About the Author

I was born in Washington in 1952, in a small town in the Pacific Northwest that back then had a population of about thirty-five thousand. I am from a typical family with two older brothers and one younger sister.

At a very young age, I started to develop my shooting skills as a member of the North Central Washington Gun Club. Under the watchful eye of retired Army Officer Sam Kelly who ran the youth program at the gun club, I earned several shooting awards for my skills with a .22 caliber match rifle. Soon, I realized my skill with a rifle would someday be more than just a fun hobby.

At thirteen, I joined the local squadron of the Civil Air Patrol, an auxiliary of the United States Air Force. Always knowing I was going to enlist into the military as soon as I was out of high school, I took to the new adventure with a passion. Learning "Drill & Ceremony," Aerospace Education and Search and Rescue skills came easily.

I became a friend to several interesting people while a member of the Civil Air Patrol. I met Debbie, the first girl I ever kissed, Gary, a young man that would later become one of my dearest and most trusted friends and Tom, a fellow adventure seeker. Tom and I learned to scuba dive together and even started our own dive salvage company called B&T Salvage. Even though we never really had a true business, we enjoyed scuba diving and helping friends recover things dropped in the lakes and rivers that the area around my home was renowned for. Growing up in Wenatchee had already started me on path of adventure. From mountain climbing to scuba diving to learning to fly, I found I had a need to push my limits and to seek the adventure of life.

Since all of my uncles and both of my brothers had served in the US Navy, everyone expected me to follow in the family tradition. I, however, always knew I was destined to go into the US Marine Corps. I wanted to put my skills with a rifle and the outdoors to good use and on board a ship was not the place for me.

I also knew that a career in Law Enforcement was also in my future. My father had started the local Police Reserve unit and both of my brothers were Law Enforcement Officers. Even my Uncle was the Chief of Police of a town not too far from Wenatchee. Growing up, I had a pretty good idea of what my future held. After high school, a hitch in the military then a career in Law Enforcement.

In my senior year of high school, I became friends with a local police officer named Jerry Riste. Jerry was a former Special Forces soldier that I looked up to and respected for who he was and what he had done. I would ride along with Jerry while he was on duty and get him to tell me stories of the Army and the Special Forces. Jerry was one of the only people I had known that had actually served the military in a field that I thought I would like. The more I learned of the Army, the more I knew where I was destined to serve.

One day as I was riding with Jerry, Jerry threw the gauntlet of challenge. He told me that I wasn't tough enough to go into the Special Forces. Needless to say, I took that challenge, and had Jerry take me down to the Army recruiter to enlist. Later, I talked to my good friend Tom about enlisting with me. He also wanted to enlist so together, we decided to enlist into the Army. At that time, you couldn't enlist into the Special Forces but the eager Army Recruiter told Tom and I that we could enlist into the 82nd Airborne Division. The home of the 82nd Airborne was Ft. Bragg N. Carolina and that was where the Special Forces home just happened to be. The decision was easy, we would enlist into the 82nd Airborne on the "delayed enlistment/buddy program'" with the promise we could transfer to the Special Forces.

By May of the following year we would be on our way to a hitch in the US Army. I told my mother I had enlisted into the Army but she refused to believe me. It wasn't until I received my orders to report to Ft. Ord California did my mother finally believed I had gone into the Army. Coming from an all Navy family, the news of my enlistment into the Army didn't go over very well. My retired Navy uncle refused to talk to me, my mother was furious but my father was proud of my decision and that was what was most important to me.

I spent the time after high school getting ready for the Army. I spent the summer as an ambulance attendant in Vancouver, Washington, then home to train and workout to get in shape for the Army. Come May of 1972, I and my friend Tom were off to boot camp at Ft. Ord California.

From there, things didn't go as we had planned. After boot camp, Tom and I headed for Ft. Benning Georgia for three weeks of jump school. Shortly after arriving at Ft. Benning, things took a strange twist that would affect me the rest of my life. Tom was reassigned to Texas and I, well, my career took a different path. Things would never be normal again. That twist in fate brought me together with Lucky and eventually with the members of Spooky 8. From here, you will just have to figure it out for yourself.