The 2004 book "Shadow Divers" tells the story of two intrepid scuba divers who spend seven years making extremely hazardous explorations of a U-Boat off the New Jersey shore in an attempt to determine its identity.
Sunk in 230 feet of water 60 miles off-shore and not listed in any WWII histories, the submarine gives up its secrets only after the deaths of several of the divers' companions.
This remarkable tale will be the subject of a movie directed by Peter Weir premiering in 2013.
Here are the life lessons espoused by diver John Chatterton, truths he learned as a medic in Vietnam:
"* If an undertaking was easy, someone else already would have done it.
* If you follow in another's footsteps, you missed the problems really worth solving.
* Excellence is born of preparation, dedication, focus, and tenacity. Compromise on any of these and you become average
* Every so often life presents a great moment of decision an intersection at which a man must decide to stop or go. A person lives with these decisions forever.
* Examine everything. Not all is as it seems or as people tell you.
* It is easiest to live with a decision, if it based on an earnest sense of right and wrong.
* The guy who gets killed is often the guy who got nervous.
* The guy who doesn't care any more, who has said 'I am already dead, the fact that I live or die is irrelevant and the only the thing that matters is the only accounting I give of myself' is the most formidable force in the world.
* The worst possible decision is to give up."
