Stay Curious!

How many times is your curiosity aroused by either reading something or viewing something on TV?
Are you interested enough to question and research what has piqued your interest?  It is much easier now with the internet.  You can type whatever word or phrase you like into a search engine, and presto...there it is , right at your fingertips.  I would like to tell you a true story that you may or may not know about...

This story starts out with a man watching the movie "Jaws" on TV with his eleven year old son,  Hunter Scott.  Remember the scene where the Captain is describing the ship that sank and the men in the water being eaten by sharks?   Hunter Scott turned to his Dad and asked him if this story was true.  When his Dad told him that indeed it was a true story, this young boy took it upon himself to write to the survivors of the USS Indianapolis.  I believe that this was about 1996 or so.  These veterans wrote back to Hunter Scott and described in great detail the tragedy of the sinking of the USS Indianapolis and how the sinking itself was the greatest loss of life in the history of the U.S. Navy and also, how the survivors were left for five days in the ocean with sharks taking most of the men.  (There are several good books written on this, I have read "In Harm's Way" by Doug Stanton and "Fatal Voyage" by Dan Kurzman.  Both are good and I highly recommend them.)

The final horror for the survivors was this: the Captain of their ship, Captain B. McVay,  was court-martialed and was so driven to despair that he committed suicide.  These men from the USS Indianapolis never gave up trying to get justice for him.  All of this was explained to Hunter Scott and here is the amazing part... he, along with the veterans, although this took years, was able to get the Navy to REVERSE their decision, in the year 2000.    This was truly astounding  since the Navy had never done that before or since...

Now, here is a book that I want to read: "Left for Dead: A Young Man's Search for Justice for  the USS
Indianapolis" by Hunter Scott and Pete Nelson.   Even though this is considered a "Young Adult" book , I have never let that stop me from reading about something I have a great interest in! I have also read that it is being developed for a movie, so keep an eye out for it!
I have a great many books about World War II that I would like to write about here.  I worked as a travel agent for almost twenty years and I was lucky enough to speak with a great many veterans making plans to go to their reunions.  We've lost a great many of those men, but I was very fortunate to meet some of them and talk with them about their experiences.  This contact with these men made me feel much more CURIOUS about the war and what they went through.  Other people that I worked with met these same men, but they were not as interested as I was (and still am).

 

What have you been curious about lately?  Done anything grand like getting the Navy to reverse a court-martial like young Hunter Scott?  What are you waiting for?