Armistice Day--Remembering True Heroes

My friend John Hemminger with his P-47

“Pay attention!”

            Steve Kelley, sportswriter for the Seattle Times, recently recollected the advice his father used to give him when they sat together watching the Philadelphia Phillies at Connie Mack Stadium. “Pay attention,” his dad would say when Willie Mays came to bat. “You’re watching greatness. You don’t want to forget this.”

I remember sitting on “Tightwad Hill” with my uncle watching the farm club Tacoma Twins, cheering wildly as I peered through the binoculars. Next day after school, I’d grab my bat and try my best to imitate the swing of those heavy-hitter wannabes. For the record, no matter how hard I tried, I wasn’t wired for baseball greatness. “You can’t put in what the Lord’s left out,” quipped the trainer in the classic film, Chariots of Fire. When I would come to bat at neighborhood games, on queue the outfield moved in, or just squatted down and waited until I finished flailing the air. Through all this, however, I have figured out something important: I pay attention to men I think are great, and I desperately try to be like them. And so do you. 

Kelley’s dad was right about one thing: you don’t want to forget greatness. We must sit up and “pay attention” to real greatness. But what makes someone worthy of this attention? What makes someone truly great, a worthy hero, someone you should never forget, someone you should hold in the highest regard, someone you should imitate?

All men honor heroes

“Any nation that does not honor its heroes,” said Abraham Lincoln, “will not long endure.” In an age when debunking heroes has become as American as apple pie and hot dogs, an age of flag-burning ingratitude, of pompous disdain for the past, an age that chants “Hey, hey, ho, ho, Western Culture’s got to go,” we should cringe at Lincoln’s prophetic words. Maybe we’ve come too close. Maybe we’re there already. Maybe we are a people that mock at real heroes and, in their place, are now bowing down before the real villains.

Nineteenth-century Scottish historian Thomas Carlyle wrote that “Hero-worship cannot cease till man himself ceases.” In the fifth century, Augustine referred to men as homo adorans, man made to adore, to worship, to venerate heroes. Thus, kings and generals are followed by their adoring armies even into the jaws of death. “Once more unto the breach, dear friends,” cried Shakespeare’s Henry V as he rallied his men before the battered walls of Harfleur, “or close the wall up with our English dead!”  In the 1^st century BC, Julius Caesar was so adored by his legions that they were prepared to cross the Rubicon and march in defiance against Rome and Pompey. Or the young Alexander the Great motivating thousands to fight and die so that he might spread Greek culture and language--and rule the world in the bargain.

The literature of Western Civilization is the fascinating saga of great achievement, an enduring celebration of heroes. Great poetry praises the deeds of heroes, real or imagined, from the 300 Spartans at Thermopylae, to the bloody triumphs of Beowulf, to the dragon-slaying Red Cross Knight of Edmund Spenser’s epic allegory, to the 600 courageous men of Tennyson’s Light Brigade, even to the humble heroics of Tolkien’s mythical Frodo the Hobbit--it all fires the blood and fascinates the imagination.

One thing is overwhelmingly clear: You and I were made to adore heroes. We pay attention with all our being to great men.

Beware of false heroes

This ingrained tendency to adore heroes, however, poses particular challenges for young men growing up in a culture inundated by glitzy, muscle-bound icons of popular culture and the sports arena. Pop culture particularly plays on your love of heroes. It could not survive without it. The icons of entertainment demand your worship. They live and die for it. So it has always been.

Many historians argue that the history of the world is the history of men following heroes. It would be just as accurate to say that the history of the world is the history of young men blindly following the wrong heroes, following unworthy examples, whose vices are tragically compounded in their fawning worshipers.

So who are your heroes? In today’s reading, Paul urges the Philippian Christians to “Join with others in following my example,” that is to say, follow the right men, set up heroes for yourself and be like them. Speak as they speak; do as they do. The Bible often speaks this way. Twenty-eight times we are told to imitate others, often to follow Christ the Captain of our salvation, but fully seventeen of those times we are commanded to follow others, like Paul, who have been transformed by the power of the gospel of Jesus Christ and have been enabled by that same power to heroically follow Christ.

