Old Heroes

Two World War II veterans have remained friends through the years since they served together in a tough U.S. Army outfit that fought in the south Pacific. It is 1984. Retired Coll. Thomas J. Kelsey and Sgt. Andy Stubbs, also retired, were company commander and first sergeant of the unit. Now in their 90s, they are living in a senior care facility in Sacramento, California. Kelsey had a stroke a year earlier and his controlling daughter-in-law is forcing him to remain at the facility. In part it is because she wants to have access to the fortune her father-in-law amassed after the war, and in part because she has always hated him for his opposition to her marrying his son. Stubbs is there because he wants to be close to his old friend of nearly a half-century. The two of them learn of a reunion of WWII vets in Manila, the Philippines, and want to attend. The daughter-in-law objects, of course, and conspires to stop them. The two men work out a plan to escape. Once they arrive in the Philippines, they take an air tour of some of their old battlegrounds. Modern day guerilla fighters shoot down their plane and put them in a situation where, 40 years after their last battle, they find themselves once again at war. Steve Liddick is the author of six novels (All that Time, Old Heroes, Prime Time Crime (1, 2 & 3), and Sky Warriors. Also, a memoir of his nearly half-century as a broadcast journalist, (But First This Message); a camping cookbook (Campsite Gourmet); a budget cookbook (Eat Cheap); a gift book (A Family Restaurant is No Place for Children), and a collection of short essays, (The View From over the Hill). . The author retired after 47 years as a print and broadcast journalist and now lives in Sebring, Florida..