About
Jeffery Hess is the author of the novels No Salvation, Beachhead, and Tushhog and the short-story collection Cold War Canoe Club as well as the editor of the award-winning Home of the Brave anthologies. He holds a BA in English from the University of South Florida and an MFA in Creative Writing from Queens University of Charlotte. He served six years aboard the Navy’s oldest and newest ships and since 2007, he’s led the DD-214 Writers’ Workshop for military veterans and their dependents. Find or follow online at jefferyhess.com.
Featured Work
NO SALVATION
Inspired by actual events, No Salvation features the USS Salvation as it sails for months on end in the South China Sea in the violent closing days of the Vietnam War. Exhaustion, drugs and discontent run rampant aboard ship and crew morale is at an all-time low. These conditions affect four thousand men being sequestered for months on end without port visits has everyone on edge.
This is 1972, a time when inequality and racial tension permeated ships fleet-wide. As a way to mitigate racial unrest, the ship's captain brings in Commander Robert Porter as his Executive Officer. Commander Porter isn't sure if he's been selected for the job because of his skills or for the color of his skin, but the black crew doesn't accept him.
Amid rampant drug use and various forms of sabotage, the biggest challenge to the ship's performance and the crew's safety is a series of violent attacks made by planes launching from the flight deck, but more perilous are the racial tensions boiling below.
Porter is uniquely positioned to save them all, but can he? If so, at what cost?
