Starting its life as an attack transport in World War II--and one of the last five left afloat by war's end--the USS "Queens "saw action at Iwo Jima and other hot spots in the Pacific theater. After the war, the ship became the SS "Excambion," one of the "Four Aces" of American Export Lines: the only fully air-conditioned ships in the world at the time. In 1965, the versatile "Excambion "underwent yet another transformation--into a floating classroom. Recommissioned as the USTS "Texas Clipper," the ship began a third life as a merchant marine training vessel with its home port in Galveston....