Summary Of Narrative By Doug Stanton

The narrative by Doug Stanton is quite vivid in its elaboration, a fact that is contributed by the originality of his sources. Stanton in the narrative depends on the tales of Captain Charles Butler McVay III, Lewis Haynes who was the doctor in the ship and Giles McCoy who was a marine private. The most intriguing aspect of the narrative is that it is not entrenched on a war-history but rather an elucidation of men battling and attempting to survive the sea. The USS Indianapolis incident occurs in the Pacific after the ship delivers a mysterious cargo in the Pacific island of Tinian. On its way to Guam, a suicide torpedo launched from a submarine sinks the ship.
Characters in Narrative
At this point, the author places focus on the survival of the men in the pacific waters. Stanton is able to present a compelling narrative as he draws the information from interviews with survivors of the ordeal as well as the account of Captain Charles Butler McVay.
The aftermath of the incident was a low point experienced by most of the survivors (Carpenter, 2005). The narrative states, ‘For the survivors, the disaster of the Indy is their My Lai massacre or Watergate, a touchstone moment of historical disappointment: the navy put them in harm's way, hundreds of men died violently, and then the government refused to acknowledge its culpability.’ Captain was assured that the routes was same even without presenting his submarine activity in the area but were the first to send him to court and convict him. In my view, it is more of a moral and ethical issue where an individual ought to be accountable for actions, an aspect that showed McVay as a scapegoat. Such events in the discourse of the event can be summarized by a statement from the narrative, ‘Where does a man go when there are no more corners to turn, when he's running out of hope, out of luck, out of