Book excerpt: Basil Lawrence "Pete" Allaway (1899-1962) served in both world wars, first in the United States Navy as a yeoman chief petty officer aboard the U.S.S. Huron, an impounded German cruise liner that was converted for troop transport, mostly between New York and France. Later, in the Second World War, as a U.S. Army corporal in Assam, India, supporting the construction of the Ledo Road into Burma. The new road was to supply help to the Chinese in order to repel the Japanese invaders. These are his tales of escape from reality and moral responsibility, told with some regard for fact, but mostly with lighthearted humor. It is a work of imagination and fiction, liberally sprinkled with some of Pete's poetry. History buffs and scholars will appreciate the good parallel with the time-lines of the two wars, with Prohibition and the Great Depression. The story covers with precision the places Pete was sent and most of what he accomplished (or failed to accomplish).