USN Company 209

Before incessant text messaging, before male enhancement drugs and vibrating cell phones, and before heart transplants, space walks, and commercial color televisions, two guys – one black, one white – grew toward adulthood and self-discovery with each other.  Their families had neither electricity nor any indoor plumbing in the swampy, ‘Lost Paradise’ of Okefenokee.  And though the word was never spoken, and their desires were never completely fulfilled, they loved and cared for one another.
     On the day they both reached eighteen years of age, they shared their most intimate moment ever.  After a final ‘good-bye’, without even looking back, one left home and joined the Navy.  In this purely fantastical tale, Boot Camp is a ‘camp’ – an impossible dream – where flesh is flesh, and it’s okay to give a buddy a helping hand in time of need.  The Company Commander even instigates a sensual tactic, which unites him into a cohesive family unit with his eighty-three recruits.
     The boy from Georgia moves up in rank and rate, and eventually... but that’s telling too much.  Read the story and fall in love all over again.  It’s a simpler, gentler life, once more.  You’ll love it.