 Paul, here, is in earnest. This is no casual advice, take it or leave it. No. He reminds us, “I have often told you before and now say again even with tears.” Why with tears? Why so earnest? Because “many live as enemies of the cross of Christ.” Because an earthly hero has his “mind on earthly things.” And the young man who chooses to follow worldly heroes, to applaud at their entertainments, to listen to their music, to cheer at their achievement, to spend his money on their products, to paper the walls of his bedroom with their posters, that young man should not be surprised if he follows those heroes right into the jaws of hell. From this, you and I are duty bound to draw the line in the sand. This is no trivial matter. Don’t follow the enemies of the cross of Christ. “Their destiny,” Paul declares without equivocation, “is destruction.” And so will yours prove to be if you follow them.

Moreover, the more impressed you are by the status and achievement of unbelievers, by their sophisticated good looks, by their clothes, their shoes, by their posture, their swagger, by their prowess in sports, by their associations, their way of speaking, by their money and fancy cars, lavish houses, planes, and yachts, the more you are moved by these things the less you will be able to separate out their vices. Soon they won’t seem like vices at all. At the last their vices will be yours. Know that their end will be yours as well. Fully expect to become like those you adore.  

“We are all creatures of imitation,” wrote nineteenth-century Anglican bishop J. C. Ryle. “Precept may teach us, but it is example that draws us.” And since those examples can draw us from both directions, you must beware of the tendency to go easy on the parts of your sports or music heroes’ lives that you know are sinful.

Do you honestly think that you will be unaffected by the foul language, the unfaithful living, the hostility to truth, or the swaggering arrogance of your worldly heroes? I doubt it. And the more impressed you are with their achievement the more likely you are to embrace other elements of their lifestyle.

Don’t expect to see it coming like a tidal wave. It all happens gradually. Rarely does a young man, like yourself, who is growing up in a Christian home, rarely does he plunge headlong into sin with his back against all he has been taught. Generally, it happens little by little, one single, what’s-the-big-deal step at a time. “The road to hell,” observed C. S. Lewis, “is a gradual one.”

The best way to avoid the gradual road to hell, is to cultivate honor for and imitation of truly worthy heroes. Here’s one of mine.

Fight to the death

            I’ve thought a good deal lately about one of my heroes. P-47 World War II fighter pilot, John Hemminger lived with his wife and three children on American Lake, a five-minute bicycle ride from my childhood home. I was the neighbor kid who always hung around in the summer, fishing, swimming, and doing wood-working projects in the basement. Along with the stray dogs that attached themselves to kind-hearted Mr. Hemminger, I too adopted the Hemminger family as my own.

My mother’s rule was that I couldn’t go swimming unless the thermometer read seventy degrees. I soon figured out how to nudge it up with the hair dryer, and then I’d hop on my bike and off to the Hemmingers. I always tried to time things so I could sit down for the usual lunch fare of grilled cheese sandwiches, soup, Gravenstien apple sauce, dilly beans, and smoked salmon. Nobody did homemade applesauce like Edna Hemminger, and nobody did salmon like John Hemminger.

John Hemminger was a man of deeds and not words, and so I rarely heard him speak about the war, and never about his role in it. I was forced to piece things together from pictures and from stories others told about his role in that great conflict.

“The greatest catastrophe in history,” Stephen Ambrose called World War II and “the most costly war of all time.” In April, 1945, 300,000 Americans attacked the Japanese island of Okinawa, while the US Navy was pounded by 350 kamikaze planes. We lost thirty-six ships. In human life, the casualties were beyond staggering: 49,200 men in one battle. The Japanese lost 112,129 human lives at Okinawa. Still they fought on.

