Ray Manning lives in California with his wife, Connie. Their children are adults now and live independently. Mr. Manning served six years in the U.S. Navy and flew off the USS Yorktown, CV-10. Designated CVS-10 when his squadron deployed aboard the aircraft carrier as part of CAG 55 (Carrier Air Group 55). He saw air to ground combat during his two tours in the South China Sea during the Vietnam conflict. He describes these experiences as “Another lifetime ago”. The fact that the USS Yorktown is now a museum in the Maritime Museum at Patriot's Point, South Carolina is testimony to “another lifetime ago”. An item on Mr. Manning’s bucket list was to take his wife Connie to see the Yorktown while they can still travel. Seemingly an easy enough item on his bucket list to achieve, but for a multitude of reasons, it hadn’t worked out for them to visit the USS Yorktown until 2023. On March 26, 2023, Mr. Manning's son, Michael, flew Connie and Mr. Manning to Brunswick, Georgia. From there they drove to Charleston, South Carolina where the three of them went aboard the USS Yorktown on March 28 and 29, 2023. March 29, 2023, also happened to be the fiftieth anniversary of the last U.S. combat troops leaving Vietnam. According to Mr. Manning, once again boarding the USS Yorktown, where cumulatively he spent two years of his life flying and traveling over much of the world, only this time going aboard the carrier with his wife and son, was a once in a lifetime experience, he will always remember. Mr. Manning’s writing debut occurred late in his life, publishing his first novel at 78 years of age. Although authoring a book has been on his bucket list for decades, it just didn’t come together for him until the year 2020. Although 2020 was not a good year for the world with the COVID-19 pandemic taking hold, it was the year Mr. Manning was able to cross off authoring a book on his bucket list. As of this writing, his tenth and final novel in the Jesse Steele series has long been published. His plans were to have ten books in the series and that goal has been reached. However, the first three books of the Jesse Steele series have been revised. The story itself has few changes. The major changes are in the trim size of the books and the meta data. If you purchase books one through three, he recommends getting the ones that say "second edition" on the cover. After reading his father's sixth Jesse Steele novel, Michael Manning took Mr. Manning and Connie to see the movie Top Gun Maverick. Mr. Manning was surprised and pleased to see that the movie was remarkably similar to his sixth Jesse Steele novel. He remains amazed at the similarity of these two independently developed stories. Mr. Manning has completed five books in his Rene Sharp series and there are no other Rene Sharp books planned at this time. He has completed and published two books in his new series, Paradise Altered. The first book in this series, Kiss Paradise Goodbye, is about violence erupting in Paradise, and this book begins where book five of the Rene Shape series ends at a time when life on the New World was idyllic. Rene Sharp remains one of the main characters in the story, but she is no longer the focus of the story. The New World was still very much like living in a perfect world, free from greed, crime, and violence, where people in power actually acted in the best interest of the people they represent, you know, like living in paradise, then violence erupts. The second book in this series, Paradise Sexualized, has Rene Sharp involved but focuses on sexual relationships that go against social and religious taboos. This novel is available and is Mr. Manning's first Adults Only novel. Mr. Manning has also completed ten booklets in his Insanity series of political commentary and editorials.Read more about this authorRead less about this author