Reviewed by Roy T. James for Readers’ Favorite

An Airman’s Journey From 1947 Enlistment through 1972 Retirement: Always a New Adventure by Robert M Fletcher, Sr. is a memoir of the really interesting times a fun loving and sporting young man from the farming community of Georgia happened to face in his military career. Covered in the early part of the book are details of how he is exposed to military life, the drudgery of barracks duties, like cleaning latrines, and the kitchen police, overcoming all of those to become a surgical technician, and getting assigned to different air bases to finally reach a forward station in South Korea. The many instances of near fatal attacks during his stint in South Korea during the Korean War, the tour of Japan, and the long list of adventures Robert could already amass from there then follows. Returning from Japan to do action filled tenure, this time in Germany, only adds to the pleasurable memories.

An Airman’s Journey From 1947 Enlistment through 1972 Retirement: Always a New Adventure by Robert M Fletcher, Sr. is replete with humorous experiences like guarding the commander’s dog or inventing a real ‘sob story’ to arrange a compassionate transfer, or his escapades with girls nationally as well as abroad. The memoir has a very good collection of photographs of people, events and celebrations of those days, except that all visual reminders pertaining to his steady girlfriends have been destroyed by his wife! Robert seems to have taken special care to bring the enjoyable facets of barracks life to the forefront, while making efforts to downplay all the routine chores that need not be of great interest to the public. I thoroughly enjoyed this book.