{"id":1253,"date":"2018-12-31T16:26:16","date_gmt":"2018-12-31T16:26:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/?p=1253"},"modified":"2018-12-31T16:26:16","modified_gmt":"2018-12-31T16:26:16","slug":"glenn-dromgooles-texas-reads-column-appears-weekly-at-lonestarliterary-com-84","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/?p=1253","title":{"rendered":"Glenn Dromgoole’s Texas Reads column appears weekly at LoneStarLiterary.com"},"content":{"rendered":"
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<\/span><\/span>Texas Reads<\/span>>> archive<\/span><\/a><\/span>Glenn Dromgoole<\/span><\/h1>\n

3.18.2018\u00a0\u00a0 New biography profiles Pearl Harbor hero Doris Miller<\/h1>\n

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<\/a><\/span><\/span>Doris Miller was an \u201cimprobable American hero,\u201d<\/span> write authors Thomas W. Cutrer<\/span> and T. Michael Parrish<\/span> in Doris Miller: Pearl Harbor and the Birth of the Civil Rights Movement<\/span><\/a><\/span> (Texas A&M University Press, $24.95 hardcover). Because of racial segregation, Miller was assigned to the Navy\u2019s mess branch, as a waiter for white officers. And that\u2019s what he was doing on Dec. 7, 1941, when Japanese bombers attacked Pearl Harbor.<\/p>\n

Miller \u201cstepped onto the bridge of his ship, the USS West Virginia,<\/span>\u201d they write, \u201cwhere he moved his mortally wounded captain to a place of greater safety and then manned a Browning .50-caliber gun, a weapon in which he \u2014 in common with all of his fellow messmen \u2014 had no training. He continued firing at the swarming bombers and torpedo planes until he was out of ammunition and ordered to abandon the sinking ship.\u201d<\/p>\n

Miller\u2019s heroics earned him the Navy Cross, \u201cthe first black sailor ever so decorated.\u201d After a speaking and bond promotion tour in the U.S., Miller returned to active duty and was killed in action on Nov. 23, 1943, when his ship was torpedoed and sunk.<\/p>\n

Cutrer and Parrish tell Miller\u2019s life story in about 100 pages plus footnotes and point out that Miller\u2019s true story, while certainly heroic, was not quite as dramatic as the way he was portrayed in the 2001 movie Pearl Harbor,<\/span> starring Cuba Gooding Jr. as Miller shooting down enemy planes from the USS Arizona. Movie critic Jess Caigle,<\/span> formerly of Abilene and now editor of People<\/span> magazine, wrote at the time that the movie \u201creaches for historical accuracy \u2014 at least until it gets in the way of the main story.\u201d<\/p>\n

But, the authors note, Miller\u2019s actions and resulting fame \u201cdeveloped in Congress and in the armed services a greater awareness and sensitivity to the attitudes, talents, aspirations, and loyalties of black men and women to their country,\u201d which helped launch the Civil Rights movement.<\/p>\n

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<\/a><\/span><\/span>Vietnam era novel:<\/span> Lubbock screenwriter and author C. David Stephens<\/span> keeps the action flowing in his novel, Every Mother\u2019s Son<\/span><\/a><\/span> (Llano Estacado Publishing, $15.99 paperback), set in 1969 in the small fictional West Texas town of Preston.<\/p>\n

The story revolves around three principal characters. Kevin Frazier has just returned from combat in Vietnam. Meanwhile, his best friend and fellow football star Bobby Dalton is about to be shipped out. Bobby\u2019s steady girlfriend, Amy Evans, decides to give her beau a special going-away present, and Kevin promises to take care of her while Bobby is in Vietnam.<\/p>\n

But, of course, things get complicated, and Amy and Kevin \u2014 and their friends and families -\u2014 are caught up in the fallout.<\/p>\n

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Glenn Dromgoole<\/span> has been writing his Texas Reads column since 2002, focusing on Texas books and authors. Contact him at g.dromgoole@suddenlink.net.<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

>> Read his past Texas Reads columns in Lone Star Literary Life here.<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Texas Reads>> archiveGlenn Dromgoole 3.18.2018\u00a0\u00a0 New biography profiles Pearl Harbor hero Doris Miller Doris Miller was an \u201cimprobable American hero,\u201d write authors Thomas W. Cutrer and T. Michael Parrish in Doris Miller: Pearl Harbor and the Birth of the Civil Rights Movement (Texas A&M University Press, $24.95 hardcover). Because of racial segregation, Miller was assigned […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1253","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1253","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1253"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1253\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1253"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1253"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1253"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}