My First 80 Years

About the Book

It is not fashionable today to speak or write of such things as honor, duty, and responsibility.  The author lived his life in accordance with these principles, but at the same time he led an enormously enjoyable and rewarding life.  He worked hard and he played hard, and it was all great fun.  His unusually quick mind, sharpened by an engineering and a legal education, enabled him to be successful at a variety of occupations, and he was in turn an author, a military officer, a design engineer, a teacher, a foreign affairs specialist, a negotiator, an aerospace executive, and a lawyer.

His religious training was quite conventional, and he was a member of the Episcopal Church.  From an early age he was curious about such questions as “What is life all about?” and “What happens to us when we die?”  The answers offered by the Episcopal Church and the other mainstream churches seemed illogical and raised still more questions, but he was too busy to investigate the matter.  Finally, a friend introduced him to a book about the psychic Edgar Cayce, and that book and others that he read provided some surprising and convincing answers.

The book begins with the author’s earliest thoughts and ends in Thailand with the celebration of the millenium.  In between it tells of an enjoyable and varied life lived in interesting times.  It is a true account of the author’s experiences, his thoughts, and the people that he encountered along the way.

About the Author

Born in Gulfport, Mississippi, the author grew up in Atlanta, Georgia, and Bessemer, Alabama. Upon graduation from Georgia Tech in 1941 he was immediately called to active duty as a reserve officer in the U.S. Army. When the United States entered World War II he was sent to the Southwest Pacific theater. After his release from active duty he spent a year in Brazil as an instructor with the Brazilian Air Ministry before entering Harvard Law School, where he graduated with the class of 1949. Two years later he was recalled into the U.S. Air Force during the Korean War. Then followed a career as an executive in the aerospace industry. Father of two children from his first marriage to Patricia Randolph. Now married to Ellen Buechner, who succeeded in leaving East Germany during the Cold War.