Navy Service
After graduating from the University of Minnesota with a degree in journalism, Heggen moved to New York City and became an editor for Readers' Digest. He joined the US Navy immediately after the attack on Pearl Harbor and was commissioned a lieutenant in August 1942. For the duration of the war he served on supply vessels in the North Atlantic, the Caribbean and the Pacific, the latter as assistant communications officer on the cargo ship USS Virgo and also the USS Rotanin.
During his 14 months aboard the Virgo, Heggen wrote a collection of vignettes about daily life on the ship, which he described as sailing "from Tedium to Apathy and back again, with an occasional side trip to Monotony". Like his fictional alter ego Doug Roberts, he felt "left out" of the war and butted heads with his commander, a coarse martinet who repeatedly denied his requests for transfer to a destroyer.
Read more about this topic: Thomas Heggen
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