MAGGIE'S DRAWERS

1 Writer

Additional Project Info

Based on true events, this book manuscript-- which is an Official Selection of Ink & Cinema's 2023 Military Story Showcase-- was written by my late father, a successful author, the son of Eastern European Jewish immigrants who grew up in Brooklyn during the Great Depression, and a decorated World War II combat veteran who fought in five major Pacific Battles including Okinawa (the battle depicted in the Andrew Garfield movie "Hacksaw Ridge"), Leyte Gulf, and Guam. This unpublished autobiographical novel was found among his papers after his death, and few writing today could have as accurate and detailed a first-hand account of what training and going into battle in World War II were really like. "Maggie's Drawers"-- the book's title-- is military slang for the red flag that is waved across the target by a marker on the target range when a shot has completely missed the target. Drafted into the army in early 1941-- nearly a year before Pearl Harbor-- Gideon ("Gil") Rabin was nearly blind in one eye, which would have made him 4F, but, determined to fight, he memorized the eye chart to get in the war. In the army, he became a sharpshooter, ranked "Excellent" as a marksman, and a medic. After basic training in the U.S, he shipped out to fight in the South Pacific, where he received the Bronze Star for heroism in combat, and other medals. The army wanted to train him to be an officer, but he refused to leave his men-- feeling it would be "unlucky"-- and remained a sergeant for the duration. Combat journalist Ernie Pyle was killed while serving with my father's Division, the 77th, on Ie Shima. Near the end of the war, after many "island-hopping" battles, my father and his men were scheduled for the mission to attack the main island of Japan, where-- given the ferocity with which the Japanese had defended their out-islands-- U.S. casualties were predicted to be 100%: everyone either dead or wounded. However, at the last minute, someone at the Pentagon decided it would be unfair to use the American soldiers who had the most battle points in the war as cannon fodder. My father and his men were sent back to the States sometime after VE Day in 1945. On their way back, their ship was needed for further action in the Pacific War, so my father and his men were dumped on a small, remote island in the South Pacific called Maug Maug. After several years in combat and three months on that island-- and having been away from home, and his mother and three sisters for nearly five years-- he was anxious to get home. One day, they dangled their captain off a cliff and told him: "If you don't get us off this island, we are dropping you." The captain got them off the island. My father was returned to Fort Dix. But all kinds of "red tape" delayed his release from the army. Finally, he jumped the fence. "Dad! You went AWOL?" "What are they going to do to me?" he replied with a shrug in his voice. My father received his honorable discharge at last. In 1946, he met my mother, proposed on the first date, and they were married until my mother's death in 2011. Gideon Rabin (1919-2012) wrote two novels for Harper & Row, FALSE START and CHANGES, and for many decades was the Vice President of Public Relations for Joseph E. Seagram & Sons. His pen name was "Gil Rabin". In the 1950s, he co-wrote the nonfiction World War II book SURVIVAL with Jim Rorimer, who was depicted in the George Clooney movie, "Monuments Men", where Matt Damon played the character based on Rorimer. Rorimer was later President of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. An editor for Abelard Press, in the late 1940s Rabin edited THIS IS WEST POINT, wrote many short stories (published in "Reader's Digest", etc.) and was a ghostwriter for Billy Rose's popular syndicated newspaper column, "Pitching Horseshoes". Billy Rose was a Broadway theater producer ("Carmen Jones"), songwriter, and, for nine years, the husband of Fanny Brice. Gideon Rabin was married for 64 years to his wife, Dr. Mury Rabin, who was an artist and therapist. Staton Rabin, who is submitting this book manuscript on Gideon Rabin's behalf, is a successful novelist (Simon & Schuster) and screenwriter represented by Zero Gravity Management who has written two scripts on assignment from film producers this year (both of them based on historical novels, one of them set during WWII), and is also his daughter and an executor of his estate. She has been named by ISA one of the Top 25 Screenwriters to Watch in 2023, and frequently writes books and screenplays set in wartime.