Travel back to 1944, and look at World War II through the eyes of a 22-year old father of two, shipped off to Great Lakes Naval Training Center in Illinois. Homesick and in love, Ray Langen wrote two or three letters a day to Rose Rita, expressing his feelings and describing his daily routine—through Navy school, troop train travel across the West, VJ Day celebrations in San Diego, a typhoon aboard the USS Kent Island, shore liberty in Honolulu, engine room watch on the USS Hamul, exploration of decimated Okinawa, and many more eye-opening experiences. How the war affected civilians in the United States of America is captured through Rose Rita’s letters as well as those of Ray’s brothers and sisters. These detail how they coped on the home front in the German/English/Irish/Swiss farm town of Hokah, Minnesota, waiting for their loved ones to return.
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