Captain Bob Copeland of the navy reserve would have gone to Annapolis, except he was an only child and his mother could not abide him having a career at sea. Therefore
He would settle for living in smaller worlds.
The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors, p. 24
(Unfortunately, self had to put down A Little Life after reading to p. 122. She just could not swallow any of the things that happen to Jude, and that includes Anne. And that includes Harold, and Jude’s acquiring a whole new wardrobe courtesy of Harold. And Harold’s talking to Jude, his Law School student, about the “sexiness” of various amendments)
Anyhoo, here we are instead, in the very straightforward narration of James D. Hornfischer, and this story is a story of heroism (going by what’s on the cover) and it’s about a simpler time, a time when every seventeen-year-old boy in America was dying to enlist, and by the way the main action happens off the coast of Samar, which is a very wild province (How wild? Self has never been there. And she grew up in the Philippines! And has traveled around her home country, quite a bit!)
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.