THE GENERAL BY ROBERT MUCHAMORE by

THE GENERAL

6grilledcheese — 2013-10-26 23:44:52 UTC

The General is a realistic fiction book by Robert Muchamore. It is based upon the story of CHERUB which is a secret organization that sends highly trained kids as agents to catch criminals, go undercover and gather information. In this book 10 agents and a British Cadet team of 40 soldiers fight an American battalion of 2,000 soldiers in the most sophisticated war game in the world.

The Training Exercise

6grilledcheese — 2013-10-27 00:08:49 UTC

Fort Reagan is the world's largest Urban Warfare training ground located in the desert of Nevada near Los Angeles. A British Cadet team of 40 soldiers fought as the insurgent group against a battalion of US soldiers in the most realistic war game ever, but Kazakov, the commander of the insurgency and a CHERUB instructor brought in 10 highly trained CHERUB agents to join the fight as insurgents. On the first day of the two week exercise, Kazakov and the 10 CHERUB agents destroyed the drones and dumped laxatives into the army base water supply. On just the second day, Kazakov, the Cadet team and the CHERUB agents overran the army base while the US soldiers were all sick from the laxative. The exercise was called off. General Shirley who commanded the American forces in the Exercise was criticized for losing to a significantly undersized force and Kazakov was praised for displaying a great example of guerrilla warfare and was offered a position as a full time adviser to the US Military at the Pentagon, but denied the position because he didn't want to live in America and said he enjoyed his job at CHERUB.

James Adams

6grilledcheese — 2013-10-27 01:54:02 UTC

He, along with Yosyp Kazakov a CHERUB instructor with anti-American feelings are the main characters in the book. James had just returned from a mission trying to get information about a riot organization called SAG (Street Action Group) by becoming a bodyguard for Chris Bradford, the leader of the organization. On returning to campus after the successful mission, his sister Lauren Adams tells him about the Training Exercise in America and that they are going to stop in Las Vegas for a mini vacation before the exercise begins. James was also known for being short tempered and getting into trouble in and out of CHERUB campus.

Wrecking the Drones

6grilledcheese — 2013-10-27 02:56:17 UTC

On the first day of the training exercise, Kazakov and the 10 CHERUB agents went to General Shirley's aerodrome with a plan to destroy the drones to stop the Americans from spying on them from the air. They stole uniforms and IDs from 4 engineers and infiltrated the aerodrome by showing the false IDs. They were not allowed to carry actual explosives because it was only a training exercise, but Kazakov and the rest of the agents figured that even detonating a paint grenade inside the drone by opening the main access panel would be enough to wreck the sensitive electronics inside the Drone. This was the first move by Kazakov that infuriated the American General Shirley because of how much the drones were worth. Later General Shirley tried criticizing Kazakov's unorthodox methods, but the base commander General O'Halloran was not impressed and reassigned General Shirley to duties in the non-combat unit. General Shirley took early retirement just 3 moths after he was reassigned.

Card Counting

6grilledcheese — 2013-10-27 04:00:42 UTC

A few days before the training exercise the group of CHERUB agents and instructors stayed in Las Vegas. In Las Vegas many of the instructors spent time at the casinos. While James was in Las Vegas he learned about a way to beat the casino at Black Jack by using a strategy called card counting that uses the probability of the count being in favor of the player or the dealer. At the end of the book, while James and Kazakov are still in Las Vegas after being kicked off Fort Reagan, Kazakov persuaded James to use his math skills to make money at the casinos by card counting. At the end they were almost caught, but were able to get away with $90,000.

Phenolphthalein (Laxative)

6grilledcheese — 2013-10-27 05:19:12 UTC

After Destroying the drones, James and Sarge who were part of the insurgency were told by Kazakov to sneak into the US Army base and dump a powerful laxative powder into the main water supply. The laxative was military grade and used by special ops and even a thirtieth of a gram of the laxative was enough to cause severe stomach cramps and diarrhea within 18 hours of consumption. Kazakov's plan was to have the laxative spread through the water system in the base so the army would pretty much be dead on its feet and unable to fight by morning.

Yosyp Kazakov

6grilledcheese — 2013-10-27 05:22:10 UTC

More commonly known just by his last name Kazakov. He was known for his anti- American views because his younger brother was killed by an American missile. He was also known for dishing out brutal punishments to trainees at CHERUB.

What is Cherub?

6grilledcheese — 2013-10-29 00:00:20 UTC

Cherub is a division of British Security Service M15. CHERUB trains children between the age of 10 through 17 years without parents or anyone to look after them and gives them combat and espionage training. The reason they use kids is that kids can do many things adults can't and ask many questions that would be suspicious if adults asked. The kids are trained to catch criminals, go undercover and gather information about some of the world's most wanted criminals.