Born on September 7, 1920, in the small town of Leesburg, Florida, James Ramsey Golden would live through both the Great Depression and WWII, arguably two of the most impactful events that shaped the United States we know today.

Golden served in World War II as a fighter pilot, and after parachuting out of his damaged airplane on D-Day, he spent eleven months as a German prisoner of war at the infamous Stalag Luft III. While surviving the trials of war—and flourishing afterward—might be considered sufficient for one lifetime, Golden’s path would take him through many more pivotal events of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. The tumultuousness South of the 1960s, adding the country’s 50th state, hosting ambassadors, befriending future president Jimmy Carter, and being among the first Americans invited to China in the late 1970s are but a few.

Through it all, James Golden remained a kind and genuine man who loved family and country, grateful for—and a bit bemused by—how his life unfolded. In the warm and friendly pages of Missing in Action Over Frances: A Life Well Lived, Golden takes you on his life’s story—sometimes alarming, sometimes powerful, often humorous, and always interesting.