Heaven's Ray

For Heaven Ray Turner, World War II was halfway across the globe in Europe or far to the south in the Pacific Islands. Then, the Japanese invaded the Aleutian Islands of Attu and Kiska, part of her beloved Alaska. She set aside her comfortable life in the small town of Kodiak, Alaska, and applied for a commission in the United States Naval Nurse Core. After training, she is deployed to the South Pacific, where her faith is challenged as she struggles with the burden of treating the wounded and dying. Stationed in far-off Alaska, Navy Ensign Mark Lawson IV sees the necessity but questions the morality of the mission he's been given - the forced evacuation of several villages in the Aleutian Islands and the Aleuts' resettlement, nearly a thousand miles away, in abandoned fish canneries and mines in Southeast Alaska. Because of the threat of further Japanese attacks, the mission is rushed, his orders are incomplete, and for the first time, his sense of duty is brought into conflict with what he believes is right. He longs for reassignment to an active battleship or destroyer in the South Pacific. Ensign Lawson and Nurse Turner are forever changed by World War II. Their lives intersect throughout the war and after as they struggle to live in a world that has been permanently altered. Miss Ruth said, "It can't be what it was, but it can still be good." Was she right?