Dressed in a simple tunic, carrying only his slingshot and a sack of stones, a poor shepherd boy approached the nine-foot-tall giant.

With courage and a steady hand, David slung one small stone right smack at Goliath’s head, knocking out the Philistine’s war hero.

It’s a tale most are familiar with and at the forefront of the underdog mentality, said liberal theologian Harvey Cox.

“We like the underdog,” said Mr. Cox. “That’s why everyone in the Boston area despises the New York Yankees.”

Up the stairs to Barney Zeitz’s bedroom, light peeks in from the stained glass pieces on the wall, leaving purple and blue shadows on the wood. The railing on the right, welded by Mr. Zeitz, curves alongside the stairs until it meets his and his wife’s bedroom door.

“That’s one of the first windows I actually saved, it was a keeper,” Mr. Zeitz said of the leaded stained glass window in his room, depicting winter trees with a glowing red sun. He made it when he was 22 years old.

After graduating from Whittier College in the 1960s, Guy Webster decided to join the army reserves for a six-month stint rather than go to Viet Nam. For the first three months he purchased, shipped and decorated Christmas trees. For the second half he taught photography, even though he had never even held a camera before that moment.

“I had never taken a photograph in my life,” remembered Mr. Webster. It wasn’t until his last month in the reserves that he shot his first roll of film. That was all it took to get him hooked.

Military sexual assault seeps through the bonds of brotherhood and creeps into the bedtime sleep of victims, months and years after the fact. The Department of Defense estimates that 19,000 soldiers are raped or sexually assaulted annually, with less than 14 per cent coming forward to report it.

A bird not usually seen in Massachusetts — and very rarely on the Vineyard — has nested successfully for the first time among this year’s highly productive tern colony at Norton Point.