The Beacon

A dual-timeline adventure on the high seas of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans that covers World War 2 and the Viet Nam War and follows two U.S. Coast Guard members separated by a generation but with a common goal: to serve. The Beacon is the story of two Coast Guardsmen, Lloyd Wagner and Bob Erickson, who joined the Coast Guard back in the days when the Coast Guard's motto was "You have to go out, but you don't have to come back." The Beacon takes us from a sleepy lighthouse on the shore of Green Bay to 40-foot-waves and hurricane-force-winds in the north Atlantic. From the humdrum routine aboard a Coast Guard Cutter on Ocean Station November in the Pacific to the zing and whine of a deadly firefight in the jungles of Viet Nam. From a U-boat attack off Iceland to a PanAm passenger plane ditching in the Pacific. From lazy days on the beaches of Hawaii to the chaos and mayhem of an ammunition ship explosion in Guadalcanal. We follow the lives of Wagner and Erickson as they rise through the ranks of the Coast Guard from seaman recruit to Chief Petty Officer to Chief Warrant Office, and, ultimately ,Commanding Officer. We watch them as they grow up, fall in love, have families, and become the kind of leaders that are the backbone of the United States Coast Guard.