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The photo album

Left: I've no idea what the uniform and whip were all about, but Dad's belt looks like the one from his IRA dress uniform, and the hat is like what he wore when Joe and I were boys. The photo was taken at Smithfield Branch, Long Island, probably in the spring of 1928 before he went west with his cousin John Forde to work the wheat harvest in the US and Canada.

Below: Alton Central School, winter of 1938-39. Miss Pittman stands with six of us first-graders in the front row, with eight second-graders behind us. I'm the little guy, second from left. Most teachers at that time were trained at a two-year "Normal School," and this was Miss Pittman's third year at Alton, so she may be just twenty-three.

Below: The track team at Brewster Free Academy, spring 1947. Check out the middle row: that's Mr. Genowich at left, coaching the field events, and Mr. Masters at right, the track coach. I'm the third kid from left and Harry Nash is on the right, before he became a six-footer. About half these guys are ex-GIs, including big Ed Roy (our sterling shot putter, javelin thrower, and discus flinger) at center in the front row.

Above: I have so few photos from the University of New Hampshire that I had to borrow this one from the book. It's a rump meeting of the Young Republican Club in the spring of 1953. My brother Joe holds a glass at left, while I have a quart of Pickwick Ale at right. Joe was two years older but worked four years before deciding to follow me to UNH. By this time he was also the youngest member of the N.H. state legislature.

Above: I'm afraid I didn't learn much about political science as a Fulbright Fellow at the University of Manchester, but I did have a lot of fun. Here on the left is the newspaper gang drinking morning coffee at Caf: Antony, Malcolm, Ian, and Sheila. (Yes, we lads wore jacket and tie to class and at play.) And hitchhiking with Basia in the spring and summer, I did learn something about war, exile, and love. She's the blonde seated on the castle wall with a dark-haired French vagabond named Laetitia, who'd been on the road for two years when we met her.

Below left: The lads in front of the PsyWar barrack at Fort Bragg. We are about to go out on an "exercise" for a few days with full field pack and our fairly useless M-2 carbines. On the right: the front page of the Overseas Weekly. I wasn't responsible for any of those headlines, but they give a flavor of the OW's preoccupations. And I did write the back-page feature that week: "Americans By-Pass German Law To Adopt Babies, Officials Claim."

Above: What a great time it was, to be an expatriate in Europe! No doubt the Germans hated us, but they did a remarkable job of hiding it. Here we celebrate our good fortune at Jim Dye's apartment on Quirinstrasse in Sachsenhausen, outside Frankfurt. Jim on the left, Harry McGowan on the right. I have no recollection of the young woman.

Below: It took a few years, but by 1964 I was writing for a few national publications and, best of all, Doubleday gave me a fat advance on my first novel. When Now Comes Theodora and I appeared on television, I really thought I had it made. The advance had paid for a ticket to Saigon, where I was sure my next book was waiting for me.

Above: I loved Vietnam, its people, and the Americans who were building up the ARVN (Army of the Republic of Viet Nam). This is the U Minh Forest. There's only a few inches of water underfoot, but it was exhausting to walk through, and in places it was chest-deep. The U.S. wound up replicating its own military, including the unhappy PsyWarrior following me with his bundle of propaganda magazines.

Below: My Vietnam novel did well, but the next one tanked, so Doubleday cut me loose. I eventually turned to a history of the Flying Tigers, the mercenary pilots who went to Asia in 1941 to fly for the Chinese air force. That work gave me a yen to fly, which I finally did at the age of 69. Here I am with an L-4 military version of the fabulous Piper Cub, which I flew all over northern New England until I grounded myself at the age of eighty. Gosh, how I miss it!

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