A Time to Run takes you the reader on an epic and time sweeping journey of adventure, love and war.
Set within actual documented historical events from 21st century Afghanistan through the nostalgic and war torn years of World War ll you will be caught up in one man’s dream to redefine history.
Albert Connor is an elderly Canadian veteran confined to a nursing home. His frustrations with old age are further tormented by reoccurring dreams of love and battle. Our veteran hero worries over the prelude to war that he perceives is approaching as he watches today’s news and is distraught over the prevalent apathy he sees in this new generation.
People’s dreams are often spawned by fear or failed conquests. For Albert, love was hijacked by destiny while he was yet a young man and his plans to marry beautiful Abby and inherit the family farm were shattered by the advent of war.
The devastations of that war and cruel oppression by a fascist madman are a series of events that Albert Connor would change in a heartbeat if he could only transcend the bounds of time.
In A Time to Run only those who see the invisible can do the impossible and here ‘the impossible is only a dream away.’
The Führersonderzug - Hitler’s private train
______Book Contents______
Introduction
Dedication
Acknowledgements
Forward
Chapter one: Helicopter Evac
Chapter Two: My beautiful golden haired girl
Chapter Three: The Italian nightmare
Chapter Four: The Cattz Clinic
Chapter Five: Back on the farm
Chapter Six: We have a runner!
Chapter Seven: Operation Jubilee / The Dieppe disaster
Chapter Eight: Prisoners of the Reich
Chapter Nine: Hitler’s back yard
Chapter Ten: An Islamic friend
Chapter Eleven: Danger in a pale blue dress
Chapter Twelve: A meeting with Der Führer
Chapter Thirteen: From Amsterdam with love
Epilogue
Glossary of non-English words
_____Dedication___
Dedicated to my Veteran father:
Francis Willard Greenfield
Throughout WW II Pilot officer Frank Greenfield defended his country from an amphibious long range reconnaissance aircraft known as a Canso. Their lonely and dangerous command was to locate and sink enemy submarines that threatened our Atlantic ports and shipping. He was a prairie boy, Saskatchewan born and farm raised who never forgot his country roots.
I was always proud of my father. Trained by the R.C.A.F. as an aero engineer he could seemingly operate or repair any mechanical device known to man. Father married his sweetheart Marjorie in July of 1944, only a year and a half before World War ll was won.
In many ways this story reflects my father’s adventurous spirit, his patriotism and appreciation for the freedom we all enjoy in Canada today. It also sadly relates the many frustrations that old age imposed upon him as he withdrew to memories of a time when life was strong and meaningful.
___Acknowledgements___
Editor: I am deeply appreciative of my lovely wife Maggie, whose daily encouragement and tedious editing made this work possible.
Weapons expertise: Thank you to my friend Sergeant John Barnhardt, R.C.A.F. weapons technician (Rtd) for his infinite knowledge of World War Two weapons and explosives.
The Canadian Army in Afghanistan: Thank you to Afghanistan veteran Sergeant Chris Schmidt, 407 Sqdn. PPCLI for his valuable insights into Canada’s role in modern warfare.
Linguistics: Thank you to Mr. Chris Tschetter, Birch Hills Hutterite Colony for his helpful editing of the German words and phrases in this book.
Finally, to our many proofreaders, I appreciate your keen eyes and valuable suggestions.
____Forward____
I was born in the spring of 1950, arriving on this earth only five and a half years after the world’s most horrific war had ended. That war, still fresh on the minds and the scared hearts of our friends and neighbours was the topic at almost every gathering. Also at that time, thousands of displaced Europeans migrated here to build a new life in this free country. Many of those bore painful stories of daring escapes from the hands of Nazi oppressors.
As the country recovered from World War ll and our nation healed, Canada was rebuilt into a new and peaceful land nurtured in the coveted freedom that our men and women had so desperately fought for. Those difficult years blossomed into a time of prosperity such as we had not known since the 1920’s. The world had suffered a valuable lesson; we had witnessed the selfish brutality of fascism and were sickened by what we saw. Today, deep in the hearts of those who survived that war remains the memory of that once clear awakening. May we ever remember the millions of men and women who gave their lives for the freedom we enjoy in Canada today.
As with my father, many of our old soldiers have now passed on, but those who remain are fearfully aware of a growing unrest in our modern world, not too dissimilar from the pre-war political arena of the Thirties. An elderly person’s recollections of their youthful years are most often clearer than the memories of more recent times. So it is that the memory of those difficult years presents an unsettling parallel to the world news of today. To watch a Middle Eastern army goosestep march and use the same straight armed fascist salute that the Nazis were famous for is, at the very least, unsettling to those who remember World War Two.
A Time to Run is an adventurous story that will escort you back through time. You will experience not only the anxiety that Canadians and the world suffered during that era, but also the sweet relationships, peaceful lives and loving homes that made the fight for freedom so imperative.
In the creation of this book, I have studied extensively to expand my personal knowledge of the events and conditions into which the characters are immersed. The main characters in A Time to Run are fictitious but the dramatic setting along with historical events and characters are as true and accurate as documented history has recorded.
It is my sincere desire that as each one of us seeks the peace and prosperity that we surely all dream of, that we never forget those warning signs that appeared on the political horizon barely one generation ago.
May we not neglect the immortal words of the Spanish philosopher, George Santayana who warned us that: “Those who do not remember the past are condemned to relive it.”
In 1938 Adolf Hitler was named Man of the Year by Time Magazine. Within the next twelve months, however, this Man of the Year would be directly responsible for the hundreds of thousands of murders of his own countrymen as he systematically eliminated his political adversaries, the physical and mentally disabled, the weak and the insane.
This Man of the Year would then go on to inflict the grisly murder of nearly 12 million Jews, Gypsies, Slavic people and others that he deemed “a life not worthy of living.”
In his egomaniacal attempt to rule the world, Adolf Hitler caused the destruction of five-and-a-half million of his own faithful soldiers, almost three million of his trusting civilian countrymen and was ultimately responsible for total loss of around 60 million lives before cowardly taking his own.
Hitler, a simple army corporal and a failure at business, arrived on the political scene seemingly out of nowhere. He was a gifted orator who swayed the German populace with promises of change and national grandeur. Strangely enough, Herr Hitler was not even German born and his philosophical mentors were certifiably insane. The first clue of Hitler’s egomania that the country blindly missed, was the early formation of his personal protection service, the SA secret police that eventually became the dreaded SS.
Germany’s pompous new Man of the Year would, in half a decade invite the complete annihilation of their beloved Fatherland and bring eternal shame upon a once proud nation. He promised them change and change they got. However, when a nation’s founding principles are compromised for the sake of change or visions of national or political grandeur, and reflection upon history’s solemn lessons are ignored, Santayana’s immortal words will surely ring true.
I believe that the future of a nation and the destiny of a people are intrinsically an inseparable consequence of what its citizens choose to regard from history. May you enjoy the adventure, the romance, the action and travel of this journey into our very real and not so distant past.
Douglas Warren Greenfield Click here to read excerpts from the book.
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