Former Rivers resident writes sixth book

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Published on Sunday, September 20, 2015

By Sheila Runions

Banner Staff

Mike Czuboka moved to Rivers with his parents and two brothers when he was four years old. He was educated at Rivers School for Grades 1-11 and took Grade 12 at Brandon College (now Brandon University). In 1950 he enlisted in the army’s special force, a contingent that was being raised for the Korean War, where he served for a year. He left the army four years later when he pursued more education and ultimately, became a teacher himself (after he earned two bachelor degrees, which he later upgraded to master degrees). What started as a teaching position at Brandon’s Neelin High School turned into a principalship in the 1960s and ultimately, superintendent of Agassiz School Division (1969-90). He was also president of Manitoba Association of School Superintendents. He was a university history teacher and his students at University of Manitoba described him as “outstanding” in their written evaluations.

With his love of history, and personal experience in the Korean War, he has authored his sixth book. Its 363 pages will be available in paperback, hard cover and electronic formats. It could be another four to eight weeks before the final proofreading is completed.

“Manifest Destiny is now in the publication stage and will be printed at some time during the next several weeks. My book, I hope, will be in many bookstores across Canada and available via Amazon Kindle, Nook at Barnes & Noble, Google Android, Friesen Press and Amazon. If you call your local bookstore after publication has taken place, and if you ask for the book, they will get it for you. Your call will alert the bookstore to the fact that there is some interest in the book and that will help me a lot.”

Mike describes his book as “largely based on events during the Korean War. Conflict, romance, mystery, the stigma associated with mental illness and humorous events take place. The cultural characteristics of the era, and especially those of the small towns of Canada, are portrayed. The lives of the principal characters before, during and after the war are described. Peter Farley, the main protagonist, becomes romantically involved with several woman and an American nurse in Korea. The Soviet Embassy in Ottawa recruits a Canadian communist to spy on Canadian Forces in Korea; his identity remains a mystery until near the end of the book. Farley becomes a prisoner of war and returns to Canada to a difficult and uncertain future because his mind has been damaged by torture he endured in captivity.”

An editorial evaluation of the book says it “is a fascinating, well-constructed novel that offers a unique glimpse into what it must have been like to be a Canadian soldier serving in the Korean War. The level of detail involved makes it clear that the author has done his homework. For the most part, he includes just enough detail to bring the past alive but not so much that that we feel like we are getting a thinly-veiled history lesson. The author has done a skillful job of combining action, adventure, espionage, fully-realized characters, some surprising plot twists, and just the right amount of romance to make this novel appeal to a wide variety of readers. I was thoroughly engaged in the story, and I found the battle scenes particularly poignant.”   

Dan Bjarnason was a news reporter for CBC’s The National for more than 35 years. His worldwide assignments, including time as a foreign correspondent, allowed him to indulge his passion for military history and to visit dozens of battlefields; his foreword for Manifest Destiny reads: The Korean conflict six decades ago was a real meat grinder of a war. Canada suffered over 500 combat deaths in only two-and-a-half years of fighting. By comparison, in Afghanistan we suffered 115 deaths, spread over a much longer nine years. Mike Czuboka's novel is a coming-of-age tale with Korea as the backdrop. Anyone familiar with Canada's role in this war will recognize thinly-disguised real-life events and people: the crusty but brilliant commander, Jim Stone; the unsung hero, young Mike Levy; the dashing 2nd Battalion Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry (PPCLI), and the surrounded and outnumbered unit's unbelievable stand against the Chinese at a nowhere place called Kapyong. Czuboka tosses into the plot a (presumably fictitious) Soviet agent among the Canadian troops. Czuboka's own combat experience in Korea is particularly evident in describing the sheer terror of night patrols being ambushed behind enemy lines.”

Mike served with PPCLI (machine-gun/mortar unit) at the Battle of Kapyong in April 1951. His battalion was surrounded by the Chinese communist army and was awarded the United States Presidential Unit Citation for “extraordinary heroism.” After returning from Korea he became a military paratrooper and airplane pilot. He won the Outstanding Officer Candidate Trophy at Camp Borden and climbed the title ranks to reserve captain. In 1957 he served in Germany with NATO forces. His eldest brother Walter (1917-2007) was an RCAF flying officer who completed 53 air missions over the Atlantic Ocean and Europe during the Second World War. His youngest brother Bill (born 1935, retired to Ottawa) had a 35-year career with the army and retired with the rank of captain. During the First World war Mike’s father Tony was unjustly held with 6,000 Ukrainian immigrants in Canadian internment camps, because Ukrainians were considered British enemies. It is clear Mike has a real sense of military history given his personal and familial experiences. 

Mike now lives in Winnipeg and while he has written five other books, the last was published 30 years ago. In 1975 he wrote An Examination of Tenure, which he followed 10 years later with Why It’s Hard to Fire Johnny’s Teacher, a book on the status of tenured teachers in Manitoba and Canada. In 1982 he was editor/author of Beausejour-Brokenhead history book (They Stopped at a Good Place) and in 1983 he wrote Ukrainian Canadian, Eh?, which became a best-seller. His last book he wrote in 1986; Juba is about a Ukrainian Canadian politician, Stephen Juba who was a six-year MLA (1953-59) and Winnipeg’s mayor, 1957-77. Mike began writing Manifest Destiny “in the 1980s but I never got around to finishing it. A part of the reason was that the Korean War was still a fairly recent event and writing a historical novel on the war at that time posed some difficulties.This spring I was inspired to finish writing it after the death of my beloved feline Baby Kitty. That will be hard for you to understand unless you are a cat lover like me!Most of the book has been written during the past six months.”