Western Sunrise

About the Book

Western Sunrise is a future history, including and ending with the successful conclusion of the next Gulf War, which begins in the summer of the year 2004.

The precipitating event of that war will not be described here; it would give away too much. The technology involved is similar to that which might be featured in one of many techno-thrillers.

The narrative begins with the end of the Vietnam Conflict, touches on the Panamanian invasion of 1988, describes a Mideast assignment, Desert Shield/Desert Storm, and peacetime service in the Army Medical Department.

The realism, twists, turns, counterplots and colorful characters (such as Old Franz, the headwaiter, late of the 11th SS Armored Division, and Miss MacTavish who may or may not be an agent of MI6) make this short volume a page-turner, impossible to put down.

It is told from the viewpoint of a career military surgeon, assigned out to pasture, or so he believes, after Desert Storm, until it's time for him to retire. Except that his various mundane jobs' requirements are highly classified and contradictory. When he tries to connect the dots, he's quickly ordered not to proceed further.

Without a plausible explanation, he is kept on active duty long after his date of retirement in support of something mysterious, compartmented and unexplained until the last ten pages of the novel.

Buy it for a man who likes action-packed stories; if he likes W.E.B. Griffin, he'll love Western Sunrise

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:
Army Green
Century's Child