About The Book
The Reluctant Sailor is a collection of delightfully funny and thoroughly entertaining remembrances of coming of age in the Navy during WWII. And it's all true!
- Bud's notice to report for active duty was delivered to the wrong house so he was AWOL almost immediately. Were it not for my grandmother parking herself between two burly shore patrolmen and the front door, they would have taken him away in his pajamas—and covered in measles!
- During mess hall duty, Bud accidentally sent 40 pounds of golden fried chicken airborne after colliding with a directionally-challenged server coming in the "out" door. Naturally, the chicken (and sailors) landed in the mud. To avoid eternal KP duty, Bud learned the Navy way to return the chicken to the serving line: 10 minutes under a garden hose!
- Grabbing a chocolate bar while waiting in line to see the dentist wasn't the best idea. The dentist mistook an errant morsel of chocolate on Bud's pristine pearly whites for a cavity and filled it. True, he apologized for his error, BUT THEN HE DID IT AGAIN!
- Arriving 10 minutes late from liberty, Bud was AWOL again. His punishment? Guard duty all night long. Having run out of things to guard (and guns to guard them with) he "guarded" a dumpster—with a broomstick!
- Trying to escape scrape-and-paint detail, Bud hid in the paint locker—a great idea until the door slammed shut. With no handle on the inside he was there for quite a while—more than enough time for the captain to think he had fallen overboard. They turned the ship around to look for him!
You'll smile all the way through this book, guaranteed!