Back when I was in the service and we would go to the field, my platoon used to share paperbacks. We'd each jump a paperbag in our rucks and we would share them with each other in the field.

Then there was this one series we got into for awhile, like maybe a ten or twelve books series, and we all got hung up on it and would talk about which book we were on when we had time.

That was late in my career so it had to be in the 80s I think. It was after Lebanon I know because I went back to Italy so I'm thinking late 80s.

So here we go with what I can remember of the plot.

It was well into the future of course and the main character was an all-business navy man, engineer I think, who was constantly being almost stalked by this government bureaucrat who I think had a middle eastern name, and his one particular henchman, who wanted to bring him down.

But at every turn, no matter what the bureaucrat tried, this navy guy came out of it smelling like a rose.

At one point the bureaucrat tried setting-up the navy guy and was planning to have him tortured by this beautiful lesbian who was their head of tortures but she fell for the navy guy, he converted her, and they ended-up working together to try to stop some sort of treasonous plot to take over the government or military.

Given it was a navy man I always thought it had to be Heinlien ... but I do not recognize it as one of his in his bibliography.

Ohhhhhhhh wait. After all these years it just came back to me as I was typing this. Mission Earth series by L. Ron Hubbard. I'll be danged, after all of these years I finally remembered it. Sonuvgun.

Thanks for your help guys.