Non-Semper Fidelis

Nominated for the 2017 Small Press Association Pushcart Prize for Best Novel

A racially charged novel about authority, loyalty, and the cost of morality.

Corporal William Buck is on leave in Memphis, visiting his mother, when Martin Luther King, Jr., is shot dead, and the city erupts in a race riot. Rather than leave his mother in the urban war zone, Corporal Buck chooses to become AWOL. When he eventually returns, he is willing to face discipline but refuses to tolerate the hateful taunts of a racist sergeant.

A novel charged with emotion and moral tensions, Non-Semper Fidelis is about a Marine attempting to survive the military code of the United States Marine Corps, while preserving a mind and morality of his own.

A Pushcart Prize Nominee

Reviews

“Sam is a fine writer, carrying the reader along with good dialogue and character development. The story is about that often absent but utterly central quality of integrity. What makes a man a man? Sometimes a man rises to power while exercising it, and sometimes a man brings it with him into whatever he does, no matter how much external power he holds. Foster writes this book with gratitude to men who not only acted with integrity, but taught it by their very being.”
—Norvene Vest, Amazon review

”A well-told story of discipline, honor, and integrity.”
—Amazon review