Inspired by the old African proverb: "When an old man dies, a library
burns to the ground," high-school student Morgan Rielly sought to
preserve as many Maine libraries as he could by interviewing men and
women from Maine who served in World War II and preserving their
stories. All of these veterans taught him something, too, not just about
how to fight a war, but how to live a life. They were never preachy,
never full of themselves. Each of them knew they had participated in
something great and special, but none of them thought that they,
themselves, were great or special. There was Fred Collins, the
sixteen-year-old Marine who used his Boy Scout training to clip a
wounded soldier's chest together using safety pins from machine gun
bandoliers while under withering fire on Iwo Jima. Or Inex Louise Roney,
who served as a gunnery instructor for the Marines, hoping she could end
the war sooner and bring her brother home. Or Harold Lewis, who held
onto hope despite being shot down out of the sky, nearly free-falling to
his death, and spending four months behind enemy lines in Italy. Or Jean
Marc Desjardins, whose near-death experiences defusing German bombs with
his buddy Puddinghead, taught Rielly the value of a good friend.