There are a few guys whose stories travel through the books. Most particularly the story of my favorite WW2 "hero", John Bridgers, who goes over three of the books from a guy who becomes a NavCad in 1941 for the money ("As a son of the depression, these seemed princely sums") to go to school afterwards and the fact it pays better than being a teacher in North Carolina there, to the guy who graduates from Pensacola as a dive-bomber pilot the week before Pearl Harbor, who is present at the Doolittle Raid, survives the sinking of the USS Yorktown at Midway, survives the "worst" six weeks on Guadalcanal, comes back to the US and is assigned to what becomes the top-scoring Navy air group of the war, and in the end helps sink the battleship Musashi and as a 24-year old Lt. Commander leads the air strike that sinks the last of the six carriers that attacked Pearl Harbor. And thinks to himself on the way back to the carrier afterwards, "I decided that the Navy's investment in me had been repaid."
After the war, he went to medical school on that NavCad money and the GI Bill, and became a hospital administrator who was well-known for creating health care in "under-served communities" for 50 years.
I really love having been able to know so many of that generation.
This "outs" who TC is, but since writers are always ready to flog sales, here. :-)
https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Thomas+McKelvey+Cleaver&i=stripbooks&ref=nb_sb_noss
There are a few guys whose stories travel through the books. Most particularly the story of my favorite WW2 "hero", John Bridgers, who goes over three of the books from a guy who becomes a NavCad in 1941 for the money ("As a son of the depression, these seemed princely sums") to go to school afterwards and the fact it pays better than being a teacher in North Carolina there, to the guy who graduates from Pensacola as a dive-bomber pilot the week before Pearl Harbor, who is present at the Doolittle Raid, survives the sinking of the USS Yorktown at Midway, survives the "worst" six weeks on Guadalcanal, comes back to the US and is assigned to what becomes the top-scoring Navy air group of the war, and in the end helps sink the battleship Musashi and as a 24-year old Lt. Commander leads the air strike that sinks the last of the six carriers that attacked Pearl Harbor. And thinks to himself on the way back to the carrier afterwards, "I decided that the Navy's investment in me had been repaid."
After the war, he went to medical school on that NavCad money and the GI Bill, and became a hospital administrator who was well-known for creating health care in "under-served communities" for 50 years.
I really love having been able to know so many of that generation.
I'll try to keep your secret. The books I referred to were by different authors who did not know each other as far as I know. SMILE.