Pensacola Days - Paperback

by Harold Irv Irving Smith (Author), Sandra Smith (Editor)

Introducing "Pensacola Days"

In 1969, four recent college graduates who all dream of becoming Naval Aviators meet in Pensacola, Florida. Completing Aviation Officer Candidate School (AOCS), sixteen weeks of intense Marine Corps training at the Pensacola Naval Air Station, is the first step in achieving their dream. They quickly realize that the Marine Corps Drill Instructor training in AOCS was far more rigorous than they ever imagined. In fact, during the first ten days of training, called INDOC, many of the candidates are quickly disqualified by the Drill Instructors or fail to complete the training. In an effort to complete the AOCS program together, the four young men forge a lifelong friendship.In addition, they become friends with their fellow AOCS candidates and two young women who have moved to Pensacola to start new lives after experiencing personal loss. During the course of their training, their lives also become intertwined with three other characters, a veteran Naval Aviator who has returned to to Pensacola to reunite with the love of his life, Medal of Honor recipient Major Stephen Pless, USMC (a real person), and a recently divorced Navy Nurse who has transferred back to Pensacola to continue her career. As the story unfolds, the four men, now renamed Striker, Hound, Sticky, and Bulldog by their Drill Instructor, face success and failure, good times and sudden tragedy, and the changing needs of the United States Navy.

"Pensacola Days" recreates an era and places that no longer exist as they were in in 1969/1970. It is set during the height of the Vietnam War, but it is not a war story. It is a romance wrapped in tragedy.