Bougainville The United States did once again turn its attention to the Pacific Theatre. Johnny had thought that he would never encounter another jungle as inhospi-table as Guadalcanal until he landed on Bougainville. When his battalion hit the beach there, it was so narrow that tangled growth hung over the lapping shores. There was consolation in that they had immediate cover and advanced into the jungle against scattered sniper fire which was as blind as its source was i...

  Excerpt from my novel 12: Sunday Bulletin Johnny—most of the old timers being drafted—was caddying on the bright, sunny day of infamy. Ricocheting round the course was news of the bombing. Johnny had never heard of Pearl Harbor nor did the other caddies in the foursome. His golfer explained what and where it was. Johnny thought of the strange places depicted in war cards that had no true sense of place, no meaning just as the early years of the war in Europe...

    Before the push toward the ominous Mt. Yaetake on the China Sea peninsula, the squad’s regiment was camped outside a small village by the end of the second week. The troops rose before the crack of dawn to line up before the regimental cooks who had prepared hospital rations—a cuisine approach to dehydrated foods with a smattering of fresh meat and vegetables whenever logistically feasible. Infantry men burn up heaps of energy and calories and it is preferable that...

Sally was at the threshold of womanhood and she knew it from the hours spent before the mirror admiring God’s miraculous evolution from a boring, simplistic state of angles and straight lines to the complex math of subtle curves. Pam, on the other hand, though perhaps as blossoming—conceivably more so—was unaware of it, or did not dwell on it. There lay the difference—that which is market-able, though resistant, perhaps indifferent to fashionable demand and supply owing...

    She took down a cookie jar and poured from the bag a myriad of hard candies into the jar, and took it into the living room to set it down next to the wooden bowl. Starting back for the kitchen, she paused, turned to the mantelpiece and stared at the yellow paper. Taking the wargram and holding it at arms length, she glanced at it, then slowly walked to the armchair and sat on its edge. She read it again and again—always it read the same way. Finally she rubbed her eyes a...