Germany surrendered in May, but by summer, it appeared that Japan would fight on until there was not a Japanese soldier who remained alive. A full-scale Allied invasion of Japan seemed the only option, but it was an invasion that would have cost 1,000,000 American soldiers their lives. President Truman opted to drop two atomic bombs on Japan in hopes of breaking the enemy’s will to fight to extermination. It was as if the entire nation had become kamikaze flyers.

           

Fighter pilot greatness

In 1941, after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, America joined the war, and can-do men like John Hemminger were desperately needed to fight. He said goodbye to his childhood sweetheart, Edna Mae Firch, and joined up.

The picture I will always have in my mind of him is of a quiet young man in a leather bomber jacket, a shy, boyish grin stretching across his handsome features, posing with his beloved P-47, affectionately dubbed Edna Mae. Though called on to do highly dangerous and daring feats, there was no hint of the cocky, swaggering dog fighter in his looks or carriage.

John Hemminger loved machines. I can only begin to imagine his fascination at first sight of his P-47’s Pratt and Whitney, eighteen cylinder, 2,800 horsepower engine, or the heart-pounding thrill when he first accelerated into the heavens at his plane’s maximum speed of 433 mph.

He was a gentle, peace-loving man, so I particularly wonder what his first thoughts were when he laid eyes on the eight 12.7mm Browning machine guns bristling from the wings of his P-47, a machine engineered for killing. One thing I’m sure of: there was no better cared for fighter plane than his, and likely none more skillfully used for its designed purpose.

John Hemminger was credited with the last P-47 kill of the war. By some accounts, he and the Japanese pilot were slugging it out somewhere over the blue waters of the Pacific, September 2, 1945, while American top brass accepted the Japanese unconditional surrender on board the USS Missouri. The facts are unclear, because John Hemminger rarely spoke about the war, and boasting was something he never did.

What is clear is that John Hemminger, along with a generation of Americans, was a humble servant hero who did his duty, and then, unlike many with whom he fought, he returned home. Bidding farewell to his P-47 Edna Mae, he married his beloved Edna Mae, raised his family, and lived a long, seemingly insignificant, life. John Hemminger and his dear wife were not bombastic about their faith in Christ, but few people have more consistently lived out the Lord’s injunction to love their neighbor as themselves. Consequently, their home was a quiet, contented one, filled with stability and service.

In the world’s eyes, after the war John Hemminger lived an ordinary life, some might have called it boring. But not so to the dozens of missionaries he supported and took fishing when they were home, and whose decrepit cars he repaired, rebuilt, or replaced, often at his own expense. And all done hush-hush, so no one would give him credit for his latest acts of generosity.

True greatness

Jesus told his disciples, if they wanted to be great, to become servants. He didn’t say to become great baseball players, or inventors, or CEOs, or powerful politicians, or celebrity pastors, or best-selling authors—or even fighter pilots. “Whoever wants to become great,” Jesus said, “must be your servant” (Matthew 20:26). If you want to be great you too, must be a servant. John and Edna Hemminger were great Christians, because they were transformed into great servants by the ultimate Servant of servants, Jesus Christ.

My hero John Hemminger died of Parkinson’s Disease, December 27, 2006. His wife Edna Mae suffered for decades with Multiple Sclerosis before her home going. But I never heard either of them complain. They bore their trials with patience—even with smiles. Nor did I ever hear either of them speak critical words about others. I think they were simply too busy, in Christ’s name and by his grace, loving and serving their neighbors. Pay attention, young man. This is true greatness.

You probably don’t need to travel to faraway places to get to know and honor servant heroes. I suspect that in your church, neighborhood, and extended family there are several John and Edna Mae Hemmingers. Folks like them help unmask the masquerade of what passes for greatness among modern celebrities. Pop icons and all their vain-glorious glitter look pretty irrelevant next to great people like these--but only if you train your eye and your affections to know and honor genuine greatness.

