Title: On Which We Serve: Where Life Lessons are Learned
Author: Edward Atkins
Publisher: WestBow Press
ISBN: 978-1-4497-3284-4
Pages: 773, Paperback/Kindle
Genre: History, Memoir
Reviewed by: Jason Lolus, Pacific Book Review
Book Review
“It was a peculiar anomaly: stimulating adventure, yet dreary drudgery.” Such is the author’s oppositional description of life on an aircraft carrier during World War II. The book is comprehensive, nearly ponderous at over 700 pages. But the book contains over 300 photographs (some of them incredible and even artistic). It is the photographs that guide the structure of the book. Beginning with each photograph, Atkins gives an overview of the daily routines, anomalies, schematics, and functions of life on an Essex-class aircraft carrier. Atkins intersperses his own reflections in the form of captions that segue from the photographs and their descriptions. It is an interesting confluence of objective history and subjective reflection that, at times, borders on a stream of consciousness.
While a tribute to all veterans, Atkins expressly wrote the book (he notes one of, if not the, last of its kind) to provide a historical account and a tribute to the blue collar workers on aircraft carriers: namely, the Airdales, of which he was one on the U.S.S. Antietam. The author is struck with nostalgia and reverence for lessons learned during this time of his life. He is also struck with awe at the carrier itself, describing it as a superstructure, a floating community, “the beauty of pure utility.” It is this beauty of function, the reliability of the 3,000+ personnel on the ship, and the self-discipline Atkins learned in life that find their way into his reflections, which begin with allegories and metaphors dealing with the daily life as an Airdale but extend to pontifications about a variety of individual and social issues beyond military life.
Atkins’ admiration for the grandeur of an aircraft carrier cannot be understated; this is why his descriptions are well written and detailed. A self-ascribed loner, he admires the independent yet interdependent functionality of the ship’s personnel and the mechanisms of the ship themselves. The tangents in the memoir sections of the book sometimes read like instructional guides for young adults, sometimes like life lessons, maxims, and words of advice. Emphasizing logic, ethics, self-discipline, a thirst for knowledge and hard work, the author imparts these qualities as the paradigms of what he learned as an Airdale and, presumably, as he continued to practice throughout his life. These contemplations do tend towards a conservative viewpoint, favoring a Libertarian perspective, one based on hard work and self-determination. However, the author never mentions a political party; he sticks to the principles he’s learned. He does well to frame this all within guiding principles such as self-reliance and responsibility, so it bears some resemblance to an existentialist context as much as it does the rugged individualism and Constitutional ethic of America.
All in all, this is a detailed and informative historical chronicle of the relatively unsung heroes on the carriers. The confluence of objective descriptions and subjective reflections work; while the tangents tend toward preachy, the implications are poignant and each life-lesson learned is usually sound advice.
