NAS Meridian setting for 'Sundown Town Duty Station'

 

ST. CHARLES, Mo. — “Sundown Town Duty Station” by J. J. Zerr, transports the reader to Meridian, Miss., in 1968. A time when there still were towns in the US where a colored person could not safely walk down the street after the sun went down.

This book is about Jon Zachary, a student in the US Navy flight training program. He wants to fly jets off aircraft carriers. But needs of the service dictate whether a student will be a jet, helicopter, or propeller plane pilot.

‘List Almighty’ is due out soon, which will determine if he gets his wish. When the List is published, Zachery is assigned to Meridian Naval Air Station for jet pilot training. He is overjoyed and moves his wife and two small children to Mississippi. They arrive in Meridian as the Klan is staging a campaign against what they consider to be a resurgence of Civil Rights activity. At Catholic Mass, Jon and Teresa enter a crowded church and sit in a pew with a colored girl, who is “sitting in,” and occupying a pew by herself. In doing so, they put themselves in Klan crosshairs. Getting through the winnowing process of flight training is no longer the most important consideration in their lives. Survival is.

The author’s personal experience of the time and place, augmented by research, sets the stage for the characters to act upon. Zerr wrote the story to pay tribute to the people who contributed baby steps of progress in the struggle for Civil Rights. Those giants of the movement, those who had dreams of what could be and should be, inspired leaps for mankind. The lesser lights, those who contributed the baby steps, by their small contributions, ensured that after the leap, there was solid ground for the foot to land on.

 



About the author

J. J. Zerr has published five novels and a collection of short stories. Prior to beginning his writing career, he was a US Navy carrier pilot. He flew 320 combat missions during the Vietnam War. The high point of time in the navy was serving as commanding officer of the carrier USS Constellation. After leaving the service, he worked in the aerospace industry as a program manager. He holds a master’s degree in engineering. He and his wife Karen reside in Missouri.

“Sundown Town Duty Station” is available at https://www.amazon.com/Sundown-Town-Duty-Station-Zerr/dp/1947938061/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1506700331&sr=1-1 or place an order at http://jjzerrsundowntowndutystation.com/book