"That centipede," recalls Charles J. Doubrava, at 89, "nearly cost me my life." Just 16, this under age sharecropper's son enlisted for advanced training in the Navy's Seabees. In WWII, the average age of the combat construction battalions, 37. "To Build; To Fight." Doubrava entered the war near its end, in 1943. He saw the rolling ocean of the Pacific for the first time, experienced seasickness, trudged on jungle coral and muck, yet pulled his own weight. On the crowded troopships of over 1000 men ("destination unknown,") this young Seabee helped liberate the Philippines. Later that year, in 1945, his 32nd (Sp) C.B. NCB Battalion liberated China serving the CAN DO mission. After the war, Doubrava enlisted in the Army Air Corps (AF), was assigned to the Pentagon and(color blindness prevented flying), then to isolation duty on Iwo Jima Island. Here he met the Japanese again, imbiding libations on the volcanic, black sandy beaches. Vorkink Machin, the author, in her tenth book under Mosaic@Seventy Productions, excels in her profile of this feisty Czech veteran stating Doubrava is one of the best, and one of the last.