The Sun Shines Bright

About the Book

Princeton, NJ – (Release Date TBD) – This memoir, entitled The Sun Shines Bright (Xlibris Publishing), is about the Great Depression and World War II by a Kentucky native, Carl Faith, and how these cataclysmic events changed the world and the lives of all who lived through it. It begins with the author’s birth in Covington, Kentucky, in 1927--the year Babe Ruth hit his 60 homeruns, and Lindbergh flew solo across the Atlantic in the Spirit of St. Louis--and chronicles his odyssey: grammar school—he was Captain of the School Patrol!--high school, where he graduated with honors, and US Navy radio technician (RT). During his senior high school year, Faith studied electronics to help him pass the “Eddy Test” for the Navy’s Radio RT) schools--only two out of forty-one passed. He writes lovingly of his Dad, Mama, older brother Eldridge, older sister Louise, younger brother Fred, his friend, Joy Deborah Kinsburg, whom he knew since the first grade--becoming close friends in high school and his year in the navy (1945-1946)--two of his best friends, Frank Duff, Dick Macke, among many other classmates, and his navy pals Glenn L. Fitkin, Jack R. Seibert, and others from Great Lakes Boot Camp and Radio Schools in Michigan City, Indiana, Dearborn, Michigan, and Corpus Christi, Texas.

The author graduated from Holmes High School in 1945, just two months after he received the famous “Greetings” letter from President Roosevelt, ordering him to report to the draft board. VE-Day was declared on May 8, 1945 right before he was drafted into the Navy, and VJ-Day was August 15, just days after the A-bombing of Nagasaki and Hiroshima. The author details the horror of World War II in the incredible death tolls of the Allied and the Axis nations--over 60 million people, of whom one tenth were Jews who died in the Holocaust! The progression of the war is anxiously followed via the major battles, e.g., the Battle of Britain (1940), Pearl Harbor (Dec. 7, 1941), Corregidor & the Philippines, D-Day, the battles for the South Pacific islands, e.g., Guadalcanal, Okinawa, and finally the joyous celebrations of VE-day, May 8, and VJ-Day, August 15, 1945.

US Veterans of WW II died at the daily rate of 1100 in 2005, when there were fewer than 3.6 million surviving vets out of a total of 16.5 million. Assuming the same rate of death, another 803,000 have died in the ensuing two years, so now there are fewer than 2.8 million surviving veterans--their median age is 84. This means that 83 percent of US WW II Veterans have died! This book is homage to them and our Allies who combined to defeat the horrible menaces of Hitler’s Nazi Germany, and Hirohito’s Imperial Japan.

About the Author

Molly Sullivan and Carl Faith July 26, 2003 Photo snapped by Geof Vallis and Bess Ward This book, and the title poem among others, are dedicated to Molly. The title poem was inspired by our passion for each other, and the enormous energy Molly expended in our relationship while caring for her four sons, Zeno, Malachi, Japheth, and Ezra, ranging in ages from four to twelve, who the author later adopted. Those earthy, early days of our love were exempli¯ed by the migratory °ight of hummingbirds from the USA across the Gulf of Mexico, without stopping until they reach their destination, and mate in the jungles of Yu- catan. Ornithologists cannot explain how these little birds can store up enough energy to make the nonstop journey, for they do not soar, glide, or ride the air currents, nor rest on the waves, as do other long distance °yers such as the Artic Tern. Hummingbirds defy the law of Conservation of Energy, as they have no body fat to expend, and very little muscle in which to store energy for their race across the Gulf for their species to survive. Nature has much to teach us how to live, and how to love. Nature never deceives us; it is always we who deceive ourselves (Jean Jacques Rousseau, from \Emile; or On Education," 1762.)