Glitz or glory

Let’s face it. It’s far easier to talk about being impressed with servant greatness than it is to actually be so. I wonder if the normalization of sin is not the reason. “Worldliness is what makes sin look normal,” wrote David Wells, “and righteousness look odd.” Hence, venerating worldly heroes sets us up to begin feeling that humble, holy living is pretty out of touch, not much fun, certainly not cool.

Here again, you must pay attention. When you honor heroes who live worldly lives, you should expect to gradually become more impressed with their worldliness. Meanwhile, your worldly hero’s lifestyle will increasingly seem to be the normal way of things. And since no one wants to be odd, everyone wants to think of himself as a normal guy, so gradually you will wink at their vices, embrace their values, and imitate their ways. Finally, Paul’s point in Philippians 3:17-21 is that if you do this, when the dust settles, you will share in their destruction.

Puritan Jeremy Taylor described the incremental decline that a young man should expect to pass through if he forges friendships with worldly heroes and their sin. “First it startles him, then it becomes pleasing, then easy, then delightful, then frequent, then habitual, then confirmed, then the man is impenitent, then obstinate, then resolves never to repent, and finally he is damned.”

On the Judgment Day, all that worldly glitz, all that superficially impressive lifestyle will be unmasked. And if you have been duped by a false hero, by one whose “mind is on earthly things,” it will be far too late to halt the cycle of decline. You must do it now.

Join with others in following the example of great Christians—like John and Edna Mae Hemminger. The Bible is full of them, and so is church history. Pay attention to them.

Throw in your lot with the truly greats. Know your citizenship. Paul says it is “in heaven.” Know that most of the world’s heroes are frauds. Their power, their prestige, their wealth, is all borrowed and will someday be swept away with them. “Their destiny is destruction.” No real man would throw in his lot with losers like that.

You, young man of God, were predestined for a glorious body, transformed by the infinite power of the Lord Jesus Christ. Make him your ultimate hero, honor those who honor him, and resolve that he will have no worldly rival.

(Excerpt from STAND FAST In the Way of  Truth)

Learn more about my 20th Century books, War in the Wasteland (WWI) and The Resistance (WWII), both a significant CS Lewis historical connections--bondbooks.net  

Life and Writing: Tragedy, Tumult, and Triumph--INKBLOTS

March 13, 2018 INKBLOTS (two for one)

My next fiction book? WW II French Resistance?

I told about my birthday lunch with my venerable mother (March 13, her 81st birthday), and then about listening to her read aloud vignettes she has been writing from her life: dysfunctional family, bi-polar mother, adultery, illegal abortions for her mother (there's no need for adjective before abortion; they're all illegal in God's sight), she and her siblings separated and placed in various foster homes, older brother chronic trouble with the law (ends up at Ft Leavenworth, then years later dying at mental hospital years later, alone, except for my mother's regular visits), one foster home for my mother, a believing Lutheran family, in the providence and mercy of God, where my mother regularly attended church for the first time, heard the gospel, compensated for the domestic disaster that was her family by excelling in academics, orchestra, student government (she was the first female student body president of RA Long High School, Longview WA), and graduation day was awarded outstanding senior by the faculty (and by student body awarded most likely to succeed, and class clown--she does have a great sense of humor). How to format these vignettes of her amazing life? 

John leads off with a rereading of last chapter of Saving Grace, just edited and proof read by, you guessed it, my venerable mother, and literary wise woman. John has gotten push back from Inkblots before for this being to0 pat, everything works out just hunky in the end. Suicide theme. Did you really try to kill yourself--can you show her incredulity rather than state it like this. Grace's tantrum seems stiff, forced. Nora's comforting feels formulaic, too superficial. And Grace comes around awfully quickly, considering she was about to kill herself a few minutes before. I know, I'm just feeling sorry for myself. And then Grace suddenly gives God glory, seemingly out of the blue, considering the suicide context. I think the reader will be most moved, changed, by seeing the soft, fleshy cheeks of a newborn baby, a teem mother cuddling her real human being, created in the image of God, precious life. Observe a mother with a newborn (Monica in France) and write down all sensory material you observe. This is where this book needs to end. Not everything will be easy, make clear, but everything is now right, new life and new light. Overwhelm readers with the wonder of birth, new life, regardless of and without diminishing the sin and crisis that conceived it. End with cooing baby spitting up, a metaphor for the delights and challenges of life in a broken world.

