Chester's Stories

About the Book

Chester’s Stories is a historical work recounting the memories of a Chicago native named Chester Mocek as he shared them with his sons and his grandchildren. These stories span segments of time from 1935 to 1945. The book features descriptive tales of Chester’s life as a Civilian Conservation Corps enrollee working in southwestern Oregon during the Great Depression, and the work also acquaints readers with the often harrowing sometimes captivating sagas based upon Corporal Mocek’s World War II service throughout the South Pacific. The reader will feel a young American’s particular and personal triumphs as he develops an extraordinary will to survive and grow up in the face of very arduous demands that take him throughout America and literally around the world from Boston to San Francisco. He makes brief stops away from his home country in Rio de Janeiro, Suez, Capetown South Africa, and Ceylon, and makes several visits throughout Australia. He does battle in Buna and Milne Bay on Papua, on Mindanao and Luzon in the Philippine Islands, and on other small isles of the East Indies Chester’s Stories will enhance your understanding of what one twentieth-century man’s economic hardship and military service were like. It will also elevate your appreciation of a time when Americans, unified by a common purpose, pulled together with their allies to make our world a better place.

About the Author

R.C. Mocek is a retired teacher and elementary school principal. He taught and/or supervised students of every grade level from kindergarten to grade twelve in a career spanning nearly forty years. He also taught graduate students as an adjunct professor of educational administration. He holds a B.A.in English from Southern Illinois University, an M.A. in educational administration from Roosevelt University, and an earned Ed.D. from Northern Illinois University.