John Shea, our protagonist in The Commander, served nearly four years in America’s wartime Navy, achieving his final promotion at sea on his last station. His job, or MOS as the sailors called it, was to command gun crews protecting a variety of Merchant Marine vessels including gasoline tankers filled to their gunnels with high-octane airplane fuel. With good fortune he survived, allowing his remaining Naval service to present similar opportunities and ordeals that challenged, enriched, and refined his already remarkable character.

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So it goes with our protagonist, John Shea, the Commander, for six decades a charismatic and esteemed figure among his peers and those he led, his world-wide stage now reduced to a worn path in the carpet leading from his hospital bed to the sliding doors of a garden patio. It’s there where his tales of adventure, mystery, love, and betrayal are disclosed, well spiced with irony, humor, and always, surprise. Surreptitiously recorded by his daughter who came to help for a few days but stayed for his end, they’re yours for the listening.

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