Patrick thinks that the mom comes around too quickly. Alisa thought there was a huge change from suicidal thoughts and words to settled calm.

So my marriage non-fiction book--what to do with it? Marriages Through the Ages: Delightful, Disappointing, and Dreadful Ones (working title). I received some good counsel from Greg Bailey (editor at Crossway and good friend; and Marvin Ink-in-the-veins Padgett over breakfast last week in Atlanta. Both were cautious about the book, great idea, but difficult to package and sell on large scale (I'm not Keller or Tripp, big names in marriage books along with others). Patrick thinks I should imbed it in story form, a pastor counselling parishioners, meanwhile, the pastor has his own struggles. He gives advice to others but is missing the big issues looming in his own home. Could use dramatic irony, the reader seeing what the pastor is blind to. Made me recollect The Confession by Grisham, featuring a Lutheran pastor caught in the middle of the courtroom thriller; I was handed the book on a plane by a woman whose husband bought it at the airport but she had already read it. Is this where I should invest my writing energies right now? I'm just not so sure. Maybe package as blog devotional material. 

Or there's my WW II French resistance yarn idea, with CS Lewis, the voice of faith, breaking through on the BBC from time to time throughout. This would pair well with War in the Wasteland. I'm enthusiastic about this idea. Then again, I have my long standing Bunyan era historical novel idea still very much on the agenda, but is this the right time? It would follow The Betrayal, The Thunder, The Revolt, and Luther in Love in my adult historical novel category. And I've toyed with the idea of writing another Hand of Vengeance like whodunit, but this one set in 1066 era Norman Conquest France and England. For the time being, I have tabled my American Civil War era novel idea, under counsel from respected publishing peoples; far too much flapdoodle in media and general society to invest energy there, for now; it always had carried with it the potential to alienate blocks of readers arrayed against one another already in the entrenched encampments. Someday.

Patrick has rewritten his Adam and Steve satire yarn, speculative fiction. He feels much better about it. We did heaps of chatting and good conversation this evening. Maybe that's what we all needed. It was warm and pleasant, from my perspective. I trust for everyone else too.

[Previous unposted 'Blots meeting material]

Maybe too close to Valentines Day, but Inkblots, four strong, charges onward and upward. Rachel (whose computer died just as she started to read last time) leads off with another of her scrumptious food-centric yarns. I gain weight just listening to Rachel read her work.

Manhattan setting, shopping outing, with food? Third person, with thoughts, and backstory. Miss Dahlia. Rachel's characters are so unique and human. There is a hint of Ramona. Mysterious, powerful girls you read about in books. Delightful metaphoric doctoring and thrifting. Allusion to Bronte's Wuthering Heights. Lots of chatty dialogue. John wanted to know how much the shoes cost. Rachel said Miss Dahlia gave her a discount. I want to hear more about that exchange. When did the story occur? We tried guessing based on clues from the reading. I thought it reminded me of Beverly Cleary's Ramona yarns, so set in 50s. Rachel said she was up in the air, maybe 90s, but then maybe taking in the Cold War and Communism, or even earlier when the stock market crashed. Might be a good idea to narrow that down. The grandfather is a saddle maker and could have memories of the Depression and its effect on the saddle making business. 

Sydney picks up on her reading, shifting to chapter two and twenty years later. We had discussed the challenges of a twenty year gap from opening episode in prelude to here chapter one. The hour between sunset and dark... soft shadows of dusk. Sydney writes like a Pre-Raphaelite, but unlike many I have heard who write in an archaic style, she pulls it off with ease and authenticity; it sounds like it could be Gothic romance, Jane Eyre-esque. 

girdle, and shilling from under his boot? I was a little confused by both of these description. Sydney has actually improved on the Gothic romance feel, as she stays on intentional trajectory, without the seeming excercies. There is also a Dickensian feel, narrative heavy, with dark mystery, layers of intrigue, and a sense of impending doom around the next dreary dark corner, the gas street lights casting eerie shadows on the cobblestones, oily and reflective in the evening drizzle. 

