A U.S. Navy submariner’s account of his adventurous life in service beneath the waves. Beginning on a cattle ranch in Colorado, this memoir follows a young sailor on his voyage around the world. After enlisting in the U.S. Navy in 1960 and completing the Nuclear Power School program, Gary Penley embarks on a series of adventures-often at risk of his life-while serving on a submarine as a power plant operator. During his seven years with the navy, Penley and his shipmates encounter several frightening situations. While on submerged patrol in the Mediterranean Sea, his submarine, the USS Hamilton, strikes a heavy object, which tears a large hole in the ballast tank and threatens to sink the submarine. Later, they ride out a ferocious storm in the Arctic Circle that nearly submerges the vessel. Another harrowing experience occurs when the sailors, while on a top-secret mission in the Mediterranean during the Six-Day War, are attacked by unknown enemy ships and barely escape unscathed. Throughout his expeditions, Penley stops in such countries as Spain, Scotland, Italy, and Japan. In this captivating memoir, he recounts the coping skills necessary to live in a confined space for extended patrols while facing constant danger—often resulting in hilarious scenarios that only wild submarine sailors could conjure. He also provides a detailed description of the submarine and explains how the machines operate. Written in a candid tone, this memoir carries the reader along for the epic ride. Praise for Deep Venture “Penley uses his naval experience and considerable talent as a storyteller to write a humorous and totally engaging account of life beneath the sea. Against a backdrop of Cold War nuclear deterrence, and the ever-present personal danger faced by submariners, he takes us down the hatch into the claustrophobic confines of his submarine and life among an odd collection of sailors willing to endure the hardship of being submerged and incommunicado for months at a time. . . . A unique and highly entertaining story.” —Michael Archer, author of A Patch of Ground: Khe Sanh Remembered “Clear and lucid writing immediately grips the reader as Penley explores the tension, fear, humor, and adventure of navy and submarine life, enriched with a realism and accuracy that is often missing from such accounts. This story deserves a place on the bookshelf of anyone who reads and admires true stories of adventure at sea.” —James Ennes, author of Assault on the Liberty
A black man’s entanglement with a white family leads to trouble in this historical novel set in Depression Era Mississippi. To everyone in the small town of Linville, Mississippi, Jubal Jefferson is known simply as Dummy. A large black man who almost never speaks, he is forever pulling his mother’s laundry wagon around town. Little else is known about him—apart from the fact that his father disappeared after the flood of 1927. For as long as anybody can remember, the Dunaway family have been hard-working, decent people. They are a perfect white family in a town sharply divided along racial lines. But appearances can be deceiving, and lines are meant to be crossed. When the family’s good fortune is nearly destroyed, the children find an unlikely friend in Jubal. After fire engulfs the Dunaway family home, Jubal risks his life to save the children. But his act of heroism comes into question when the mother is found dead. Now Jubal faces his greatest fear—coming under suspicion in a community that offers no second chances to people like him.
Throughout the compelling true story of Della Raye Rogers, her determination, strength, and faith stand as testaments of the enduring resilience of the human spirit against adversity. For twenty years, Della Raye lived at the Partlow State Asylum for Mental Deficients in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Left there by her uncle in 1929 at the age of four, along with her mother, aunt, and brother, she would know her mother only as another threat the attendants of the institution employed against her. She was subjected to beatings, made to work like a slave, and was given little formal education. Growing up as she did, a small child in a world of people suffering from a variety of mental disabilities, it is amazing that for twenty years she would continue to hope that she would someday be free, that she would continue to fight to be treated with basic respect, and that she would emerge, finally, a whole and vital adult. Della Raye not only continued to hope and to fight, for her trials were not ended with her release, but she learned to forgive those who sought, by intent or by inaction, to destroy her. Della Raye became a beautician and married Floyd Hughes, a widower with five daughters, in 1951. Together they also had two boys, Donny and Butch. She has visited a number of the people who worked at Partlow in nursing homes and hospitals and has remained in contact with many of the people she met during her confinement.
My life has been full of unbelievably strange events. Many are funny, and a few are sad. This book is a compilation of the experiences from before I came to Christ to later in my life, seeing God work in and around people and countries where I have served as a pastor, traveling speaker, and a missionary. My hope with this book is to offer laughter, understanding, hope during sad and painful times, and faith in God. The everyday normal person desperately needs to return to the truth about God and his word and to faith that is real and life-changing. In my life, I went from atheist to believer to traveling speaker to pastor and have personally experienced what God wants to do in each of our lives. Here is a small record of life as it has played out for me. It is my hope and prayer that you will read it and be entertained and encouraged and that you will be energized to believe again. Some names have been changed for obvious reasons.
