Indy
Freedom's Flagship
by
Book Cover & Preview Text
Formats
Softcover
$22.99
Softcover
$22.99
Book Details
Language :
Publication Date :
11/1/2004
Format :
Softcover
Dimensions :
5.5x8.5
Page Count :
341
ISBN :
9781413427097
About the Book
By
James A. Gunn
BOOK DESCRIPTION
The USS Independence CVA-62 is known as "FREEDOM’S FLAGSHIP". At the time of this writing, the Independence’s home base was Command Fleet Yokosuka, Japan, the Navy’s only Forward Deployed Aircraft Carrier Base.
INDY is a book about the adventures of a former Marine infantry corporal Jim Gunn. Forty-two years after his military service was completed at the ripe old age of 20 in 1956, professor Jim Gunn was privileged to spend time onboard the USS Independence in 1997 as part of the "PACE" program (Pacific Academic College Education) as an instructor in Cultural Anthropology. Jim found the teaching of the customs of Homo Sapiens turned out to be somewhat a different task on a warship than it was in a college classroom. Topics discussed quiet vocally were Family Values: "She was runnin’ ‘round on me soons I left the front door!" Hunting and Gathering Societies: "Real estate in California is always a good buy".
Sexual customs of the Tobriand Islands: "She could twirl those ribbons like aeroplane props!" And International Relations: "Perhaps we should call them Arabs, not Ragheads!"
As fortune does sometime smile on the disconcerted traveler, Jim was assigned a cabin with the top enlisted man of the over 5000 crew: Chief Boatswain Robert Yoder, a man the Navy could well use as a standard of excellence for all those who regularly sail the seas.
Leaving Truman Bay at Yokosuka on a wintry cold February with the snow-capped Mt. Fuji on the skyline, the USS Independence traverses the immense Tokyo Harbor into the western bulge of the Pacific Ocean, through the Mariana Islands and the sweltering Equator to Guam and Spring in Australia.
As an anthropologist Professor Gunn has sailed on five United State naval warships around the world, crossing the Pacific Ocean five times visiting eighteen countries. Serving aboard the USS Carl Vinson, the USS Abraham Lincoln, the USS Independence, the USS Peleliu and the USS John Young, Gunn chronicles the daily life of the men and the women who operate these mighty ships of peace and destruction.
Encounters with oil smugglers in the Persian Gulf, a bout with a hurricane off Australia during "Tandem Thrust", a sail through thousands of sea snakes in the Indian Ocean and a crashed jet fighter are part of his experiences. Also, the ongoing polemics between the Chef Boatswain—the highest enlisted rating on the ship—with his two somewhat unmilitary charges lends humor and developing friendships typical of navy buddies.
Mr. George Featherman, a reviewer for the USS INDEPENDENCE CV-62 ASSOCIATION, writes:
INDY is a book about the adventures of Corporal/Lt. Commander James Gunn
And his time onboard the Indy in 1997, as part of the "PACE" programs.
(Pacific Academic College Education)
It is an entertaining and informing book. The stories are written with humor,
Which caused me to laugh out loud often. Of course, there were times
When I found myself agreeing with Bob, (The Chief Bo’sum Jim and Ed shared
A compartment with.) The book is well worth reading.
About the Author
JAMES A. GUNN is from Placerville, El Dorado County, California, the Mother Lode gold country. As a young man he worked in lumbering in the Sierra Nevada’s. He was a Marine, a science teacher, professor of anthropology, building contractor, business man, and an instructor on nuclear aircraft carriers. He makes his home in Sacramento and Pattaya, Thailand.