FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
LLUMINA AUTHOR FINALIST IN 2005 INDEPENDENT PUBLISHER AWARDS

FORT LAUDERDALE, JUNE 2005:  Llumina Press is proud to announce that Gerald A. Strand has been selected as a finalist in the 2005 IP Awards for his military fiction book, The Red Caduceus. The "IPPY" Awards are designed to bring increased recognition to the deserving, but often unsung, titles published by independent authors and publishers. 

Gerald served for fifteen years in the US Naval Reserves as a hospital corpsman and Medical Services Corps Officer. After earning his Ph.D. in 1977, he was closely affiliated with Duke University Medical Center. The Red Caduceus is based, in part, on a brief personal experience in the rural Mekong Delta region of Viet Nam.

Many lives were forever changed on December 1, 1969, when the first military draft since 1942 was implemented. Ronnie Remson was an All-American football player with a secret vow that guided his life. His teammate, BJ Johnson, made the holes in the opposing line through which Ronnie ran. This time, however, Ronnie and BJ will take different paths. Ronnie, driven by his secret vow and influenced by a young naval hospital corpsman, Kathy J. O’Brian, entered the US Navy Hospital Corps. BJ, driven by a desire to make his mama proud, enlisted in the US Marine Corps.

Ronnie and BJ take separate journeys inside war-ravaged Southeast Asia. Ronnie’s world, cloaked in secrecy, is lived in places distant from BJ, but not different in intended outcomes.

The Red Caduceus imparts a fifteen month saga that is much more than a shoot-‘em-up war story. The Red Caduceus reminds us that whenever American military personnel are in harm’s way, someone dedicated to saving their lives is standing next to them…someone wearing the universal symbol of healing…a red caduceus.

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