Ride West to Fort Huachuca - Huachuca Book 1

Ride West to Fort Huachuca begins in a burning airplane. It’s late 1960, and after two years in Heidelberg, Germany, Master Sergeant Tom Warner and family are flying back to America.

The story is told by Frank, one of four sons of the sergeant and Georgiana Warner. The family’s journey is the first episode of the heartwarming and often funny coming-of-age story of a boy discovering the desert, finding new friends and settling into a new home.

It’s the autobiography of an Army brat, a soldier’s son who already has lived in four Army posts. He must adapt quickly to Fort Huachuca, Arizona, and he must be ready to move again at any time.

Interwoven into the adventures are reminders of American life in the early 1960s: Elvis Presley’s return from the Army, Eisenhower’s last months as president, Kennedy’s election, TV Westerns, Roger Maris and Mickey Mantle.

Frank’s father, part of the Signal Corps, has been ordered to Fort Huachuca to experiment with the Army’s flying drones in the desert’s open spaces. An engine fire interrupts the Warners’ plane flight from Germany. Once they reach the States, they take a car out Route 66 to Arizona.

Within six months, Frank and his brothers change schools four times. Carl, Mark, George, and he are forced to adjust and learn the new rules of unfamiliar classrooms full of unfamiliar faces. Frank soon makes friends with Flavio Garcia and Terry Cook.

Frank and his brothers explore the desert. They visit nearby Tombstone. They build tumbleweed forts. And when they hear the legend of lost gold in Huachuca Canyon, they hike the canyon and keep their eyes open for treasure.

Ride West to Fort Huachuca is the first installment of the five-part Huachuca Books series, which adapts episodes from Frank Warner’s 2021 memoir, Tumbleweed Forts: Adventures of an Army Brat.

Water Rescue at the Desert Oasis - Huachuca Book 2

In Water Rescue at the Desert Oasis, Frank and his friend Flavio resume the search for gold in Fort Huachuca, Arizona. Both boys are sons of Army sergeants. As they hike into Huachuca Canyon, an Apache acorn-gatherer warns, “Gold makes people crazy.”

At home, Frank’s brother Mark and neighbor Peter conduct a dazzling electrical experiment that knocks out the house lights. On Halloween night, Frank and his brothers Carl and Mark take their trick-or-treating to dozens of homes in the fort. At a spooky drainage ditch, Frank witnesses the mysterious Ghost of the Post.

At the Golden Bell community picnic near Tombstone, Frank leaps into a lake and discovers the water is much too deep for him. He can’t swim, but is anyone around to help?

Water Rescue at the Desert Oasis is the second installment of the five-part Huachuca Books series, which adapts episodes from Frank Warner’s 2021 memoir, Tumbleweed Forts: Adventures of an Army Brat.

Huachuca Drones into the Atomic Cloud - Huachuca Book 3

Huachuca Drones into the Atomic Cloud moves from young Frank Warner’s home in Fort Huachuca, Arizona, to the Nevada Test Site, and back again to the fort in 1962.

Frank’s father, a master sergeant who is developing drones for the Army, takes a group of Fort Huachuca soldiers to Nevada to fly three drones through the radioactive cloud of an atomic bomb test.

Back at school in the fort, Frank uses classroom excitement over John Glenn’s Mercury space flight to distract his fourth-grade teacher from grading the homework he has failed to complete. The trick works one day. Soon Frank is in big trouble.

In winter, Mom’s late-night dishwashing keeps the Warners' water running when all the neighbors’ pipes freeze. Months later, in Little League baseball, Frank steps up to the plate for a chance at final-inning heroics.

Huachuca Drones is the third installment of the five-part Huachuca Books series, which adapts episodes from Frank Warner’s 2021 memoir, Tumbleweed Forts: Adventures of an Army Brat.

The New Girl Chases Dust Devils - Huachuca Book 4

A new face joins Frank’s circle of fifth-grade friends in Fort Huachuca, Arizona. Emily is the new girl in class. The first time Frank sees her, she’s running after a swirling cloud called a dust devil. As it turns out, Emily dances and spells well too.

The New Girl Chases Dust Devils also follows other unusual events in Frank’s life. His three-year-old brother George crashes the family car. Frank's best friend Flavio has a heart operation that leaves a big scar. Classmate Diane reveals the pain that prejudice inflicts.

At Tombstone’s annual Helldorado celebration, Frank and his older brother Carl play trumpets in Mr. Brown’s marching band. They march past the OK Corral before judges decide which band to name best of the parade.

And in early 1963, just as Frank feels settled into the best place he’s ever lived, the Army orders Frank’s father to go to Vietnam, and the whole family soon may have to leave Fort Huachuca.

