A Bomber Command book with a difference. Rear Gunner Pathfinders is the story of the air war over Germany as seen from the small Perspex bubble of a 'Tail-End Charlie' rear gunner in a Lancaster. Flying firstly with 626 squadron, and later 156 Pathfinder squadron, Ron Smith flew 65 operations and recorded them with the intensity brought on by the isolation of being cocooned in his lonely gun turret.

"Your book is riveting. I haven't been able to put it down all day. I'm on page 95."-Chad, LaGrande, ORSomething or someone was visiting Ron in his high school hallway, three times. What was this presence, and why did he suddenly, overwhelmingly, want to go to the Philippines? Join Ron as he discovers his purpose and receives a God-given assignment that takes him on a wild eight-year ride overseas. Read about Ron's experience of singing with an angel choir ...

An autobiography of my love of the ocean and how my first contact in moving to a beach town was at 13 years old. From the beginning I was in love with the sand feeling, the smell of the ocean water and smell of the sand, the waves and boats. I always had boats through my lifetime (15 boats). I explored close islands and rivers first and then expanded to fishing 100 miles offshore and rivers/islands just as far away. Sleeping on my boat to explore the new land and people.Eventually ...

A troubled young man steps through the back door of a shop in a small town on a blistering August day. In a rampage that lasts less than 60 seconds, he kills six men and then himself. Maesie Mattsen is the only survivor of the killing spree, but the horror she witnessed has made her too afraid to leave the sanctuary of her backyard. Soon, she will have no choice.Fearing how their neighbors will treat them, the parents of the killer also feel like prisoners in their home. They exper...

The wedding that Thanksgiving weekend 1958 in Chicago should never have happened. Venus Ballesteros should have been on her way back to the Philippines. Hiro Tanamachi should have died in the war.Somehow, the man who had trained to die as a suicide submarine pilot in the Japanese Navy, and the woman whose hometown had been occupied by the Japanese, met 8,000 miles away from their homelands.

Moving effortlessly from Virginia to Italy and beyond, Ron Smith’s new volume responds with a range of emotions from humor to horror and with a variety of forms from the sonnet to visually expressive organic shapes. The book’s forty-three pieces gather themselves into three flights that hover above and touch down among the politics of memory and the psychology of beauty. With inspiration drawn from memoir, myth, history, fiction, and the visual arts, That Beauty in the Trees prese...

After a half century of farming, an old man takes one last walk across his land.

Just before a man reports to prison, he and his sons have to deal with a dead horse.

“What is a stroke?” This is the question that plagues Ron Smith as he emerges from the carpet bombing of his brain. The Defiant Mind: Living Inside a Stroke is a first-person account of a massive ischemic stroke to the brain stem. Smith takes the reader inside the experience and shows how recuperation happens ― the challenges of communication, the barriers to treatment, the frustrations of being misunderstood and written off, the role of memory in recovering identity, the power of continui...

My purpose is to encourage and help anyone who feels stuck, who is not sure where they're going on this journey called life.For most of my 75 years, like so many of us, I have had self-doubts and fear of failure, and put myself in so many categories like 'I'm not very clever', 'I'm not good at many things' or 'Other people are smarter, born gifted at music, technology, public speaking and life in general'.A year ago, I published my first book – The Boxer: My Journey to Life...

When Ron suggested to his wife that he wanted to leave his well-paid job with the state government so that he could help people become fit and healthy, her reaction was, "Who the hell would pay you to do that?""I don't know," he replied. "But let's make it work."So began The Centre for Lifelong Health and Fitness in Mt Eliza, a pretty bayside community on the Mornington Peninsula, one hour south of Melbourne, Victoria.And so continued Ron's journey towards his own h...

The acquisition and procurement of major weapons systems is fraught with difficulties. They tend to be delivered late, over budget and unable to meet requirements. This Element provides an economic analysis of why this happens. Market structure, demand by the military and supply by the arms firms, shapes the conduct of the agents and generates the poor performance observed. The military are trying to counter an evolving threat, subject to a budget constraint, high R&D costs and new technol...