I got a degree in English Literature (California State University Northridge, 1976) before an un-slaked thirst for adventure and foreign travel led me to enlist in the United States Air Force. I was a radio and television broadcast technician, and sometime Public Affairs troop, and served for 20 years in places as various as Greece, Spain, Japan, Korea, Greenland and Ogden, Utah, in a wide assortment of duties and pleasures which included midnight alt-rock DJ, TV news anchor, video-production librarian, radio and television writer and producer, production manager.... and base tour guide. On one completely colorful occasion, I drove a bright orange Volvo sedan across Western Europe from Athens to Zaragoza, Spain, accompanied only by a small and cranky child. In 2002, I started writing for the military-oriented weblog, “Sgt. Stryker’s Daily Brief” (now “The Daily Brief”) at www.ncobrief.com, writing essays and commentary on matters historical, personal, political, cultural, literary and military under the "nom du blog" of "Sgt. Mom". I took it over as senior editor/manager in 2004, while working as an office administrator and manager, catalog editor, executive secretary and classical music announcer, before I decided that writing full-time was what I really, really wanted to be doing. My novels and the memoir "Our Grandpa Was an Alien" all grew out of essays that I wrote for the blog.  My historical novel "To Truckee's Trail" also grew out of a series of essays for that blog. My current project, the "Adelsverein Trilogy" grew out of interest in the founding of the town of Fredericksburg, Texas, just up the road a piece.