My father, Clay Leroy Swearingen, was born in 1921, the third generation of Swearingens born in Drain. His great-grandfather had settled a donation land claim west of Drain in 1854 and his family had worked as farmers and lived in the area ever since. Clay graduated from Drain High School in May 1941 and expected to work as a farmer or millworker and stay in this quiet community for the rest of his life, just as generations before him had done. He never envisioned that he would travel the Pacific, that he would cross the equator or that he would …