"Somehow, through all the separations and disasters, my mother persevered. She never left my father's side, not through any of it. I always wondered and marveled at her spirit. How did she do it? Perhaps she explained it herself before she married my father in a July 7, 1944 letter to him: 'Remember though what I told you at the station dear - you make me strong.' And somehow, deep inside, even as a young girl, before she even knew my father, maybe she knew what was coming." - From the book. You Make Me Strong is an interpretive collection of letters written by Virginia R. "Jinny" Thornton and her husband retired Navy Captain John W. "Johnny" Thornton. The letters begin with the young couple's 1944 courtship and extend through the anguish of two of the family's three wars. It is a companion volume for Captain Thornton's Korean War autobiography Believed to be Alive. Decades later, and writing from his own unique perspective, their son Jay reflects on what it all meant not only to his parents but also to him. You Make Me Strong is the touching tribute of a son, now grown old, for the goodness of two courageous souls who gave him life, faith and hope.