The New Girl Chases Dust Devils is the fourth installment of the five-part Huachuca Books series, which adapts episodes from Frank Warner’s 2021 memoir, Tumbleweed Forts: Adventures of an Army Brat.

The Big Dig for Canyon Gold - Huachuca Book 5

For two years, young Frank Warner has heard about the lost gold in Huachuca Canyon, Arizona. Now, in early 1963, a serious project begins to dig up the treasure. The whole story is in The Big Dig for Canyon Gold.

Army Private Robert Jones, who says he saw stacks of gold bars in an underground cave back in 1941, sends in an earth-moving team. The crew gets help from Silas Newton, who claims to have special gold-detecting tools from a crashed flying saucer.

Also in The Big Dig for Canyon Gold, actor Gregory Peck comes to Fort Huachuca to make a motion picture. Frank visits the movie set outside the post hospital, where he watches the film crew drop a dummy from a water tower. The scene is for the movie Captain Newman, M.D.

In a letter, Frank asks President Kennedy to cancel the Army’s orders to send Frank’s father to Vietnam. The orders would take Sergeant Warner away for a year and force the rest of the family to move East. Awaiting Kennedy’s reply, Frank says goodbye to Flavio, Emily, Terry, Skeeter, and his other friends.

The Big Dig for Canyon Gold is the final installment of the five-part Huachuca Books series, which adapts episodes from Frank Warner’s 2021 memoir, Tumbleweed Forts: Adventures of an Army Brat.

Huachuca Books available now! Five compact books from Tumbleweed Forts days

The five books of the Huachuca Books series are episodes excerpted and adapted for younger readers from Frank Warner’s 2021 memoir, Tumbleweed Forts: Adventures of an Army Brat.

Most of the stories are about growing up in Fort Huachuca, Arizona, where Frank’s soldier father was sent to experiment with drones in the early 1960s.

The Huachuca Books are (1) Ride West to Fort Huachuca, (2) Water Rescue at the Desert Oasis, (3) Huachuca Drones into the Atomic Cloud, (4) The New Girl Chases Dust Devils, and (5) The Big Dig for Canyon Gold. The titles identify each book’s most important episode. Every book stands on its own, but each also connects to the others by following the same family and friends over several years.

Each book is about 130 pages long, with the slightly larger 14-point type helpful to many younger readers – and others. If you’d like all the stories of the Huachuca Books in one book, your might try the original Tumbleweed Forts: Adventures of an Army Brat. Tumbleweed Forts is about 400 pages, with the relatively common 12-point type size.

All the books soon will be available at the Sierra Vista Public Library. They’re also for sale at Amazon.com. Each Huachuca Book is just under $10. Tumbleweed Forts, with all the stories, is $16.99.

Ride West to Fort Huachuca
https://www.amazon.com/Ride-West-Fort-Huachuca-Books/dp/B0C2S71DPZ/

Water Rescue at the Desert Oasis
https://www.amazon.com/Water-Rescue-Desert-Oasis-Huachuca/dp/B0C2S22YF1/

Huachuca Drones into the Atomic Cloud
https://www.amazon.com/Huachuca-Drones-into-Atomic-Cloud/dp/B0C2SD23Q8/

The New Girl Chases Dust Devils
https://www.amazon.com/New-Girl-Chases-Dust-Devils/dp/B0C2S71RJW/

The Big Dig for Canyon Gold
https://www.amazon.com/Big-Dig-Canyon-Gold-Huachuca/dp/B0C2RX97WJ/

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Tumbleweed Forts: Adventures of an Army Brat
https://www.amazon.com/Tumbleweed-Forts-Adventures-Arizona-1960-63/dp/B09MYWXX3P/

The Huachuca Books are about the many happy surprises a boy can find in a desert fort full of life. The stories also reveal how an Army brat clings to a sense of home when his address keeps changing and his father is ordered away.

Fort Huachuca was the fifth Army post of Frank’s childhood, and the first post he never wanted to leave. Here at age ten, he was best friends with Flavio, who saved his life from deep waters and helped him hunt for Huachuca Canyon gold. Here too, Frank took a liking to Emily, a captain’s daughter who chased dust devils and spelled well.

As his father tested drones and his mother kept the family together, Frank discovered that the friendships and vastness of Fort Huachuca made it the perfect playground. Then in 1963, when his father received orders for Vietnam and told the family it was time to move again, Frank was so alarmed that he wrote President Kennedy to ask that the orders be canceled.

If you’ve read Tumbleweed Forts, you’ve already read the stories in the new Huachuca Books. But if you know a youngster or even an oldster who’d like the stories in a shorter form, you might recommend the Huachuca Books.