Book excerpt: By the author of the acclaimed Loyalist Rifleman, Acceptable Casualties is the story of two Canadian soldiers, friends who fought in the First World War; "The Great War." It is the story of their war and of their lives, their tragedies and their triumphs. One of the men is fictional. The other is not. His story is true. This is as close to a first-hand, soldier's account of the war as can be had in these times.