John wonders where Sydney is going, how long is it going to be? He wondered about the pace. He felt it moved slowly, but he loves Sydney's writing. Intricate detail described. Rachel said she can see everything clearly. White skin and chiseled features, but chews his moustache, which seemed out of character with his chiseled features; buff hunks shouldn't chew their moustache. John wonders why

Good crowd tonight, seven, the number of perfection. We chatted (read, I chatted) about my birthday lunch with my mom for her 81st birthday today. Such an extraordinary woman on so many levels. Her story is the material for Hollywood, but they would slaughter it's outcomes, outcomes ordained by a merciful God who providentially rescued my mother from being another tragic statistic of the materialist naturalist mid century last.

THIS IS WAR! Memorial Day excerpt from new release

As we pause on this Memorial Day and remember those who sacrificed their lives for our freedoms, I want to share with readers this excerpt from my new WW I release WAR IN THE WASTELAND, my protagonist a lens to his platoon leader, teen atheist 2/Lt CS Lewis. “War in the Wasteland is a gripping, informative, adrenalin-producing picture of World War I. The awful moments of fear and the reflective conversations of men who don't know if they'll survive the day, are captured on every page of this book.” Douglas E. Lee, Brigadier General, USA (Ret), President, Chaplain Alliance for Religious Liberty

Excerpt from chapter 32 THIS IS WAR, moments before Nigel and his squad go over the top.

...Nigel did not feel particularly courageous that morning. He glanced to his left. There was Sergeant Ayres, so unlike other men. While most powerful men he had read about in history books—kings, popes, generals—used their might to subdue others, Ayres had the singular ability of giving his inexhaustible strength away to others, as a gift. Nigel listened to his own breathing, hot and rapid. He felt it was urgent. He studied the man; he had to know what made Sergeant Ayres so unlike other men.

His mouth set in a resolute line, Sergeant Ayres lifted his left hand and kissed the gold band on his ring finger. Sergeant Ayres was married. Dedicated as he was to his squad, he was married, perhaps with children at home; his wife may have a babe in arms, one that her husband may not have met—may never meet. It had never occurred to Nigel to think of Sergeant Ayres with a wife, children, a life beyond the army. Nigel watched his sergeant kiss his wedding ring a second time. He must love her dearly, more than life itself.

Nigel felt ashamed. Being in charge was a harder condition than he had ever imagined. Up to this moment, he had only seen his sergeant as someone to help him with his own problems, his own fears, with Perrett’s fears. It had never occurred to him that the man who guarded and doted over his squad, that that same man carried on his shoulders the still weightier responsibility of family, left without him back in England. Drenched fingers opening and closing on the fore stock of his rifle, Nigel felt selfish and ashamed.

But in that shame, an awakening began to occur in Nigel’s mind, a realization he had always tried to avoid. Giving the orders, when done well, was far more about giving something to others than taking something from them. Too many men cared far too much about the power and status of leadership rather than its cost. Maybe that’s why there was a war like this one. It was a consideration that Nigel felt he needed to think about deeply, alone, away from all this. If he ever had the chance.

Then it began. As if frame-by-frame, Lieutenant Lewis moved his trench whistle closer to his lips. Rain water ran off the sleeve of his trench coat, drip-dripping from the elbows. The fingers holding the whistle, white with cold, trembled slightly. A stream of rain water dribbled off the rim of his Tin hat onto the whistle. The whistle and Lieutenant Lewis’s lips nearly touched, like Sergeant Ayres and his ring. Nigel felt a twinge of hope; maybe the whistle, soaked with water, would fail to sound.

