I am, by my admission, a reluctant writer. But some stories demand to be told. When we hear them, we must pick up our pen, lest we forget and the stories are lost.
Six years ago, in a quiet conversation with my friend Marvin, I learned the tragic story his father, a WW2 B-29 Airplane Commander, shot down over Nagoya, Japan just months before the end of the war.
The telling of the story that evening by this half orphan was so moving and full of emotion, it compelled me to ask if I could write the story. The result was They Called Him Marvin.
My life has been profoundly touched in so many ways by being part of documenting this sacred story. I pray that we never forget, as a people, the depth of sacrifice that was made by ordinary people like Marvin and his father and mother on our behalf.
My career as an addiction counselor (CDP) lead me to write “The Waterfall Concept; A Blueprint for Addiction Recovery,” and co-author “Reclaiming Your Addicted Brain.”
My next project is already underway, a memoir of growing in SW Washington called “Life on a Sorta Farm.” My wife of 49 years, Susan, and I still live in that area.
We raised seven children and have eleven grandchildren. We love to travel and see the sites and cultures of the world. I still get on my bicycle whenever I can.
You can visit Roger’s website at https://theycalledhimmarvin.com/ or connect with him on Facebook or Instagram.
Thanks for stopping by! What attracted you to the creative non fiction genre?
In my case the story demanded it. I came into a great deal of information that accurately depicted what happened through Marv’s family records, military records, war crimes trial records, but there were gaping holes in the story. That is where the creative non fiction comes in. We could never know of what the boy’s conversations were as they headed done to pre flight meetings for their first mission over Mukden. My job was to create what I thought they might have said.
Do you write in other genres?
I have written and self published two
addiction recovery books, The Waterfall Concept, and Reclaiming
Your Addicted Brain.
What inspired you to write they Called Him
Marvin?
I am, by my own admission, a
reluctant writer. But there are stories that demand to to be told. When we hear
them, we must pick up our pen, lest we forget and the stories be lost.
Six years ago, in a quiet conversation with
my friend Marvin, I learned the tragic story his father, a WW2 B-29 Airplane
Commander, shot down over Nagoya, Japan just months before the end of the war.
Bill Clinton has famously said: "They
were the fathers we never knew, the uncles we never met, the friends who never
returned, the heroes we can never repay. They gave us our world. And those
simple sounds of freedom we hear today are their voices speaking to us across
the years."
Such a man was Marv’s father. A father he
never knew. The telling of the story that evening by this half orphan was so moving
and full of emotion, it compelled me to ask if I could write the story. The
result being “They Called Him Marvin.”
My life has been profoundly touched in so
many ways by being part of documenting this sacred story. I pray that we never
forget, as a people, the depth of sacrifice that was made by ordinary people
like Marvin and his father and mother on our behalf.
Can you give us a book blurb so others can
find out what your book Is about?
They were just kids, barely not teenagers,
madly in love and wanting to be a family, but WW2 and a B29 got in their way.
Three hundred ten days before Pearl Harbor,
buck private Dean Sherman innocently went to church with a new friend in Salt
Lake City. From that moment, the unsuspecting soldier travelled a remarkable,
heroic path, falling in love, graduating from demanding training to become a
B29 pilot, conceiving a son and entering the China, Burma and India theater of
the WW2.
He chronicled his story with letters home to
his bride Connie that he met on that fateful Sunday, blind to the fact that
fifteen hundred seventy five days after their meeting, a Japanese swordsman
would end his life.
His crew, a gaggle of Corporals that dubbed
themselves the Corporalies, four officers and a tech Sargent, adventured their
way across the globe. Flying the “Aluminum Trail” also called the Hump through
the Himalayas, site of the most dangerous flying in the world. Landing in China
to refuel and then fly on to to places like Manchuria, Rangoon or even the most
southern parts of Japan to drop 500 pounders.
Each mission had it’s challenges, minus
fifty degree weather in Mukden, or Japanese fighters firing away at them, a
close encounter of the wrong kind, nearly missing a collision with another B29
while flying in clouds, seeing friends downed and lost because of
“mechanicals,” the constant threat of running out of fuel and their greatest
fear, engine fire.
Transferred to the Mariana Islands, he and
his crew were shot down over Nagoya, Japan as part of Mission 174, captured and
declared war criminals.
Connie’s letters reveal life for a brand new
mother whose husband is declared MIA. The agony for both of them, he in a
Japanese prison, declared a war criminal, and she just not knowing why his letters
stopped coming.
How can readers discover more about you and
your work?
Website and social Media links here
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/TCHMarvin
Website https://theycalledhimmarvin.com/
You can visit me at…
The website has a contact page. I really
enjoy hearing from readers and their impressions.
Where can readers buy your book?
Amazon https://amzn.to/3uSDoHY
You can pick up a copy of my book at….
Contact me through the website and I will
send you a signed copy!
Thank you very much for taking the time out
of your busy schedule to take part in this interview. What is next
for you?
I am muddling along with my memoir, we will
see where that goes.
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