{"id":16876,"date":"2025-08-14T23:02:27","date_gmt":"2025-08-14T23:02:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/?p=16876"},"modified":"2025-08-14T23:02:27","modified_gmt":"2025-08-14T23:02:27","slug":"between-the-devil-and-the-deep-blue-sea-a-veterans-memoir-by-khadijah-queen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/2025\/08\/14\/between-the-devil-and-the-deep-blue-sea-a-veterans-memoir-by-khadijah-queen\/","title":{"rendered":"Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea: A Veteran\u2019s Memoir by Khadijah Queen"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea author courtesy Marco Giugliarelli for the Civitella Ranieri Foundation, 2023<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

c.2025, Legacy Lit\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 <\/em>
\n$30.00\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 <\/em>
\n348 pages\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

By Terri Schlichenmeyer<\/em>
\nThe Truth Contributor<\/em><\/p>\n

Keep your head down.<\/p>\n

Stay steady, mind your business, and don\u2019t compare yourself to others. You are where you are for a reason, don\u2019t lose sight of it. There\u2019s a prize at the end, and endurance is the only way to get it. You have a job to do and, as in the new memoir Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea<\/em> by Khadijah Queen,<\/strong> you\u2019ll do it until you can\u2019t.<\/p>\n

Khadijah Queen hated Inkster, Michigan.<\/p>\n

She had begged to stay in\u00a0 L.A. but her mother ignored her pleas and moved the family to Inkster to take care of the at-risk children of Queen\u2019s addicted eldest sister. Not old enough to stay in \u201cCali\u201d by herself, but old enough to work and contribute to the household, Queen rushed to sign up for classes at a local Michigan college because she knew education was the only way to escape the situations that had her family in a stranglehold.<\/p>\n

Alcoholism, drug abuse, no money, problems came like storms and when those problems forced her to drop her classes, she decided to join the Navy. A few years of service, she knew, and her college education would be free.<\/p>\n

Happily, Boot Camp wasn\u2019t so bad.<\/p>\n

There were a handful of Black recruits and personnel who held Queen up when she felt sad and they gave her hope. She learned in Navy Boot Camp that she was a leader, but she wasn\u2019t fully ready for it. She wanted to serve on a submarine and once there, she tried to just do her job but her white male shipmates made it difficult.<\/p>\n

She endured their hazing and sexual harassment. She endured their racism and juvenile jokes. She endured a noose left laying on her study manuals.<\/p>\n

Less than six months aboard, she says, \u201cmy anger had become a living thing, and even though I didn\u2019t want it, I kept that anger close. It leapt ahead of me when it had to.\u201d<\/p>\n

Prepared to be stunned.<\/p>\n

From the first few pages to this books\u2019 roaring end, Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea<\/em>\u00a0 grabs readers by the throat and doesn\u2019t let go. You plainly see author Khadijah Queen\u2019s need to get away from near-poverty; it paces like a lion in a small cage. You\u2019ll cringe at her maturity that doesn\u2019t quite go far enough because you\u2019ve probably been there, too. When she\u2019s about to get in trouble for speaking her mind or because she\u2019s impatient, you\u2019ll squirm, knowing what\u2019s coming. Authentic language puts you in uniform. Tragedy will hurt your heart. So will some of the people in this book when you learn what happens to them, but the story would be lesser without the rich presence of each of them and without Queen\u2019s no-nonsense-ness, her boiling impatience, and her profanity-laced honesty.<\/p>\n

Veterans may have some things to say about this one-of-a-kind book, as will feminists, and neither of them, nor you, should miss it. Start Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea<\/em> and it\u2019ll keep your head down good.<\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

c.2025, Legacy Lit\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 $30.00\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 348 pages\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 By Terri Schlichenmeyer The Truth Contributor Keep your head down. Stay steady, mind your business, and don\u2019t compare yourself to others. You are where you are for a reason, don\u2019t lose sight of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":16878,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"wf_post_folders":[20],"class_list":["post-16876","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-book_review"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16876","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16876"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16876\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16879,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16876\/revisions\/16879"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16878"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16876"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16876"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16876"},{"taxonomy":"wf_post_folders","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/wf_post_folders?post=16876"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}