Carl & Me & WWII
Annielaura M. Jaggers
(Reviewer - Dr. Alma H. Bond)
2006 Aventine Press
ISBN: 159330353X

A Husband And Wife's Experiences.

Annielaura Jaggers & her husband Carl were both retired, & she was writing a column for The Atkins Chronicle with a variety of content when, in 1995, Carl died.

Annielaura could not get her mind on anything but him & their 55 years together. In an effort to ameliorate her grief, she wrote of his illness & death, & then concentrated on their traveling from the east coast to the west with two stations in between, after he joined the US Navy in 1944.

When his ship sailed to the Pacific, she turned to his letters for sustenance & quoted liberally from them in her columns the rest of the year, after his death. It served as therapy to heal & rehabilitate her. When she was told it would make a great book, that the letters could stand alone, being who she was, she couldn't keep herself out of it.

Carl & Me & WWII is a true story, as nearly as one can tell the truth. It contains no heroics, but gives an account of one sailor & one wife during interesting times. AnnieLaura says, “No other WWII story that I know of includes the wife; however I have done so and will allow the reader to judge.”

Sr. Associate Reviewer Alma H. Bond writes:

Carl & Me & WWII is a memoir of Carl Jagger's experiences in World War 11, & how they affected his wife, AnnieLaura. Unlike what one would expect from a chronicle of such devastating times, the book is light & charming, & often reads like a 40's movie. I kept picturing the book as a film starring Goldie Hawn & Mel Gibson. The book is interesting on two scores: for WWII buffs, it is an absorbing history of one man's experiences in the South Pacific during the war. On the second account, the book is a sweet record of a successful love story.

Carl was exempt from the draft because his work in food production was considered essential to the war effort. After about a year, however, he couldn't stand it any longer that people thought he was a draft evader. Without AnnieLaura's knowledge, he applied for & was given a commission in the U.S. Navy. While AnnieLaura was not happy that he had volunteered without consulting her, she had no alternative but to accept it. He was assigned to Fort Schuyler on Throgneck Sound, Long Island, New York. Despite his forbidding her to accompany him, being AnnieLaura she went anyway, & took a room three short blocks from the gate, & saw him whenever she could.

On Carl’s first assignment the young couple from Arkansas spent an exciting, never to be forgotten six weeks in New York City, followed by an equally delightful three months in New Orleans, & a stint in San Diego. Wherever they went, this warm & outgoing couple had a wonderful time, making dear friends (including their landlords) who often remained friends for life. According to AnnieLaura, “Carl and I experienced... a wonderful sense of camaraderie with nearly everyone we were associated with in our travels.” (p.66). No wonder! Anyone reading this book would want to know them, too. On the day after their 5th wedding anniversary, Carl's ship, the USS Clearfield, departed for unknown waters.

In terms of its historical significance, Carl & Me & WWII takes his wife (& the reader) through his adventures “all over the Pacific Ocean”, winding up under fire for two weeks at Ii Shima, off the coast of Okinawa, in one of the great battles of the war. Nevertheless, in what was apparently an effort to keep his wife from being upset, Carl “took it easy” on reporting the gory details of battle.

The month of August 1945 saw the end of the war. Carl wrote, simply, “The war is over and I am thrilled... Next thrilling thing would be for me to be discharged and get home to my precious...”(p. 138). Carl spent V-J Day in Tokyo Bay, & wrote his wife that he was proud to be there: “The convoy which we came in with was stretched out for 19 miles. As we passed the Battleship USS Missouri, we were called to General Quarters and stood at attention on stations. During this time, MacArthur was supposed to have signed the peace agreement.” (p. 142)

Carl experienced his most frightening duty after the war was over. He weathered two gigantic “typhoons, standing top watches while navigating the mine-riddled waters of the Yellow Sea off the coast of China, as the captain tried to find a port which will allow unloading their cargo of Chiang Kai Chek's troops...”” (p. 143). AnnieLaura writes, “It's not easy to wrap up a war...” (ibid). Carl touchingly wrote, “Plan to be in Seattle for Christmas. Do not buy me any presents. You are all I want.” (p. 167)

In speaking of Carl's romantic declarations, AnnieLaura writes, “He certainly was no Elizabeth Barrett Browning who asks in one of her Sonnets from the Portuguese, ‘How do I love thee? Let me count the ways’, and proceeds to count for the remaining 13 lines of the poem. But I find Carl's professions of love after all these years very pleasing and reassuring.” Carl seemed a thoroughly decent, genuine, likeable, sincere, typically American young man. He loved his wife deeply. Rather than worry her with very understandable fears of being killed by the enemy, he wrote, “Honey, please do not worry about me. I am not afraid. I know I'm going to be all right.” (p.85). He also reassured her that she had nothing to worry about from other women. “My impression is that married women at home need not worry about their husbands because as a whole the women here (all nationalities) are very, very unattractive.” (p. 86). One suspects AnnieLaura “had nothing to worry about” more because of the love her dear husband had for her than any lack of attractiveness on the part of the various women he met.

Carl & Me & WWII begins with the real end of the story, Carl's terrible illness & his overwhelming dependency on AnnieLaura. As their daughter Christi said, when insisting AnnieLaura get some help, “Mother, we cannot afford for you to get sick when Dad's first and last word of the day is AnnieLaura.”” (p.17). Sadly enough, their 55th anniversary was spent in Room 444 at St. Mary's Hospital in Russellville, Arkansas. AnnieLaura ate yogurt in the cafeteria for their anniversary dinner. At his death, she writes simply, “Loss. He is gone... Of course, I shall never be the same again.” The writer does not hesitate to tell us, however, that Carl's death also brought her a sense of relief that she no longer had “to feel that horrible sense of powerlessness as I did when he called me... that I do not have to watch him gasp for breath... That his death occurred quickly and that he was quite rational until the last.” (p. 25)

A minor criticism: The writer goes back & forth between the present & the past throughout the book, which this reviewer sometimes found a bit confusing & difficult to follow. Otherwise, Carl & Me & WWII is highly readable, & is recommended for those who are interested in WWII history, & in particular to those skeptics who don't believe it is possible to have a long-lasting love affair.

More from Annielaura M. Jaggers:
A Professor's Unforgettables
A Nude Singularity: Lily Peter of Arkansas, a Biography.
Billy Freeman, Florida Keys Sheriff.
(05/21/06)

Dr. Alma H. Bond
2006©Alma H. Bond
A RebeccasReads.Com Sr. Associate Reviewer

A RebeccasReads author featured in Authors & Books

Reviewer's Bio:
Dr. Alma Halbert Bond is the author of 11 published books. Her latest, Camille Claudel: A Novel, hot off the presses!
The Deadly Jigsaw Puzzle;
The Tree That Could Fly;
Tales Of Psychology (2005);
I Married Dr. Jekyll And Woke Up Mrs. Hyde (2000);
The Autobiography Of Maria Callas, A Novel (1998);
On Becoming A Grandparent: A Diary of Family Discovery (1994);
Who Killed Virginia Woolf? A Psychobiography (1998);
Profiles of Key West (1996).

She recently recorded her new manuscript, Old Age Is A Terminal Illness, as an audio book.

She is also the author of a just published children's picture book called The Tree That Could Fly.

Dr. Bond teaches Psychology & Writing online at WriterSchool.