For over a year, Russell was in training in various Southern states. He was still a trainee when Germany surrendered, though the war against Japan had not yet ended. In training outside of Pensacola, Florida, he fell for a local girl. At this point, he had learned to swim but was still a virgin. Both swimming and flying were challenging to learn, but Russell managed eventually. Flying was a struggle at first because he did not feel in control of the plane. After a particularly bad flight, he was given a “down,” a demerit on his record, and set to be tested on a Monday by a tough pilot named T.L. Smith.

That weekend, his friends took him to a hotel for a last hurrah. In a drunken stupor, Russell was accosted by a woman who wanted to seduce him, but he fell asleep on the floor instead. His hangover was terrible. Yet somehow, on Monday, when he took the test, his performance was excellent.

Despite this triumph, Russell was still not successful in losing his virginity. The other men told great tales of their conquests, but Russell could not join in. He experienced awkward failure after awkward failure, each time just when he thought he was going to succeed. Eventually, he began to feel that he was fated to be a virgin. At length, Baker recounts the memory of a married woman who tried to seduce him but eventually decided he was really only a kid.

After all this, it was a relief to meet Karen, whom Baker describes as a “good girl.” He told his mother he wanted to marry her. Worried, his mother wrote back that she did not think his plan was compatible with breaking into journalism.

What was on Russell’s mind the most at this point, however, was joining the invasion of Japan. He wanted to fight at last. But while he was still in training, the United States dropped a nuclear bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, leading to the end of the war. Through excerpts from letters between his mother and him, Baker shows that neither he nor his family had any idea of what a serious, tragic, and consequential event this was.