Since I'm producing this site and since some of my old (and I do mean OLD) friends might blunder across it and wonder what the hell happened to me, a bit of biography seems to be in order. Call it context, or conciet, but this is a personal site and I'm the person behind it.

Late in life you get a bit of perspective on how your life got pushed and pulled in different directions. Late in life I am very well aware of the many good influences that were my blessings early in life, and many of those blessings had to do with the Army. I got a lot more out of the Army than the Army got out of me.

I really didn't contribute much to the 8th Trans, but I did absorb a lot of little lessons from older and wiser men in the unit. The Army at the time was still full of guys who had participated in World War Two and Korea and the 8th Trans had a sprinkling of them. Some, including one of our pilots, had extensive combat time and I recall their attitude to our operations as rather dull and staid affairs. They provided a subtle sort of leadership that made an impression.

I'm a writer now because of my service in the Army, especially in Viet Nam, because it was the only way to stay in touch with my girlfriends back home. Writing letters to those young ladies was good practice for writing books later on, although the rewards for each kind of writing are rather different.

I'm a photographer today because of the opportunity to record those adventures back then. I've probably made a million images or more in the past forty-five years, but those first photographs still seem to hold up pretty well. I am still photographing soldiers and warriors and helicopters and guns today.

There were times back then when the Army didn't really seem like much fun, but fun or not, it was character-building. Since I got out of the Army I have spent far more time in the field than I ever did as a soldier, and perhaps just about as much time in helicopters. I liked the old Army, but I love the new Army of today.

The books I write have at their core the lessons about life and about soldiering taught by the mostly enlisted members of the 8th Trans back in the early 1960s, so when I write about Navy SEALs or Green Berets or snipers, it is always from the perspective of what happens during "real world" operations and not what the public affairs officers or the FMs want told.