Dedication

This project is dedicated to the memory of my father, Leslie F. Mills, who completed a full life April 1, 2001, at the age of 85.

Throughout his life, he provided an example of the importance of striving for the highest goals without regard to the odds or personal risk. He survived the influenza epidemic of 1918, and knew the loss of all material things during the bleak days of the Depression. He fought his way across the Pacific when war came, building airstrips on Saipan and Tinian Islands in the Northern Marianas and Enewetak Atoll in the Marshall Islands [ locator map ], to enable the final air raids on Japan in August 1945; bringing a decisive end to the greatest war the world has ever known. He returned to the states and to his wife, Grace, and continued a marriage which would run for 61 years.

He never failed in the support of his wife and children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren; and encouraged us all to strive for our grandest goals; no matter how remote they may have seemed. To see his children graduate from college was most certainly his own finest hour, and a mirror of his own achievements.