ON WRITING A DAWN LIKE THUNDER

At the age of sixty-two, I’m pretty sure I’m the only former member of Congress who decided to become a novelist instead of a lobbyist. Looking back on my life, I believe I was a writer who became a politician, rather than a politician who turned to writing. 

I’ve been writing stories since I was ten years old.  In 1968, I had recently gotten out of the Navy, and my anger over the war and its human cost had left me drifting.  I decided to attend the London Film School.  Six months later, Robert Kennedy was assassinated.  Suddenly, my goal of writing books and making films seemed trivial compared to the upheaval that was taking place at home.

My anger over the Vietnam War and its aftermath carried me a long way in politics, but during my seventeen tears in elective office, I never stopped writing.  I like to think I have gotten better at it since.  I’m as proud of the awards that my books have received as much of the legislation I authored in Congress.

A Dawn Like Thunder was inspired by one of my favorite novelists, Herman Wouk, who in War and Remembrance aroused in my imagination the magnitude of the sacrifice of a naval air squadron that helped to win the pivotal battle of the Pacific War against Japan.  Through a combination of courage, luck, and timing, it was the fate of these men to change the course of history. 

This book wasn’t written to mythologize war.  In the 21st century, that would be a sacrilege.  These young Americans were fighting to help win what they hoped would be a lasting peace, and then return home to enjoy the rest of their lives.  Forty-five of the forty-eight men who flew with the squadron at Midway on June 4, 1942 were killed. 

It was my goal in A Dawn Like Thunder to bring them alive again on the printed page, to illuminate who they were, what they did, and why they were willing to make the ultimate sacrifice for our nation.