There it was. Trilling tunelessly, like a train nearing a crossing, a trench whistle blew. And with that blowing time seemed to fall to its belly and creep along like Nigel had once seen a sloth doing at The London Zoo.

The trench whistle, it made an odd sound. How could a single whistle sound flat, off pitch, out of tune? Out of tune with what? Beneath the thunder of the barrage suddenly it was the close sounds, the intimate ones that became distinct, penetrating: The shying of rainfall, the squelching of boots in mud, a raspy cough. And labored, intentional breathing, as men attempted to marshal courage to face the horror of what lay ahead. But there was the trench whistle.

“Why aren’t we going?” asked Nigel.

“Not our platoon,” said Sergeant Ayres. “Lieutenant Johnson’s boys, just there.”

“Why before us?” said Wallace.

Nigel watched Lieutenant Johnson, revolver in hand, whistle between his teeth, leap out of the trench, beckoning his platoon to follow him over the top. With shouts of defiance, Johnson’s men hurled themselves toward the enemy.

We’re for it next, thought Nigel. But still they waited. The waiting—that was the worst of it. Encircled

by grinding hopelessness, by the unremitting slaughter of men, oddly Nigel did not consciously consider whether it would happen to him. It seemed so utterly inevitable that it required no consideration. All would soon be over. Nigel found a corner of his brain toying with the notion of death. Could death be worse than this? Would not a hasty obliteration, as he had witnessed to left and right of him, would it not be an escape? It required a body to feel unrelenting pain, and a brain to be numb with fear. To live each hour under the enervating anticipation of one’s own violent dismemberment and dying, was it worse than death itself?... 

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Crosses among 10s of 1000s

Eleven-Year-Old Scottish review of GUNS OF THUNDER

Calum (11) and "bonny-but-dim" Jackson

Book review of GUNS OF THUNDER written by Calum Morrison (11) who lives on a farm in Scotland (and who has an amazing mother who home schools him; she did not edit this review, nor have I changed it in any way)

 

Why would Ian, an American boy of Scottish descent, grow to love a Red Indian of whom he had been scared? Read Guns of Thunder to find out. In this historical novel, written by Douglas Bond, you will get to know Ian, his family, and his friends. 

Ian was decended from Scotland and he was a M’kethe. He was born and brought up in Wallop, Connecticut, and lived with his mother, his sister, his younger brother and his beloved grandfather. Before Ian was born, his father had died, so by the time he was thirteen Ian was plowing, sowing, harvesting and selling the family corn all by himself. It was in these times he met Watookoog, an Indian who was converted through Ian’s father’s teaching. When Ian was a little older, war broke out between Britain and France in the New World. Ian soon joined the Connecticut militas, who were fighting against the French. The book explains a few reasons for Ian going to war, but it highlights one special reason. However, at war things didn’t go as planned and it took Watookoog to save the day. 

There was not one part of this novel I did not enjoy. First of all, I loved the very real descriptions in the book. For example when Ian and his family were having dinner, I felt as though I could actually smell and taste the food on the table. When I was reading the book I often felt like I was right there beside Ian. 

Secondly, I enjoyed how close it was to actual history. From what I had previously read about the French and Indian war, the events in the novel fitted like a glove. For example, I knew that Red Indians had pillaged colonial farms, and I also knew that it had been difficult for the British to destroy the French, just like in the book. In this and many ways the author kept true to history. 

Finally, even though there are sad, serious and dangerous parts, there are also many funny snippets. An example could be when Ian’s cousin Roland forgets an answer in school and everybody laughs at him except Ian who stand up and rattles of an impressive answer before stating that he disagreed with the question. The teacher agreed with the question, argues against Ian, and then Roland stands up puts up an unargueable statement that proves Ian right and leaves the teacher baffled. The cousins joint effort against the teacher made for a amusing episode.

These are some of the main reasons I loved this historical novel. Read this book because its thundering guns will blow you away.