MWSA members can now join Veterans Family Network (VFN) at a 10% discount. This organization is working to partner with health, travel, and other industries to get further discounts for their members. They also have affiliates like Walmart and Office Depot who will donate a percentage of your online purchases to benefit active duty military families.
Title: The Chess Players
Author: Francis J. Partel
Genre: Military Sub-Category: Navy
Reviewed by: Stephen Phillips
ISBN (for Amazon store): 0615414516
The Chess Players is both a naval story and a love story and opens with an audacious, espionage mission, a Soviet submarine penetration of Stavanger, Norway, and closes with a thrilling, bizarre episode between a missile-equipped, Russian nuclear submarine and a US Navy destroyer escort in the Mediterranean Sea. Commander Pebbles, Operations Officer of anti-submarine carrier, Essex, on a career track for admiral, mentors the well-educated and competent, but inexperienced young Ensign Cannon. Based in part on untold, historical events typical of the Cold War at sea, their task group encounters several provocative incidents at the hands of the Russian Bear above the Arctic Circle and in the Mediterranean Sea prior to and after the 1967 Six Day Arab-Israeli War. The love story begins when beautiful Laetitia Martin, a Ph. D. candidate in art history, meets Ensign Cannon, both members of a wedding on Martha's Vineyard, shortly before Essex deploys for NATO exercises in the Eastern Atlantic. She is a consummate "belonger" with a growth motive and catches a whiff of the women's movement and begins to find her upper-class life stifling. Cannon doesn't flinch at women's liberation, but he has other anxiety-producing issues related to women. Her research into the turbulent life of the painter, Caravaggio, the novel's fourth character, if you will, will also take her to Europe in the summer of 1967 and provides the opportunity for their romance to bud and bloom in London and in Malta as she succeeds in explaining Caravaggio's self-destructive behavior in modern psychological terms.
ARTICLE I Name
This organization is known as the Military Writers Society of America, and is sometimes referred to herein and elsewhere as MWSA
The Board of Directors shall consist of nine members (President is the Chairman, Past-President serves one term as Board Member, the Founder as a Permanent Board Member and six elected members).
Title: King of the Oilers: The Story of the USS Chiwawa AO-68
Author: Jon Strupp
Genre: Military Sub-Category: Navy
Reviewer: jim greenwald
ISBN (for Amazon store): 1592981917
With entry into World War II, the United States of America faced a daunting task of delivering men and material on two distant fronts on opposite ends of the world. Due to this, a logistical system was developed like never seen before. This book tells the story of the fleet oiler, USS Chiwawa AO-68. How both men and machine, not primarily designed for war, were called from civilian life to defend their country and become part of the backbone of the navy helping to tip the balance in the Allies favor. Loaded with cargo consisting of kerosene, gasoline, diesel oil, Navy Special Fuel Oil, top side cargo, and passengers, the Chiwawa participated in nine trans-Atlantic convoys, delivering the goods to the European theater. Facing bad weather and the imminent threat of U-boats, the Chiwawa performed the delicate job of refueling the escort ships protecting the convoy while underway. When the war in Europe was won, the Chiwawa was transferred to the Pacific theater to confront ever present mines and two typhoons. This often overlooked aspect of World War II is examined using U.S. Navy records, crew interviews, diaries, and letters written during the war, telling the Chiwawa's story through first-hand accounts of life at sea and land while visiting ports throughout Europe, Mediterranean, Caribbean and Pacific. This story is unique because the Chiwawa avoided scrapping after the war to return to civilian use, and serves to the present day on the Great Lakes as the ore carrier M/V Lee A. Tregurtha.
Although our members have opinions regarding current events, our intent is to support the United States military rather than denounce it. We have no illusion that the performance of our military or our nation's leaders are flawless, but we feel strongly that there are more than enough existing venues for criticizing them. We do not wish to become another one. Consequently, we make efforts to avoid publishing material that we find to be primarily critical in nature. Please submit requests for review to our Lead Reviewer, jim greenwald by using the "Submit Book for Review" heading on the right hand side of the menu.