Books with author Jim Howes

Red Crew is a first-hand account of U.S. Coast Guard anti-smuggling operations during the early years of the nation’s maritime war on drugs. Jim Howe describes his experience as the executive officer of a specialized drug-hunting crew that sailed in then-state-of-the-art “surface effect ships,” a small flotilla of high-speed vessels pressed into the drug war on short notice.In the early 1980s, South Florida and the Caribbean were awash in illicit drugs, with hundreds of smuggling organizations bringing huge loads of marijuana, and later cocaine, into the United States. To fight this epidemic, the Reagan administration led a massive effort to disrupt shore-side gangs while bolstering interdiction activity at sea. To increase the number of days at sea for each surface effect ship, a “multi-crewing” concept was employed, with four teams of sixteen sailors—the Red, Blue, Green, and Gold Crews—rotating among three hulls.Through its first-person narrative, Red Crew offers a rare glimpse into the day-to-day pressures, challenges, failures, and successes of Coast Guard cuttermen as they carried out complex and dangerous missions. Red Crew provides a unique historical view of the early days in the Coast Guard’s war on drugs, and is the only book-length history of the diminutive, one-of-a-kind surface effect ship fleet.

Red Crew is a first-hand account of U.S. Coast Guard anti-smuggling operations during the early years of the nation's maritime war on drugs. Jim Howe describes his experience as the executive officer of a specialized drug-hunting crew that sailed in then-state-of-the-art "surface effect ships," a small flotilla of high-speed vessels pressed into the drug war on short notice.In the early 1980s, South Florida and the Caribbean were awash in illicit drugs, with hundreds of smuggling organizations bringing huge loads of marijuana, and later cocaine, into the United States. To fight this epidemic, the Reagan administration led a massive effort to disrupt shore-side gangs while bolstering interdiction activity at sea. To increase the number of days at sea for each surface effect ship, a "multi-crewing" concept was employed, with four teams of sixteen sailors--the Red, Blue, Green, and Gold Crews--rotating among three hulls.Through its first-person narrative, Red Crew offers a rare glimpse into the day-to-day pressures, challenges, failures, and successes of Coast Guard cuttermen as they carried out complex and dangerous missions. Red Crew provides a unique historical view of the early days in the Coast Guard's war on drugs, and is the only book-length history of the diminutive, one-of-a-kind surface effect ship fleet.

An anthology of short stories with beautiful illustrations throughout. On certain nights, when the hands on the big old clock in the animal hospital approach midnight, something changes. As the clock strikes out the twelve chimes, each and every animal in every cage, in every ward, is ready. When the last chime echoes through the dark hallways, all the animals sit up. The building seems to hold its breath. Then all the locks on the cages click and the doors swing open. Without a sound, the animals gather outside for the meeting of The Midnight Club. None of them knows who will be tonight’s storyteller. They only know that the stories they share are important. They need to be told every night, at midnight, when the big clock in the meeting room strikes twelve. At the start and end of each story there is a ritual that signals the rights of animals to hope for and receive the basic things needed for a safe and contented life.

Every night, in the big old animal hospital, as the night staff are settling in for the overnight duty, the ancient grandfather clock in the hallway begins to strike midnight. As it strikes 1-2-3, all the birds in their cages are sitting up, alert. As the clock strikes 4-5-6, all the animanls with fur stir in their small cages. As the clock strikes 7-8-9, the animals with scales move from under their blanket and as the clock strikes 10-11-12 and the last chime echoes through the corridors, every animal is ready. As the last chimes die down, all the locks on the animals' cages click open and the doors swing out. The animals, most of them bandaged or wounded, limp, hop, wriggle and creep through the hall, down the steps and out into the garden at the back of the hospital. There they form a small group in the moonlight. From out of the sky a big brown owl flies in. She plucks a leaf from the tree and swoops over the group of animals where she drops the leaf. The animals watch it flutter towards the ground. Whichever one of them the leaf lands closest to will be the storyteller for that night. They will step forward and, in the language that all animals know, they will tell the story of how they came to be at the hospital before launching into a story about a relative out in the wild. None of them knows who will be the storytellers and none know what the stories will be. They only know that they are stories about the things that animals share...and that they are stories that must be told.