Product Description

As the first Persian Gulf War approaches, Wes Hammond, an eager young naval officer and military school graduate, finds himself assigned to a Temporary Personnel Unit in peacetime California, awaiting orders for active duty. Together with three other newly commissioned officers and the women they meet, Wes waits for war by embarking on a series of journeys through the desert Southwest -- until one ends with a sudden act of violence, and an unexpected opportunity for change.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1966384 in Books
• Published on: 2006-08-30
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 236 pages

Review
"Lean and powerful...Hemingway's taut prose and Dostoyevsky's spiritual quests inform the action, but Farrell O'Gorman's sensibility is wholly original." -- Valerie Sayers, author of Brain Fever

"This graceful meditation on power, authority, and identity is...brought to the page with unexpected and vivid profundity." -- Erin McGraw, author of Lies of the Saints

About the Author
Farrell O'Gorman, a native of South Carolina, graduated from Notre Dame's Great Books program in 1990. He then served four years aboard U.S. Navy ships in California and overseas before completing doctoral study in English at the University of North Carolina.

Farrell has published articles and delivered public lectures on American literature in the U.S., Canada, and France, and his book on Flannery O'Connor and Walker Percy, Peculiar Crossroads, was published by Louisiana State University Press in 2004. An assistant professor of English at Mississippi State University, he will serve as a faculty leader at the 2007 National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Institute "Reconsidering Flannery O'Connor" in Milledgeville, Georgia.

Farrell's creative work has appeared or is forthcoming in such journals as Image, Shenandoah and The Gettysburg Review. One of his personal essays, originally published in Notre Dame Magazine, has been selected to appear in Best Catholic Writing 2007. He lives in Mississippi with his wife and children.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
"Ensign, your mission here is simple: stand by to stand by."

Lieutenant Ragis said this as though he had had a great deal of practice. He wore a slight absent smile and folded his hands primly in front of him, sitting straight behind his desk and peering shyly ahead through thin glasses. Wes listened in mild stupefaction as his new OIC thumbed through his orders and continued speaking with only occasional glances at him: "You see, the flight schools on both coasts are backed up indefinitely. Why that is is hard to justify, but in part it's a simple numbers game. We could sort out all the contributing factors retroactively and determine what should have been done, but the facts are these." He paused and waved his pen, as though he were ordering the facts into formation. "When you entered ROTC--mid-eighties, right?--the military was building up to unprecedented levels. Reagan was talking about a six hundred ship navy, for God's sake. And the manpower was there to do it. And everyone wanted to fly. I'd be willing to bet you and your whole high school football team saw Top Gun the summer after you graduated, didn't you?" Wes winced and tried to think of a good answer, but the lieutenant kept talking anyway. "Regardless, you've done well enough that you've actually gotten into flight school. Not that brownshoes are the only ones with this problem. Subs have recently gotten popular, and even the good old surface navy is jam full--I bet you had buddies with eye problems or who were business majors who were disappointed to find out they had to go to supply school. "The bottom line, as they say, is that the navy you're actually being commissioned into isn't the one the planners were planning when you started. We can't even decide who the enemy is anymore, and the past year has been nothing but budget cuts, budget cuts, and more budget cuts. The army has even started letting people who got a full ride through college go because they can't find billets for them. We haven't gotten that far yet, though I'd guess we might in a few years. "But to get back to you. For the time being, you're stashed. You and a couple of dozen other potential aviators, but we have surface guys in and out of here too. The ships usually find a place for them sooner than flight school does for you. Of course, your commitment doesn't start running out until you actually start school, so your lives are more or less on hold until you get in. That's why they're trying to open up more billets. But meanwhile, we're going to see what we can do to keep up your professional training--send you out to the firing range, arrange some base visits, maybe even run you through comms school--but you're more or less on your own for a little while. Enjoy it. There are worse things that could happen to you than being stuck in southern California with a decent paycheck and a lot of free time." The lieutenant leaned forward and gave him a brief smile, at once placating and ingratiating and conspiratorial, but it did not last long. More than anything else he looked relieved to have finished his speech and to be done with Wes. He seemed mildly uncomfortable. At first Wes had the strange sense that this unease had something to do with his Institute background, but later he noticed that the lieutenant acted the same way toward all of the men under his nominal command. He had given Wes a brief history of his own career. From Connecticut, he had gone through ROTC at Georgetown, surface warfare officer's school, then three and a half years on a destroyer out of San Diego. What he did not say was that something had gone wrong on that sea tour, something significant enough to earn him as his first shore duty this plum assignment: Commander of the Temporary Personnel Unit. The papers on his desk all had to do with his ongoing efforts to have some mysterious letter of reprimand removed from his record and to effect a permanent transfer to naval intelligence, where he could sit at a computer and analyze data and maybe garner an assignment to an embassy alongside the Mediterranean. If he didn't succeed he was going to get out, move to the Napa Valley, and start a vineyard. But Wes would not learn all this until later, after the "professional training" generally failed to materialize and he began to wonder what the OIC did with all his time. At least that first day Ragis had established an agenda for the day following, an orientation session in which the yeomen would lead newly reporting offi cers through a few hours worth of paperwork before showing them around the building and the base. "So tomorrow should be fun. Maybe you'll get to meet the warrant, who's sort of my acting XO around here." He grimaced. "A truly charming man." Then he opened the door for Wes, only to see another junior officer waiting outside. The lieutenant invited him in, and as Wes walked down the hall he heard Ragis' voice trilling faintly. Ensign, your mission here is simple... After that week the lieutenant began assembling all new arrivals on Friday mornings when he would give the speech just once so as to better conserve his time.

