NOT IN VAIN; A RIFLEMAN REMEMBERS WORLD WAR II.

First edition, first printing (with latter stated and with publisher's descending number line upon copyright page INSCRIBED AND SIGNED BY THE AUTHOR. xviii, 273 pages. Hardcover: H 23.5cm x L 15.75cm. Dust jacket lightly rubbed; slight bumping and minor scuffs at edges; front flap retains publisher's printed price at its top right. Tan cloth; light bumping at spine ends and at front board's top fore-edge corner. Past owner's ink signature ("Ernest E. Russell") at front free endpaper's top right; author's five-line ink inscription "For | Ernest Russell | Thank you for | being my friend | Leon C. Standifer" upon the title page; interior pages are otherwise clean. Binding retains some crispness. Else a near fine copy in a near fine dust jacket. Personal WWII recollections of Leon Standifer who served as a U.S. Army scout in France and Germany and was awarded the Combat Infantryman Badge and a Purple Heart. With bachelor and masters degrees from Mississippi State University and a Ph.D. earned at University of Wisconsin, Standifer was a professor of horticulture at Louisiana State University from 1961 to 1990 thereafter receiving an emeritus appointment. Inscribee Ernest Everett Russell (1923-2013) was Emeritus Professor of Geology at Mississippi State University and was also a Lieutenant Colonel in the U.S. Air Force serving as a fighter pilot in WWII, events of which he recounted in his 2007 autobiography "A Mississippi Fighter Pilot in WWII." According to an online obituary, Dr. Russell was an avid horticulturalist which was likely his connection to Dr. Standifer as it seems unlikely that the two would have known each other during their military service (unfortunately the book is not indexed to clarify/verify and further military association). {MilHist-Shelf#2} ISBN 080711703X. …