And the Lord Shall Raise an Ensign

"Gordon floated out of the commander's office. He sensed his fortunes had turned 180 degrees. On the pinnacle of a phenomenal high, incandescing like lights on Broadway, he now believed that the backbreaking labor he had performed for his father on the roofs of Brooklyn had a larger purpose. His feet carried him to where his prayer book lay open to the well-worn page containing the sentence ".and the Lord shall raise an ensign." Once again his strictly private play on the word "ensign" gave him solace-even as his frequent trouble-making public displays of dry wit provided cover." "And the Lord Shall Raise an Ensign" is a World War II male Cinderella story of sorts-with seductive and serendipitous twists. Charles Gordon, a handsome, well-spoken Jew from a poor working-class Yankee family, enters a naval officer's program along with almost exclusively southern classmates. With some fairy-godmother luck and remarkable feats of derring-do, accomplished despite the erection of malicious and prejudicial obstacles, Gordon eventually becomes an oddball hero among awestruck peers and admiring superiors. After earning the rank of ensign, an unexpected sequence of events ends with the virgin officer serving brilliantly as the Navy's youngest lead fighter director on an aircraft carrier in the Pacific war zone. Unforeseen and unjust consequences of dangerous liaisons, however, threaten to destroy him completely.