The Ledge

On a winter night in 1990, in the violent swells off the coast of Haifa, a Navy liberty ferry vanished beneath the waves in seconds—taking twenty-one sailors with it. One young sailor went out on a ledge and risked it all to save as many as he could.

The Ledge is the true story of AZ3 Tim Culpepper, a twenty-year-old kid from Mississippi who suddenly found himself living through one of the U.S. Navy’s deadliest peacetime disasters. In the chaos of the Mediterranean at night—illuminated only by emergency flares and the distant silhouette of the USS Saratoga—he fought to save as many shipmates as he could, one desperate grip at a time.

But the rescue was only the beginning.

For decades after that night, Tim carried invisible wounds he didn’t understand—rage, sleeplessness, broken relationships, and memories shattered into fragments. Only years later would he learn the truth: he had survived the sea, but not the trauma.

Raw, honest, and deeply human, The Ledge is a memoir of courage, loss, and the long road to healing. It honors the twenty-one sailors who never made it home—and the survivors who never stopped fighting their way back.