Guardians

Guardians


I am reading through Guard of Honor, by James Cozzens.

It is a very long narrative, at over seven hundred pages.
Reluctant to take on such a task, especially given that the debut did not seem convincing enough, now I have finished about a third of the book and got rather involved in it.

There are still passages that seem too long and not absolutely necessary, but there are interesting characters and the intrigue moves along.
A plane piloted by General Beal escapes without a major crash, but had nearly entered into a collision with another airplane, when the other pilot apparently makes a mistake.

Lieutenant colonel Carricker aka Benny, friend of the General, punches the pilot who made the mistake, an African American, called a negro at that time,and thus a series of unfortunate events is started.
Officers are segregated in the use of the club, although Army regulations indicate otherwise and this about to cause a protest and trouble.

These were different times, the base is situated in Florida, and in the South, people were still prejudiced and apparently racist.
I have reached the point where the Judge aka colonel Ross tries to defuse the tension and I am waiting to see how he does...

A side note of gratitude for Puccini, left out of the letter of thanks a couple of days ago.
He is a magnificent, phenomenal, amusing friend.