Shuri Gate

SHURI GATE is the second book written about Okinawa and its people by the author. It was written as a memoir and to tell about the Americans who were stationed there in the military and their relationships with the Okinawan people. Most of the characters are profiles of real people or composites of several people the author knew on the island.Shuri Gate is a fictional memoir of the author’s military tours in Asia particularly on the island of Okinawa while serving in the US Air Force as a KC135 tanker crew chief. It is the story of the relationship and eventual marriage of an inter-racial couple on the island. Tomako is Okinawan by birth and has lost her first true love in Vietnam. She is carrying his child with a very grim future to look forward to. She then meets and falls in love with Rick Davis a tanker crew chief who is flying combat missions in Southeast Asia.Rick makes several trips to Southeast Asia and Okinawa and is TDY to Kadena AFB where he flies several combat missions to and off the coast of North Vietnam and China. On one mission the crew is flying amongst rain and ice laden cumulus clouds which they cannot climb above while awaiting the arrival of EC-135 which is also bound for Kadena AFB on Okinawa. His tanker also supports search and rescue operations on Combat Apple missions by refueling aircraft seeking downed pilots.