In the midst of America's terrifying Pacific War with Japan in 1944, a 27 year old Navy lieutenant met a pretty university coed at an informal party. They spent the next 12 evenings together, falling in love in the San Francisco Bay Area. Separated by circumstances and the Sierra Nevada Mountains, they stayed connected with love letters as he performed his duties as Barracks Officer at Naval Air Station, Alameda and she began her year as President of the Senior Class at the University of Nevada. Fully 153 of their letters are reproduced here, revealing a love aborning with poetry and passion. Enroute, the former lieutenant became a published historian. Now in his late 90s, he brings the Pacific War to life with 12 insightful essays which illustrate the background of chaos and devastation which always threatened to cut this love affair short.
About the Author: Vaughn Davis Bornet. Long retired as CDR, USNR, he was 95 when he began work on this very personal book project. His Ph. D. in History is from Stanford University (1951), he has two degrees from Emory University, and has a graduate year at University of Georgia, Athens. Long a professor and division chairman, he wrote serious books on social welfare, trade unions, political parties, and presidents Hoover and Johnson, while helping scholars by editing their unfinished book projects. Among his employers were foundations, Commonwealth Club of California, Encyclopaedia Britannica, RAND, and Southern Oregon College. He has been in the Marquis Who's Who in America volumes for over half a century. He has been termed "Distinguished" in national awards from the American Heart Association, the Freedom Foundation, and a university. Author of innumerable articles, he writes often for History News Network of George Mason University, and supports a very large website, clioistics.com, which offers hundreds of pages of Bornet writings. Beth W. Bornet. Author of over 70 of the letters that make this book charming and winsome, she grew up in mountainous Susanville, California blessed with dynamic parents. In the pages of this book she graduates as Senior Class President at the University of Nevada, Reno. Listed in the academic Who's Who for women, she was inevitably popular as she related to everyone she met. President of any number of organizations, she was honored by Ashland (Oregon) Community Hospital and president of the State Hospital Volunteers. She was an enthusiastic Girl Scout leader and trained many other troop leaders. She was the beloved mother of two children, and was married to Vaughn 68 years in all.