A Delinquent's Detour

Roy A. Stacy grew up on Oahu, one of eight Hawaiian Islands, a paradise on earth until Dec. 7, 1941, when he witnessed the horrors of war.

As he finished washing the family car with his father, several hundred fighter aircraft came over the Pali Mountain on their way to the U.S. Navy base at Pearl Harbor. For a four-year-old boy, the explosions were terribly impressive.

In this memoir, he recalls growing up on the island, the years after the war, and the struggles his family endured – especially after moving to California in 1949.

Life in Southern California was not easy for a Hawaiian kid, and Stacy’s mother placed him in a religious boarding school where discipline was the norm. But he began running with the wrong crowd anyway, becoming a juvenile delinquent.

To avoid going to jail, he enlisted in the military, joining the U.S. Air Force in 1955. Serving his country ended up being the rewind, erase, and reprogram opportunity that he needed – and he went on to serve in key positions with the United States Foreign Service and the U.S. Agency for International Development.

Join the author as he looks back at going from being a delinquent to a statesman who traveled the world in this memoir.