ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I owe a great deal to my family. For nearly four years, they didn't know my whereabouts, nor whether I was alive or dead. I regret each and every heartache I caused them, and I appreciate all of their prayers.
I am especially indebted to my precious Judy for being the perfect wife during the most trying times, and for being very understanding during the forty years I have been assembling material for Blood Brothers.
I feel very kindly toward Colonel "Honest John" Raulston for his generous help when I was totally incapacitated in Camp Hoten, Manchuria.
I thank General "BOB" Taylor for his spiritual guidance and friendship while "the going was rough."
I thank General Harold K. (Johnny) Johnson, the Army Chief of Staff, for 25 years of inspiration and friendship as one of the Army's outstanding officers. Johnny, I appreciate your offer to write the "Preface for Blood Brothers," and the chapter on "Lessons Learned on Luzon;" you would have done it much better than I, but your long hospitalization and transfer to "Boot Hill" interfered. I'll miss your cheerful counsel. Johnny.
I thank General Aubrey Newman, war and Olympic hero, who thought I ran a "Happy" Hospital, and who insisted that I continue working on Blood Brothers, when it would have been much easier to quit.
I thank Stan and Peg Sommers, authors of the "Japanese Story," and
their friendship to me and some thousands of Ex P.O.W.s.
I thank my Masonic Brethren, who believe in these United States and
its Constitution, which has made it great.
I thank Sandra Rohlfing, Assistant Editor of the Vero Beach Press Journal, for her many hours of editing Blood Brothers and for her good advice.
I thank Don Knox, author of "The Death March" for friendly advice. He used my sketches.
I thank Peter Collins, Art Editor of Time-Life Series on World War II, for his visit to Vero Beach, and for the time he spent going over the material for Blood Brothers. He used my photographs.
I thank all those good people who have made my life worth living
since "The War."
I thank the "Good Lord" for forty wonderful years of "Borrowed
Time." It's fun to still be alive in eighty-five!