Sometimes you wish you could go back in time. At least I do.

I’m speaking of a very heady late Sunday morning in the early 1990s when I attended a Catholic service in Beverly Hills with, embarrassingly, the express intent of seeking out another mortal instead of a spiritual experience.

It’s a long story but let me succinctly chop it up to give you the particulars. My best friend, Scottish-born Rosslyn, had invited her adorable parents (how else can you describe two seniors, both well into their 70s and barely over five feet in height who described everything they were seeing with a gasp and then, in rich brogue, “Gorgeous!”) over for three weeks after a ghastly cold and foggy summer back in Dundee.

There was a heat wave going on in Los Angeles and fearful of their health as they broiled like lobsters under the merciless sun in the back garden, Rosslyn asked them to please come inside.

“Oh, no!” said Alice, “We haven’t seen the sun in months. It’s gorgeous!”

They were precious, these two, and Rosslyn dutifully showed them all the Hollywood sights and when I teasingly asked Alice which star she would love to see, without a moment’s hesitation, she exclaimed, “Oh, Jimmy Stewart!” Or, as she pronounced it, “Stuuueeeart!”

Well, we had to make this happen and another friend of ours, Greg, just happened to know the church Jimmy Stewart and his wife, Gloria, had faithfully attended each Sunday for over 30 years. We all decided to go to the next service and both Alice and husband, John, remained doggedly attentive to the sermon as Greg slipped a note to Alice which read, ‘Mr Stewart is in the pew directly across from you.’

She only allowed herself the briefest of head tilts as her eyes swept briefly towards her famous heart throb, sitting erect and equally attentive, only feet away. But I saw the curve of a smile appear on her lips.

Upon leaving, we were walking to our car quite slowly in the hopes that we might see him once again, and after shaking the priest’s hand, he suddenly appeared striding towards us on the same sidewalk. In my life I had never approached a celebrity, let alone a film icon, but for Alice I did.

“Mr. Stewart,” I began, grateful that at the same height I could look him in the eye. “Please forgive me for bothering you, especially on a Sunday, but these are dear friends who have traveled all the way from Scotland and when I asked Alice, here, if she could meet any actor in the world, who would it be, she said you.”

And just as I, and you, gentle reader, had hoped, this kindly man smile broadly, stooped to her level, and said, “Well, isn’t that lovely? My family is from Scotland, too! Which area are you from?” They exchanged a few more pleasantries, he shook their hands and went on his way, leaving Alice’s mouth pursed in a perpetual, little ‘O’ as she gasped, “Oh, isn’t he gorgeous?!”

We were still walking when Mr. Stewart then drove past us in his ancient, yet immaculate, dark green Volvo, and looking straight at Alice, blew her an expansive kiss.

“Oh,” she made a little cry, “Oh!”

But the reason I wish I could go back in time is that I have just read Michael Colleary’s recent article on Jimmy Stewart and I while I knew he had served our country, I had no idea the extent of his duty or the sacrifice of his adopted son, Ronald McLean.

According to Colleary, Stewart, who had just won an Oscar for The Philadelphia Story, was sworn in to the Army Air Corps nine months before Pearl Harbor, as a private. The Air Force wanted him to sell war bonds, contending that at age 35 he was too famous, and too old to fly combat missions.

However, as Colleary writes: ‘But he pushed and wrangled and charmed until — finally — he was sent to England and put in command of a squadron of B-24 Liberator bombers.

The B-24 was a fast but ungainly beast poorly suited to formation flying, and had the dubious reputation for breaking up during hard landings. Joe Kennedy Jr. died when his B-24 exploded during a test flight. Louis “Unbroken” Zamperini’s B-24 malfunctioned and crashed in the Pacific.

Stewart piloted these death traps over Germany and Occupied Europe — braving flak bursts and fighter attacks — more than 20 times.’

By the time the war was over, Jimmy Stewart was promoted to colonel. But unfinished, he remained a reservist until retiring at the rank of two star general, in 1968 – even piloting a couple of Vietnam combat missions.

And it was in Vietnam that his son, now a lieutenant, found himself and his patrol, after being dropped off by helicopter deep in the jungle, surrounded by a much larger group of North Vietnamese. Request for extraction was denied and Lt. McLean and his six men fought back valiantly for two days. When he broke cover to come to the aid of a wounded comrade, he was shot in the chest and killed.

Had I not been ignorant to this life and loss, dedicated to serving his country while other equally famous stars either dodged the draft or served stateside, I would have added, standing on that shaded sidewalk after church, “And thank you, Mr. Stewart, for your service, courage, and sacrifice. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.”

He truly was gorgeous.