Customer Reviews

Great Debut
I recommend this book to anyone who would like to read a good story but who also is interested in exploring an important view of life and its purpose.

I was engaged by the story. The main characters, just out of various military colleges, go on numerous "road trips" while awaiting their military assignments. I found myself reading the book first very quickly because I wanted to know the outcomes of these adventures as well as each person's final military assignment.

However, I also found myself re-reading sections, in effect, reading the book twice. I needed to figure out how the author was informing the feelings of his characters. I guess there is a little bit of all the characters in each of us, however, I found the main character most interesting. He has it very nice/easy (a cush "assignment" while awaiting his real orders) but there is an empty feeling, a void, he needs to fill. Anyone familiar with Walker Percy's main characters would know it as the "malaise" found so frequently 20th century America. The author does a wonderful and original job of having his main character deal with and explore this issue.

Three different types of readers will enjoy this book. One who wants a story to read and nothing else; another who appreciates the underlying significance in the story. Or, if you are like me, a reader who will like both.

Waiting for Life to Begin
On the surface, Awaiting Orders (Idylls Press, August 2006, paperback, 236 pages) is the story of young men, waiting for life's next move. They have assembled together in what appears to be a paradise situation - recent graduates of military institutions, they have nothing more responsible to do than lounge around in beachfront living, awaiting their next military assignment. Given today's military situation, is seems hard to remember that the era surrounding the first Persian Gulf War was a time of cutbacks and troop stand downs.

In the book, we meet a cast of characters who are developed wonderfully by Catholic author Farrell O'Gorman. Although the majority of the story is told through the eyes of Wes, we quickly see how his story line is interwoven with that of his friends, both male and female. It is these relationships that are at the core of Awaiting Orders. This is not a war story, or a book about the military. Although it does contain tactical information and is well based in its historical context, the characters and their interactions are truly at the heart of this book.

In the end, it becomes apparent that it is in fact a less noticeable character in the story that truly drives the message of the book home. John, Wes' roommate, seems to operate at times on the periphery of the storyline. However, John's relationship with Wes and with so many of the others in this book is really the focal point. A second and closer reading of the book brought me to the perspective that John is ultimately, in his own quiet way, leading each of his friends in a unique fashion to his or her own vocation or calling in life.

Set in a time so different from today's military climate, this book caught my attention from the first page and kept me glued to it until the very end. I am pleased to give Awaiting Orders my highest recommendation.

Great book!
This is a fresh look at how the military operates - how modern soldiers serve in war time from the perspective of what appear to be very real people.