Gary Slaughter will talk about his new book, Sea Stories, a Memoir of a Naval Officer (1956-1967), at the Shiawassee Arts Center in Owosso on Sunday, Aug. 28, at 2 p.m.
On Oct. 27, 1962, the USS Cony surfaced B-59, a Soviet submarine. Gary Slaughter, a 22 year-old US Navy Ensign, studied the sullen face of Captain Savitsky at a distance of only 200 feet. Slaughter was the only officer on Cony trained to communicate with the Russian and his objective was to dissuade Savitsky from launching his torpedo. 40 years later Slaughter would learn that the torpedo was tipped with a 15 kiloton nuclear device that would have precipitated an all-out nuclear exchange between Soviets and Americans and most certainly destroyed the world.
Sea Stories brings this incredible true event vividly to life in just one of the 60 vignettes that span Slaughter’s service during the Cold War. Other vignettes depict his varied and rich Navy life with incidents, ranging from humorous and heartwarming to downright dangerous, showing new insights into Navy everyday life.
“Gary Slaughter’s sharing of the details of his emerging from college and enjoying seven years as a junior officer aboard two US Navy destroyers, is amazing in his recapture of so many interesting details. I marvel at the journaling he must have done. Revealed in his book are moments in history which could have reshaped the modern world we live in.” RADM J. C. Breast, USN (Ret.).
For more information about the book and the author, click on www.garyslaughter.com.
