Dennis L. Noble

In the late 1880s, many lives in northern and western maritime Alaska rested in the capable hands of Michael A. Healy (1839-1904), through his service to the U.S. Revenue Cutter Service. Healy arrested lawbreakers, put down mutinies aboard merchant ships, fought the smuggling of illegal liquor and firearms, rescued shipwrecked sailors from a harsh and unforgiving environment, brought medical aid to isolated villages, prevented the wholesale slaughter of marine wildlife, and explored unknown waters and lands.Captain Healy's dramatic feats in the far north were so widely reported that a New York newspaper once declared him the "most famous man in America." But Healy hid a secret that contributed to his legacy as a lonely, tragic figure.In 1896, Healy was brought to trial on charges ranging from conduct unbecoming an officer to endangerment of his vessel for reason of intoxication. As punishment, he was put ashore on half pay with no command and dropped to the bottom of the Captain's list. Eventually, he again rose to his former high position in the service by the time of his death in 1904. Sixty-seven years later, in 1971, the U.S. Coast Guard learned that Healy was born a slave in Georgia who ran away to sea at age fifteen and spent the rest of his life passing for white.This is the rare biography that encompasses both sea adventure and the height of human achievement against all odds.

Ernest Hemingway spent about one-third of his life in Cuba and grew to love the country and its people. This travel narrative follows a journey across the island in search of Hemingway's Cuba and how it influenced some of his writings. The author seeks out Hemingway's haunts in Old Havana and his home in Finca Vigia and explores the north coast fishing village of Cojimar, his setting for The Old Man and the Sea. Along the way there are glimpses of Cuban geography and history, as well as the lives of modern Cubans.

There are virtually no biographies of naval enlisted personnel, making Dennis L. Noble's book wholly unique. Richard McKenna was an enlisted sailor for twenty-two years, from the late 1930s to the end of the Korean War. Like most of his shipmates, he was one of many ""faceless"" enlisted sailors. McKenna, who eventually became a writer, did not hide the fact that, like the proverbial sailor, he enjoyed going ashore to such colorful-sounding establishments in China as ""Nagasaki Joe's."" Nor did he hide his interest in Japanese and Chinese women.While all of this would seem to indicate McKenna had become the stereotypical enlisted sailor, he did not fit neatly into this niche. Two important qualities made McKenna stand out among the many enlisted sailors. The first was his indomitable will, his desire to rise up against seemingly great odds and continue onward even when events seemed to conspire against him. The average person might have given up and moved on without trying to overcome the many adversities placed in their path. The second distinguishing quality was his desire to be educated and to write.McKenna set out to record his experiences in a novel. His love of machinery, his acceptance by the sailors he served with, his experiences ashore with crews at their normal haunts, his interest in other cultures, and his natural intelligence all influenced his writing. For the first time readers could understand the typical life of a sailor. His book, The Sand Pebbles, became a classic in naval literature and a major motion picture starring Steve McQueen in 1966.While McKenna focused largely on the enlisted force, his work applies to anyone in the military, especially those in the sea services. The Sailor's Homer, in addition to giving context to McKenna's writings, includes his short story ""Hour of Panic,"" which is difficult to find in its entirety. This biography offers more than just a frame for McKenna's work. It provides a fuller perspective on the life of all enlisted sailors of his era, showcasing the oft-forgotten good alongside the bad. Cdr. Thomas Cutler, USN (Ret.), author of A Sailor's History of the U.S. Navy, best sums up Richard McKenna's life and work: they are ""a virtual training ground for those who must encounter other cultures in their travels and a study in human character with a particular relevance to those who wear uniforms.

Of all the hot-button issues facing the United States in the early twenty-first century, perhaps none is presently generating more passion than illegal immigration. But what the vociferous public debates and sound bites often miss is that the story is far larger than the land border with Mexico. The U.S. Coast Guard has been charged with preventing undocumented migrants from entering the country for its entire existence. Best known, perhaps, for rescuing lives and preventing the smuggling of goods, the USCG is the only branch of the armed forces actually charged with law enforcement. Dennis Noble highlights the policies, strategy, and tactics used by the U.S. Coast Guard in enforcing immigration laws. But throughout, the focus remains on the human stories--both those of the small group of men and women charged with carrying out a difficult mission as well as those of the desperate men and women willing to risk their lives for a chance to escape crushing poverty or persecution. In many cases, the service’s interdiction responsibilities go hand in glove with rescue operations. As Rear Admiral Arthur E. Brooks puts it, ""You can’t do migrant operations without having your heart broken. ""

"Recounts the tragic story of the crew of the U.S. Coast Guard Quillayute River Station, who attempted to rescue the sailors of the sailboat Gale Runner in February 1997. . . . Will give you a greater understanding and respect for what the men and women of the U.S. Coast Guard are asked to do and accomplish every day somewhere on the nation's waters."--US Naval Institute Proceedings "Noble's on-the-spot experiences, his professional background and his established maturity as an historical writer make The Rescue of the Gale Runner as gripping an account of rescue efforts as the parallel work of Dennis Smith, retired New York firefighter and historical author who released the evocative Report from Ground Zero."--Peninsula Daily News "From the first alarm through the loss of three Coast Guard lives on the first boat, the dispatch of the second boat, and finally the helicopter rescue of the fishermen, Noble was there. . . . It was the worst loss of life suffered by a Coast Guard small boat station since 1961."--Sequim (Washington) Gazette

former US Coast Guard •Contains photographs, maps, line drawings, Notes and an explanatory Glossary •Recounts tales of shipwrecks and rescues From the East Coast to the West Coast, the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico and Hawaiian islands, Lighthouses and Keepers explores the fascination of lighthouses in the United States. Among the most readily recognised buildings of the maritime world, these lonely sentinels by the sea have long been the subject of paintings and photographs. Today they continue to capture public imagination as visitors flock to their sites and help preserve them against the ravages of time and tide. Lighthouses and Keepers covers not only lighthouses and lightships, but buoys, buoy tenders, fog signals, and their keepers. The work is as rich in historical document as it is rarely seen photographs, and fourteen maps guide readers to the lighthouses’precise locations. Readers are also treated to stories of shipwrecks and rescues, including the extraordinary story of Ida Lewis, head keeper of the light at Lime Rock, Rhode Island, who saved the lives of eighteen people in a dramatic maritime rescue.

A multitude of literary and cinematic works were spawned by the Vietnam war, but this is a unique book, combining moving prose with powerful illustrations created by combat artists in the U.S. military. Dr. Noble has assembled a remarkable collection of 153 reproductions printed in black and white, arranged with oral histories, letters and other commentaries to give the reader a more intimate understanding of the combat soldier who served in Vietnam and what he had to endure. Forgotten Warriors is not intended to argue the merits of U.S. involvement in Southeast Asia. Rather, through the visual impact of the illustrations, the soldiers themselves express what the Vietnam experience was like in a way that is different and more profound than perhaps any other work on the subject.The main focus of the book is on the way artists saw the world of the grunt: patrols, life in the rear, fighting the terrain and weather, tests of endurance, the machines of war and the effects of combat and its aftermath. The reader is also given a sense of how some writers and artists felt about the country and the people of South Vietnam. To date, our perceptions of the Vietnam war have been influenced largely by movies, television and novels. Recognizing this, Dr. Noble enlisted Professor William J. Palmer, a noted authority on the media and their reportage fo the war, to provide an essay that allows the reader to compare his or her past impressions with the art works contained in this book. A moving collection, Forgotten Warriors offers the truest picture of the Vietnam war in human terms.