One thing I learned early is that adventure can come cheap. In college, a close friend, Felix Duprey, and I loaded up his 1939 Ford convertible and set out one summer on a drive around the country. In three months we covered over thirteen thousand miles and thirty-six states. We slept in bandstands in Vermont, railroad boxcars in Texas, and in the bushes beside the nation's capitol in Washington, D.C. The entire trip cost me only $350. We returned home just in time to enlist in the Air Force after the outbreak of the "police action" in Korea, more out of boredom with school than any great patriotic fervor.

I have never forgotten Felix, Jack Hawkins, and me, sitting in the recruiting office looking at each other and repeating over and over, "I'll go if you go," or "If you join, I'll join." I can't recall who raised his hand first and took the oath to defend the country from foreign invaders, but I have never forgiven him.

Despite my applying for aerial photography or the intelligence department, some sneaky sergeant in the Training Command found out I was a California hot-rodder and sent me to aircraft engine school.

After my graduation, the Air Force demanded I be attached to Hickam Field, Hawaii, to work on mammoth twenty-eight-cylinder radial engines mounted on C-97 Boeing Stratocruisers. These were large propellerdriven aircraft the Air Force used as transports to fly critical personnel and supplies to Korea before airlifting the wounded back to hospitals in the States.

During the three years I was stationed on Oahu, my buddies Dave Anderson and Al Giordano, a gritty and witty Italian who was the model for Al Giordino in my books, and I explored the inner jungles of the island, searching for lost aircraft, ancient Hawaiian burial caves, and missing people. I recall finding none.

We also became early diving fanatics. This was in late 1951 and there was little in the way of underwater equipment. We made our own camera cases, spear guns, and floats. My first mask was a weird affair made in France that covered the entire face, with two snorkels that contained Ping-Pong balls to halt incoming water. As I recall, it was made of gum rubber. The early commercially produced dive fins fit your feet like bedroom slippers with flaps.

We hit the water every chance we had, exploring the bays and coves around Oahu. I also took my gear and dove around Midway and Wake islands during refueling stops on flights to Tokyo. Those were the days when you seldom ran across another diver.