In what may be our last personal account of WWII, 91 year old veteran William D. Rouse has just released his memoir, My Small Part in WWII or How I Discovered St. Tropez Before Brigitte Bardot. Rouse's witty and sometimes darkly perceptive series of snapshots of the life of a sailor on a hospital ship, the U.S. Refuge, both offshore and on, brings an era to life through its dangers, its music, and its people. A vibrant addition to the social history of the period, My Small Part in WWII is both an entertaining, and an enlightening, read. It is never too late to fulfill a dream, something William Rouse knows well. The 90-year-old WWII veteran Rouse has just published his first book, an imaginative, witty novel called Plucked Again! in the sci-fi fantasy genre for teens to adults. Rouse is not new to writing, having first gone to college on a play writing scholarship. The demands of work and raising a family put his writing on the sidelines, but Rouse never gave up.An analyst with the U.S. Public Health Department, Rouse retired but did not slow down, learning carpentry and renovating old Virginia houses, working as a freelance antiques dealer, and even trying his hand at chicken farming while living on the Eastern shore, Virginia. While chicken farming was not for him, it did inspire Rouse to weave the entertaining and insightful Plucked Again! in the process.A highly original tale, Plucked Again! manages to be both funny and insightful as protagonist Flanker is given a second chance at life with the guidance of a surprising guru, Mac, an ancient, very wise, talking chicken. While Mac leads Flanker to making sense of his past and improving his future, Plucked Again! takes the reader on an entertaining journey that also proves to the rest of us that it is never too late to pursue your dreams.
