Army Green

About the Book

Army Green is a fictional study encompassing the lives of two friends from Kansas City, as they encounter the events and situations of the last half of the 20th Century. Their backgrounds are similar, yet differ enough to provide an intriguing level of contrast.

It is the sequel to Century's Child.

The two men meet as teenagers in the Kansas National Guard of 1954. Their lives develop over the next 50 years, separately for the most part, but along parallel career and family lines.

The protagonist, Bill Anderson, begins his post-high school life intending (and wanting) nothing more than to have a "steady lifetime job" at Sears, Roebuck's gigantic mail order plant in Kansas City, Missouri. Thirty-five years later he has developed a completely-unexpectedly steady lifetime job as one of the Army's seniormost enlisted logisticians. He describes his life as a series of accidents which turned out well. The reader can't avoid the conclusion that the narrator made those incidents bear fruit, and his protestations to the contrary, chance had only a small part in their outcome.

The turning point of his story is the crucial accident of his activation and posting to Vietnam in the wake of 1968's Tet Offensive. After that, even with twelve years' seniority, Sears doesn't have a chance.

During his career, he continues to encounter his friend, now-Doctor Coe Richards, the protagonist of Century's Child. Richards' more-conventional civilan-and-reservist's life provides an engaging ongoing counterplot from the first to the last stage.

About the Author

Walter D. Rodgers is the pseudonym of a retired family physician who lives across the Narrows from Tacoma, Washington.

Dr. Rodgers is a life member of the American Academy of Family Physicians, who practiced in the American Southwest for 33 years. He has been board-certified in family practice since 1975.

He has served as a hospital chief of staff, vice-chief of staff, and as chairman of numerous hospital staff committees and departments. He was elected president of his home district's division of the American Medical Association in 1987 for a two-year term. He was an adjunct professor of family medicine from 1980 to 1994, and an assistant professor in the same department from 1995 till his retirement in 1998.

Dr. Rodgers represents the generation born in to the Great Depression, which grew up during World War II, and who were the active members of the force-in-being that, over forty-five years, won the Cold War.

Dr. Rodgers served as an enlisted man in the peacetime Army of the 1950s, and was commissioned after completion of Field Artillery Officer Candidate School in 1961. He changed his branch assignment to Medical Corps upon graduation from the Kansas City College of Osteopathy and Surgery in 1966.

The author has also been awarded the Combat Medical Badge, the Bronze Star Medal, the Army Meritorious Service Medal, five Army Commendation Medals, the Vietnamese Cross of Gallantry with bronze star device, plus seven other lesser decorations and is entitled to wear the ribbons of three unit citations. He is a qualified military parachutist. In 1985 he was named a Distinguished member of the 502d Infantry Regiment (Airborne) based on his combat service in Vietnam.

Dr. Rodgers is a life member of the American Academy of Family Physicians, the Association Military Surgeons on the United States, of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, and of the Disabled American Veterans.

The author is also a graduate of the National Defense University, Class of 1990. His thesis was a comparative study of ethical behavior in the military and in civilian society.

Dr. Rodgers served for one year in Vietnam and for six months during Operation Desert Shield.

Additionally, he served 42 years in the Army Reserve's Active Troop Unit Program, retiring as a full colonel in 1996.

Also by Walter D. Rodgers:
Century's Child
Western Sunrise