Dedication

I have been asked when Where Is Crusader Rabbit, Now That We Really Need Him? will be available for sale. My daughter, who has been the force behind getting it out of the attic, informs me that it will be ready around the end of February 2009, and we will post that information when it becomes available.
If one is interested, there is a comment on one of the posts, placed there by Heather, which shows the pictures that will appear on the front and back covers, the dedication page and the comments on the back cover.
On the dedication page, one of the persons to whom I dedicated the book, and to whom it was actually dedicated, long before Susan, Heather and Laura were in my life, is “Doc.” Doc was actually a young man named Clark Douglas, who served as the medic of the Second Platoon, while I was platoon leader. As the medic, he was a part of the platoon command post, along with the platoon sergeant, and our two radio operators (RTOs). During normal operations he stayed close to me along with my RTO, while the platoon sergeant and his RTO brought up the rear or the other flank to avoid the situation of “one grenade will get us all.”
Doc was a born leader, a person who seemed to know no fear, but without bravado; a person, who saw the physical hardships as something to grouse about from time to time, but not much beyond that. He greeted the new lieutenant in his shiny, straight from the supply depot uniform, with skepticism. I guess I passed his test, because we quickly became friends. I would have liked to have continued this friendship beyond the Army, but it was not to be. Several weeks after I was transferred out of the platoon, to give another lieutenant his shot at “command time,” Doc was killed going to the aid of a wounded platoon member. He was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross, our second highest decoration, posthumously.
Unlike the combat situations in Iraq and Afghanistan today, we were brought into units as individual replacements and left the same way. It was difficult to keep track of friends once they had left. One of my biggest regrets over the years was that I had no contact with Clark’s family.
For me, the best part of this book and blog is that I have found Clarks’ daughter, born while we were together, and his wife. I still grieve their loss, but I am happy that they are the good people one would expect. It gives me pleasure to know that there is a part of Clark Douglas, my comrade in arms and good friend still among us.