Look and Listen

Biography

Born in Bruno, Saskatchewan, Canada and grew up in Nebraska and Minnesota. Graduated from Concordia University, St. Paul, Minnesota. Served for 20 years in the United States Navy on major ships of the line, at the Naval Academy in Annapolis, and at various Naval Stations in the United States and abroad, including Antarctica. Participated in numerous missions in Southeast Asia with the United States Marine Corps, and am a decorated veteran. Professor emeritus at Concordia Seminary, St. Louis. Taught courses in religious history, public policy, and politics and American religious life. Have two Master's degrees and pursued doctoral studies at Harvard University. Currently living in retirement in Spring Valley, Minnesota, with wife, Gloria. Have four children and twelve grandchildren.

Inspiration

My novel tells a story of public policy gone awry and takes place following several attempts at social engineering originating at various levels of government and passed to the military for implementation. In short, it is an intriguing tale about the collision between public policy and National defense. The idea of capturing some sense of what happens to the mission effectiveness of a combatant vessel burdened by such policies had its nascence around a September campfire. A former shipmate invited a group of his buddies to his farm for a reunion. As darkness descended, a fire was lit and the inevitable took place - the swapping of sea stories. As the evening progressed, a spirit of somberness and near incredulity replaced the jovial reminiscing. The Commanding Officer's Yeoman began to tell tales of intrigue that included intimations of the most nefarious acts. The idea of a novel was born when the Yeoman indicated that he had kept a diary of many of the events he was describing. Other tales were recorded in daily letters to the young lady he eventually married. She saved the correspondence. He shared the contents with me. With these "primary source documents" as stimulants to the imagination, I have penned "Constant Bearing - Decreasing Range: A Makeover for Sailor Sam" as a veteran of the U.S. Navy who served and sailed aboard vessels of the Fleet during the period in which the novel is set. I, too, witnessed the effects of social experimentation during that era and was fully aware of the unhappy burden that inappropriate public policy added to the already heavy responsibility that rested on the shoulders of the Commanding Officers of the Navy's ships. I have elected, using historical fiction, to share a portion of what I experienced and what was related to me. The resulting novel, "Constant Bearing - Decreasing Range", was awarded the 2007 Silver Star Award from the Military Writers' Society of America.