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According to the book description of Wide
Place in the Road: A Great Generation Love Story, “Wide Place in the Road In a small settlement along
the "Grapevine Road" in California's Tehachappi Mountains, emotions sizzle when beautiful Hallie Lameont skinny
dips with country boy Jessie Rascoe in a cattle watering trough. But the dark eyed Maria Hunter captures his heart after he
saves her life in the heart warming love story about maturing youth during the Great Depression and World War Two. Growing
up on the "Grapevein Road" and serving as a P-38 combat fighter pilot with the famous "Flying Knights"
in WWII, veteran author Richard C. Kirkland uses first hand experiences in writing ths historical epic based on a true story
that takes place during on of the most challenging periods of American History. Protagonist Jessie Rascoe and his friends
are Boy Scouts, have a secret cave and attend a one room school. When "Grapes of Wrath" migrants abandon their old
cars, the Grapevine boys repair them and rollick over the mountainside. Discovering girls brings new interests and complications.
Then everything changes on December 7, 1941. Jessie and friends go to war. Hallie becomes a "WASP" pilot and Maria
a "Rosie the Riveter." P-38 fighter pilot Jessie Rasco excels in the Pacific and is decorated by President Roosevelt.
On leave, emotions skyrocket when he visits Hallie and Maria. Returning to the war Jessi is shot down into the New Guinea
jungle and listed as "Missing in action." Will he come home at war's end? To Maria?... Hallie?... The ending is
powerful.”
According
to the book description of MASH Angels: Tales of an Air-Evac Helicopter Pilot in the Korean War,
“provides a fine account perfect for any library strong in Korean war history and events. If provides a personal account
of danger and heroism from one of the pilots who pioneered the use of helicopters for battlefield medical evacuation, telling
of his front-line experience rescue flying and military medicine challenges. A 'must' for any military library strong in Korean
War accounts.”
According
to the book description of Tales of a Helicopter Pilot, “Richard Kirkland is legendary for
his P-38 Lightning missions in the South Pacific theater during WWII. After the war, he realized the potential of Igor Sikorsky’s
new flying machine, and he traded in his fighter-pilot wings for rotors. The nerve-racking chopper missions he has flown are
the stuff of legend: scrambling to evacuate president Harry Truman after an unthinkable “code red one” alert comes
over his red phone; bantering with the real “Hawkeye” at a MASH unit before flying into North Korea to rescue
wounded soldiers. Equally riveting are his accounts of a medevac pilot in Vietnam who lands a ten ton CH-46 “Frog”
in the jungle at night, with no lights, under fire, with only a soldier’s cigarette lighter for reference; and an aerial
tour pilot who routinely pulls people out of the water above, below, and right before Niagara Falls.”
According
to the book description of War Pilot: True Tales of Combat and Adventure, “Lieutenant Richard
C. Kirkland flew Lockheed P-38 Lightnings in New Guinea during World War II and Sikorsky rescue helicopters in Korea. In the
course of both wars he met celebrities, war heroes and nuclear scientists, as well as a MASH doctor named Hawkeye, whose antics
would later be related in a book, film, and television show.”
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