Description
Three and a half years in the Coast Guard — the late 1950s, from the inside. Ray Garra served on active duty with the United States Coast Guard from 1956 to 1960, and Shallow Water Sailor is his engaging memoir of those wildly contrasting assignments. The title is the service’s own gentle joke — “shallow water sailors” — and Garra wears it with pride.
Written in the form of a novel but true in every event (the author insists the characters are real), the book captures a vanished era of service life: the ships, the stations, the boredom and the sudden adrenaline. It is military memoir with salt spray on it. Garra’s eye for character — shipmates, officers, port-town eccentrics — makes every chapter vivid.
For veterans, Coast Guard families, and readers who love mid-century Americana. Salt-sprayed, good-humored, and full of vanished detail.
Shallow Water Sailor by Ray Garra – A Coast Guard Memoir
Introduction to Shallow Water Sailor by Ray Garra
Shallow Water Sailor is the engaging memoir of Ray Garra, who served three and a half years on active duty with the United States Coast Guard. The term “shallow water sailor” is sometimes jokingly applied to Coast Guardsmen, and Garra embraces it as the title for his tale of wildly contrasting assignments during a three-year period in the late 1950s. Though written in the form of a novel, the author notes that the events depicted are true and the characters are real.
Life in the Coast Guard, 1956 to 1960
Set during the era from 1956 to 1960, when Eisenhower was serving his second term as President, the book follows a young sailor through the everyday realities of Coast Guard service: the boredom and the danger, the humor and the hardship, the shipmates who become brothers. Garra captures a vanished America and a service that rarely gets its due in military literature, writing with warmth, honesty, and a storyteller’s eye for detail.
Why You Should Read This Book
Whether you served yourself, love military history, or simply enjoy a well-told true story, Shallow Water Sailor offers a rare, ground-level view of the Coast Guard in the postwar years. An affectionate and authentic memoir that will resonate with veterans and history buffs alike.
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