A black man’s entanglement with a white family leads to trouble in this historical novel set in Depression Era Mississippi. To everyone in the small town of Linville, Mississippi, Jubal Jefferson is known simply as Dummy. A large black man who almost never speaks, he is forever pulling his mother’s laundry wagon around town. Little else is known about him—apart from the fact that his father disappeared after the flood of 1927. For as long as anybody can remember, the Dunaway family have been hard-working, decent people. They are a perfect white family in a town sharply divided along racial lines. But appearances can be deceiving, and lines are meant to be crossed. When the family’s good fortune is nearly destroyed, the children find an unlikely friend in Jubal. After fire engulfs the Dunaway family home, Jubal risks his life to save the children. But his act of heroism comes into question when the mother is found dead. Now Jubal faces his greatest fear—coming under suspicion in a community that offers no second chances to people like him.
A U.S. Navy submariner’s account of his adventurous life in service beneath the waves. Beginning on a cattle ranch in Colorado, this memoir follows a young sailor on his voyage around the world. After enlisting in the U.S. Navy in 1960 and completing the Nuclear Power School program, Gary Penley embarks on a series of adventures-often at risk of his life-while serving on a submarine as a power plant operator. During his seven years with the navy, Penley and his shipmates encounter several frightening situations. While on submerged patrol in the Mediterranean Sea, his submarine, the USS Hamilton, strikes a heavy object, which tears a large hole in the ballast tank and threatens to sink the submarine. Later, they ride out a ferocious storm in the Arctic Circle that nearly submerges the vessel. Another harrowing experience occurs when the sailors, while on a top-secret mission in the Mediterranean during the Six-Day War, are attacked by unknown enemy ships and barely escape unscathed. Throughout his expeditions, Penley stops in such countries as Spain, Scotland, Italy, and Japan. In this captivating memoir, he recounts the coping skills necessary to live in a confined space for extended patrols while facing constant danger—often resulting in hilarious scenarios that only wild submarine sailors could conjure. He also provides a detailed description of the submarine and explains how the machines operate. Written in a candid tone, this memoir carries the reader along for the epic ride. Praise for Deep Venture “Penley uses his naval experience and considerable talent as a storyteller to write a humorous and totally engaging account of life beneath the sea. Against a backdrop of Cold War nuclear deterrence, and the ever-present personal danger faced by submariners, he takes us down the hatch into the claustrophobic confines of his submarine and life among an odd collection of sailors willing to endure the hardship of being submerged and incommunicado for months at a time. . . . A unique and highly entertaining story.” —Michael Archer, author of A Patch of Ground: Khe Sanh Remembered “Clear and lucid writing immediately grips the reader as Penley explores the tension, fear, humor, and adventure of navy and submarine life, enriched with a realism and accuracy that is often missing from such accounts. This story deserves a place on the bookshelf of anyone who reads and admires true stories of adventure at sea.” —James Ennes, author of Assault on the Liberty
My life has been full of unbelievably strange events. Many are funny, and a few are sad. This book is a compilation of the experiences from before I came to Christ to later in my life, seeing God work in and around people and countries where I have served as a pastor, traveling speaker, and a missionary. My hope with this book is to offer laughter, understanding, hope during sad and painful times, and faith in God. The everyday normal person desperately needs to return to the truth about God and his word and to faith that is real and life-changing. In my life, I went from atheist to believer to traveling speaker to pastor and have personally experienced what God wants to do in each of our lives. Here is a small record of life as it has played out for me. It is my hope and prayer that you will read it and be entertained and encouraged and that you will be energized to believe again. Some names have been changed for obvious reasons.
Cold War Controller is the compelling memoir of a Canadian Air Force Officer who started off in the junior ranks as a radar technician and later qualified as air traffic controller during the Cold War 1970s and 1980s. Presented as a highly readable collection of vignettes, this volume is chock full of air force history, human interest twists, hilarious pranks, exciting chills and spills of operational flying, situations of the bizarre and unexplainable, and impressions of air force culture. This fascinating collection of anecdotes will interest anyone intrigued by aviation, military history, flying stories, radar technology, self-achievement, the military family, and the overcoming of mental health problems. Learn from Sparky’s mistakes as he begins to succumb to the effects of chronic stress, alcohol dependency, and fear, and yet overcomes his demons to heal and go on learning and working successfully in the Air Force for many more years. Eventually he would end up as a military mental health counsellor.
Throughout the compelling true story of Della Raye Rogers, her determination, strength, and faith stand as testaments of the enduring resilience of the human spirit against adversity. For twenty years, Della Raye lived at the Partlow State Asylum for Mental Deficients in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Left there by her uncle in 1929 at the age of four, along with her mother, aunt, and brother, she would know her mother only as another threat the attendants of the institution employed against her. She was subjected to beatings, made to work like a slave, and was given little formal education. Growing up as she did, a small child in a world of people suffering from a variety of mental disabilities, it is amazing that for twenty years she would continue to hope that she would someday be free, that she would continue to fight to be treated with basic respect, and that she would emerge, finally, a whole and vital adult. Della Raye not only continued to hope and to fight, for her trials were not ended with her release, but she learned to forgive those who sought, by intent or by inaction, to destroy her. Della Raye became a beautician and married Floyd Hughes, a widower with five daughters, in 1951. Together they also had two boys, Donny and Butch. She has visited a number of the people who worked at Partlow in nursing homes and hospitals and has remained in contact with many of the people she met during her confinement.
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