In progress
1945
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The Airstrip Built in a Day
Wayne guns his heavy truck engine and hauls load after load of dirt across a muddy field — his unit has just 36 hours to build an airstrip from scratch. With sweat, grit, and a convoy of roaring trucks, the impossible deadline is met and the planes can finally land.
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1946
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Snow College and the Farm Calls
Wayne comes home from the war, enrolls at Snow College, and dares to imagine a new future — until his father's failing health calls him back to the farm. Wayne trades his textbooks for tractor keys and takes over the family land, choosing family over his own dreams.
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1944
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The Sergeant and the Pullman
When a tough train conductor refuses to let 16 young recruits board, a fearless sergeant grabs him by the collar and demands they get the finest sleeping cars on the train. Wayne and his buddies roll toward their new lives in style, watching the desert blur past through Pullman windows.
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Ready
1945
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Fireworks That Turned Deadly
The war is over! From a hilltop Wayne watches 2,000 ships in Buckner Bay erupt in celebration — guns firing into the sky, tracers lighting the ocean like the biggest Fourth of July ever. But then the bullets start falling back down, and the order comes: take cover and don't move.
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Silver Foxes and the Depression
Ten-year-old Wayne helps tend 64 pens of silver foxes at the Wilberg family resort, cooking up smelly meat-and-grain mix and learning that each silky pelt is worth a small fortune. The foxes are the secret weapon keeping the whole family afloat through the hardest years America has ever seen.
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In progress
1944
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Two Blankets and Boot Camp
Eighteen-year-old Wayne arrives at boot camp in San Diego, where officers smack helmets, boys string cigarette butts on thread as punishment, and everyone learns to say 'Yes Sir' fast. By graduation Wayne stands tall — a Marine ready for anything.
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1945
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Password on the Rice Paddies
Wayne's truck breaks down in the middle of Okinawa's flooded rice paddies and sugar cane fields, and suddenly he must stand guard duty alone in the dark. Every soldier who walks toward him must know the secret password — or face the consequences.
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The Narrator on the Matched Horses
For fourteen years Wayne rides onto the pageant stage on a matched pair of horses, telling the stories of the pioneers who settled Castle Valley while a grandchild sits beside him. With every season, a new small voice joins his, passing the stories forward.
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1945
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Easter Sunday on the Shore
On Easter Sunday morning, April 1, 1945, Wayne's boots hit the sand of Okinawa — and nothing happens. No shots, no enemy, just silence and wide beaches. For ten strange, watchful days the Marines push north, searching, while the mystery of the missing enemy builds.
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1944
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The M-1 That Never Left His Side
Wayne learns the first rule of being a Marine: your rifle is never more than an arm's length away — not at dinner, not at sleep, not ever. One Marine forgot his gun and had to sleep with it that night. Wayne makes a promise to his M-1 and keeps it every single day.
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Building the Dugout in the Heat
Three days before the big pageant opens, Wayne is asked to build a frontier dugout from scratch — so he tears down an old corral with Elaine and hauls the poles and lumber to the site. In 100-degree summer heat, the two of them hammer together a little piece of pioneer history.
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1946
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Three Flights Down in the Dark
On the 12-day journey home across the Pacific, Wayne stands guard duty three flights below deck as enormous swells rock the transport ship and men around him get sick. He holds his post in the dark, counting the days until land.
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Dragging Hay Across the Dance Floor
Young Wayne's job at the family resort is to clean the giant dance hall — by dragging a whole bale of hay across the cement floor to sweep it clean. Every week the music, the dancers, and the magic are made possible in part by one boy and his scratchy bale of hay.
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