I have had strange and extensive experiences on the periphery of the US military, all of my life. My dad was enlisted in the USAF during the Cuban Missile Crisis. I was a cadet in Civil Air Patrol, Auxiliary of the USAF, and had my first flight training at the California Wing Cadet Glider Pilot School. My earliest memory, when I was two and a half years old, was watching Neil Armstrong step off the LEM onto the surface of the moon, and from that moment, I fervently wanted to be an Air Force pilot, test pilot, and astronaut.

I ended up applying with my best friend to fly for the Navy instead, and we were accepted for Naval Air Officer Candidate School at NAS Pensacola at the age of twenty-three. Two weeks later, we received a second set of letters from the Navy, stating that Congress had cancelled the funding for the NavCad program and we did not get to go. I never did become a professional pilot nor serve as enlisted or officer in the military, which are the two greatest regrets of my life. Around 2008, I served as a PACE (program for afloat college education) professor on the guided missile destroyer Nitze in the Northern Arabian Gulf. I am literally the only professor on campus to have earned actual combat pay for teaching. I have many other experiences around the periphery of all branches of the United States military, and have an avid interest in the Cold War, Cold War culture, and Cold War tourism.

I am currently licensed as a private (amateur) pilot by the FAA, a ham radio operator by the FCC, and a Level 1 high power rocketry user by the NAR. I am a parent-child model rocketry instructor. I have been (and expect to be again) the faculty advisor for the campus science fiction club. I am an amateur musician (primarily guitar, but also a little piano and some other string (strictly fretted) instruments. I have been an avid amateur photographer since I was about seven years old.

During the last three decades, I have occasionally written a science fiction story. I have around a dozen now, I think, and if this one is published, it will be the first. I think it is the best thing I have written, so hopefully I am not the only one who does not think it is complete garbage. If you think it is complete garbage, please keep it to yourself, especially if you have not written anything yourself. 😉

(Hopefully) Enjoy. Thank you.