I went to the University of Arizona and I majored in civil engineering because that's what my two brothers had done. I thought it was the right thing to do. When I got there, I found that I couldn't pass anything. I couldn't pass a damn thing. I was flunking out and that would be a big scandal in my family. I was getting desperate. I didn't know what to do. That December, the Japanese government saw fit to bomb Pearl harbor. So, next month, January, two weeks before finals, I got very patriotic and I went down and enlisted in the Army Air Corps. Old Man in a Baseball Cap is a wonderful, hilarious, and haunting memoir. Written when Rochlin was seventy, after he took a storytelling workshop with Spalding Gray, it was originally performed as a monologue and was described by the New York Times as being "about an ordinary man in extraordinary circumstances, [it] has elements of an epic: love and death, honor and betrayal, vengefulness and martyrdom, and ultimately, the fortuitousness of survival." In 1942 Fred Rochlin joined the Army Air Corps. After eight months of training, he was stationed in Italy, serving as the navigator on a B-24 bomber and flying missions over Germany. Fifty such missions were required for a successful tour of duty. This was the first time that Fred Rochlin had been away from home. He was nineteen years old. Old Man in a Baseball Cap is an astonishingly fresh, candid look at "the last good war." At once naive and wise, Fred Rochlin's voice is unforgettable. This simple memoir is not your typical story of World War II. Rochlin has written a collection of brief remembrances that he performs on stage as a one-man show, a monolog of life and death as a navigator on a B-24 bomber in Italy from 1943 to 1945. The eight stories in this short book reveal much about the man and his wartime experiences, from training in Nebraska to bombing missions over Germany, Hungary, and Bulgaria. Rochlin survived 50 missions and made it home, but most of his friends did not. His poignant acknowledgment of their sacrifice and his wonder at his own survival provide a stark glimpse into men at war. Rochlin delivers a baby one day and obliterates a Hungarian village the next. He later parachutes into Yugoslavia and walks more than 400 kilometers to safety, guided by a robust female Yugoslav partisan. His observations of people and events are keen, ribald, and very funny. The book is too short, thoughAjust an appetizer for the rest of Rochlin's tales. Recommended for public libraries.ACol. William D. Bushnell, USMC (ret.), Sebascodegan Island, ME Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. Spalding Gray's popular autobiographical monologues have changed the face of performance, inspiring hundreds of other would-be Spaldings to transform their memories into theatrical events. Few of these wanna-bes approach the power and wit of their avatar, but Rochlin is an exception. After taking a storytelling workshop with Gray, Rochlin--at 70, no less--wrote and performed a series of solo shows, recounting his experiences as a flight navigator in World War II. His stories of petty officers, unprepared enlisted men, bombing raids gone wrong, and tiny acts of heroism are fascinating enough. But what makes them quite remarkable is Rochlin's willingness to honestly describe, without resorting, for example, to the protection of Joseph Heller's irony, his thoughts and feelings as he confronted the daily terrors of war. From the beginning, Rochlin's simple prose makes us comfortable, as if we were sitting at a table with an old friend or relative, someone who had lived a remarkable life and now was ready, after a glass of wine or two, to share a bit of it. Jack Helbig Crude and often nonsensical, these stories of Rochlin's WWII experiences were written as monologues for his one-man show. Now in his 70s, Rochlin, a former B-24 navigator, took a storytelling workshop with Spalding Gray, and this is the result. Noting that the ``older I get, the more I remember things that never happened,'' he tells eight tales of varying credibility and tastelessness. In the title story, Rochlinnicknamed Rocketsbails out over Yugoslavia, suffering a fractured jaw and broken ribs. Rescued by partisans, he is, without explanation, cheerfully asked to execute three German prisoners. His only comment: ``It didn't take any courage, you just pulled a trigger.'' His escort for the 400-kilometer stroll back to Italy, the earthy Maruska, following dual bouts of diarrhea, asks, ``You think I no beautiful? I don't want to die virgin. Why don't you put your hand on my siski?'' Following the first night of ``fig-fig,'' he complained his hooey was on fire and it started to drip stuff.'' Several of Rochlin's stories involve a ``glamour boy'' pilot and the colonel he's discovered in bed with, ``in that head-to-toe 69 position . . . Hell, I didn't even know guys did stuff like that.'' When the pilot is killed, the inebriated, grieving colonel tries