📒 Merle H. Seehafer was born in 1923 and grew up as the second youngest in a family of ten near Wausau, Wisconsin. In A Closer Walk, he describes what life was like struggling in the midst of the Great Depression. His recollections of boyhood, often poignant and humorous, are replete with examples of how this large, tight-knit family relied on faith, personal responsibility, and hard work to rise above the poverty in which they had been born.In 1942, nineteen-year-old Merle enlisted in the US Navy where he would come to serve aboard the escort carrier USS Kwajalein. Merle's service record is recalled in amazing detail-including a vivid depiction of being caught up as a member of Admiral "Bull" Halsey's Third Fleet in the terrifying Typhoon Cobra in December 1944.A Closer Walk offers the reader some valuable insight into what life was really like for one who came of age during that time period which would shape America's "Greatest Generation."