The Executive Branch

The new Alaska gold rush was liberty and common law justice. It was his to defend, his to shepherd in the air, on the sea, and underwater, for as long and as conscientiously as possible on Ralston's watch as Commander-in-Chief, an enormous land mass that abutted Russia on his western flank and grimly faced the southern DMZ that stretched five hundred miles from the Misty Fjords to Vanderhoof. The story has a wealth of intellectual content, brutal Special Forces action, and stiffly formal diplomatic drama, but it's basically a story of redemption, the fulfillment of a personal life.