Quotes from George Feifer

Boot camp was . . . being treated like a criminal. It was like I had broken a law by joining the Marines and had been sent to reform school.

The men performed their roles like actors trapped in a morality play

The fate of the Empire truly rests on this one action,

Perry had come to end those offenses — but more importantly to secure trading opportunities and coaling facilities and to awaken the Japanese to their "Christian obligation to join the family of Christendom," which the secretary of the Navy had confided was the mission's underlying motive.