Five Special Books That Had A Prfound Influence On My Life
In a recent Op-Ed, I praised the author Sonya Walger and her book "Lion." Sonya also has a podcast called "Bookish." In each segment, she interacts with a major film or television star with the same question:
"What were the five books that most influenced your life?"
She started me thinking. I want to share with you the five books that had a profound influence on me as follows:
1) The Wind Off The Sea by David Beaty; This novel follows a career Royal Air Force officer from 1940 until 1962. My sister and I love the winter days in our hometown of Galveston, Texas, The cold wind blasts in from the Gulf of Mexico. This book has wonderful character development. The reader comes to know the RAF officer so well. The book ends with a murder mystery and an unauthorized attempt to fire a ballistic missile with a nuclear warhead.
2) Once An Eagle by Anton Myrer; this novel covers 50 years in the life of a man named Sam Damon. He comes from the Midwest of the U.S. He joins the U.S. Army. He is sent to fight in France as an enlisted man in World War I. He distinguishes himself in combat. He is given a battlefield commission as a second lieutenant. He hates war but loves the army. He is a leader who is always concerned about his men's welfare. He plans battles carefully to minimize casualties. When the war ends, Sam stays in the army. He goes through 23 years of the peacetime army. When World War II comes, he is sent to lead soldiers in the Pacific island campaigns including the Philippines. He is promoted to general. He is a brilliant infantry officer. When World War II ended, he goes through the peacetime army. He was sent to South Korea in 1950 to lead an infantry division. He becomes quite knowledgeable about combat operations in Asia. He was recalled from retirement to take a tour of South Vietnam in 1968. He sees the madness of this war. He is getting ready to release a report warning the public. Career military officers murder him to keep him silent. The whole theme of the book was "Suffering can deaden the soul or enrich it."
3) The Captain by Jan de Hartog; this novel follows the wartime experiences of a merchant marine captain who routinely made the run from England to Murmansk in the Soviet Union. As you can imagine, the Nazis did everything possible to stop these ships from bringing supplies to Russia. The captain survives the war and attributes it to good luck.
4) Firefox and Firefox Down by Craig Thomas; this novel has a wild premise. The Soviet Union designs an advanced jet fighter that a pilot can control with thoughts. The U.S. sneaks a former U.S. Air Force pilot and Vietnam veteran to steal the plane and bring it back to the West. The pilot is named Mitchell Gant. He steals the Soviet plane and begins the mad dash to the West. The Russians do everything possible to recover their plane or shoot it down. The aerial combat scenes would make a great action/adventure story. The author does a further brilliant job of developing Mitchell Gant as a character. As he rushes to evade the Soviets, he vomits in the cockpit. He has blackouts. He has flashbacks to the trauma of his Vietnam combat missions. He is never sure that he can accomplish this mission. As Firefox Down ends, Mithcell drops the landing gears to land the Soviet fighter in Scotland. I was throwing the book in the air and cheering. It was not because Mitchell had defeated the Russians. It was because he had defeated the dark spirits that lived inside him.
5) The House Of The Spirits by Isabel Allende; this novel tells the story of three generations of Chilean women starting in the early 1900s and ending when General Pinochet stages the military coup in 1973. Having spent decades of my life being married to two South American women, I love this book. It shows what it is really like to be a woman in South America. This book was published 39 years ago. Each time I read the ending, I get tears in my eyes and am emotionally touched. The is a dog with magical capabilities in the book. His name is Barabbas. The book ends with these words: "Barabbas came to us by the sea."
