouse, follows the story of Tim Cullen, a young private officer from Chicago, who is challenging his battalion commander over the possession of an 1860 Army Colt .45 Hog leg revolver.
Chorito is the name of a cliff overlooking the beaches of Asan beaches, which were assaulted by the 3rd Marines in 1944.
In his e-mail to former Gov. Carl T.C. Gutierrez, Hickey said his interest in Guam began when he was writing a history of the Leo High School in Chicago, where he interviewed graduates of class 1943. At least 23 from that batch joined the Marines after graduation and many of them were killed on Guam, according to Hickey.
“One man told me that my father was a member of the 3rd Marines. I was 49 years old and had very little idea about his wartime service. All he ever said was ‘I was in the service. Never joined any associations VFW. Still will not.’ When I asked him about it he said, ‘That’s mine. It was rugged,’” Hickey stated in his e-mail to Gutierrez.
“To say the least, the more I researched the more I came to admire the heroic and generous people who sacrificed their lives for America and have been ignored,” said Hickey, who now lives in the Morgan Park neighborhood of Chicago.
Hickey said the second part of “The Chorito Hog Leg” will be released in November. Book two will follow the adventures of Tim Cullen through the mopping-up actions on Guam, the Iwo Jima campaign, the sinking of the U.S.S. Indianapolis, the atomic bombings of Japan, the beginning of the war crimes trials on Guam, and his eventual return to Chicago.