Tom Clancy, born in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1947, was the son of a mail carrier and a credit employee. He graduated from Loyola College in Baltimore in 1969. After marrying Wanda Thomas, an insurance agency manager, Clancy became an insurance agent. Later, in 1973, he joined the O.F. Bowen Agency in Owings, Maryland. He became an owner there in 1980. Although he was very interested in the military, his poor eyesight made him ineligible for a military career. However, he kept his interest and researched various aspects of the armed forces and military technology. In the late 1970’s he formed ideas for several novels which were later written in the 1980’s. Clancy wrote in his spare time, while still working to raise a family. In 1984 the Naval Institute Press, a noncommercial publisher, published his first novel, The Hunt for Red October. This book was noticed by President Reagan, who praised the book and helped boost it to bestseller lists. Clancy continued to use plots based on political issues of the world. All of his novels were on bestseller lists. Clear and Present Danger sold more copies than any other novel that was published in the 1980’s. Clancy has been called the creator of the "techno-thriller" genre. He uses extremely detailed descriptions of military technology and weapons to create realism. Occasionally, his descriptions, which were derived from declassified information and interviews, were so accurate that military officials disapproved of...
Robbins began penning his first novel in 1968 while working for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. Before that he held many journalistic jobs and had a varied and colorful education.
The Vietnam War in the late 1960’s was described as a tragedy, a victory, a win, and a loss, but for whom? The millions of people who loss their lives or the millions of people who fought to save others or is it for the millions of people who had to make that decision every time that they were in battle, but as for Richard Perry, a seventeen-year-old, African American just out of a Harlem High School, had to ask that question solely to himself. Perry, a talented and bright young man put away his dreams of college and becoming a writer because of the unfortunate circumstance he is in. He lives in poverty in the slums of Harlem. His single mother is abandoned by her husband and this leaves Perry and his younger brother Kenny without a father and a second income. Therefore, Perry’s mother does not have enough money to send him to college and the money they did have went to her alcohol problem. Although Perry has the grades and potential to go to a community college he is unsure about his plans in life and feels that money is the source of all his problems (Myers 15). Perry believes he should join the army to escape his future, to get money and to make it up to his younger brother and mother, and he does just that, He gets enlisted in the Army in the summer of 1967, due to a failure to process his medical file correctly leading him to not receive a medical discharge, Perry gets an unexpected ticket to the Vietnam War. In Fallen Angels, the major subjects include the history in The Vietnam War and war itself, Perry’s self discovery in war and the moral vagueness of war is represented. The themes of Friendship, Innocence and Racism are all reflected in the book. Friendship reflects the bond that Richie makes with Peewee Lobel, Lieutena...
The hardships of war can change a person to the point of insanity. However, one man lived through the dramatic hardships of war and told the tales of his experiences. William Timothy O'Brien, an American author, was born on October 1, 1946. He went to Macalaster College in 1968 for a degree in political science, and then he attended Harvard University from 1970-76. He served in the Vietnam War and was discharged for being wounded. He received the Purple Heart and became a reporter for the Washington Post from 1971-74 ("Tim O'Brien").Tim O'Brien's writing career began when he wrote a collection of newspapers, and magazine articles called If I Die in a Combat Zone. After that he continued to write novels such as Northern Lights and The Nuclear Age to continue his writing career ("Tim O'Brien"). “How to Tell a True War Story” is a tale of a group of infantrymen and their tales of the Vietnam War. It tells of the emotional and physical hardships of war and how the many men in Vietnam coped with these hardships. The importance of using literary devices and characters to accentuate a theme makes the reader not only more interested in the story, but more engaged in the reading of the story so that the reader can picture what is happening. In his captivating story “How to Tell a True War Story,” author Tim O’Brien delineates that the theme of both the physical and emotional isolation of war can be used to create a war story through the fictional representation of Tim O’Brien, and his astute use of verbal irony and point of view.
The story takes place in the late 1960s during Vietnam War and the author begins the story by presenting the main character, Lieutenant Jimmy Cross, and provides insights of his feeling and thoughts by describing
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. is one of the most well known World War II authors. His humble beginnings and early life misfortunes shaped not only his writings, but also his view of the world. His imprisonment in Dresden in World War II, however, formed his opinions about war at an early age and later inspired many of his works and style of writing. After the returning from World War II, Vonnegut voiced his sentiments through his writing that war was wasteful and uncivilized. Vonnegut developed a unique blend of sadness, satire, and simplicity, along with his ability to understand the audience, which made his novels comprehensible and inspirational to any reader. Although one of his most famous novels, Slaughterhouse Five, is based off of his experiences in World War II, during the time of its publishing, antiwar groups applied the novel’s themes to the Vietnam War. Early life tragedies and imprisonment established Kurt Vonnegut’s antiwar opinions in his semiautobiographical novel, Slaughterhouse Five, which would influence and encourage the younger Vietnam generation to protest an unnecessary war.
which the movie October Sky was taken. He also explained how he came to write the book and
Thomas Lanier Clancy was born on April 1947 at Baltimore, Maryland and grew up in a middle class Irish Catholic dominated neighborhood (Sharp 382). In his childhood years, Clancy was a voracious reader especially of science fiction and military adventure stories. After graduating from Loyola High School in Towson, Maryland in 1965, he joined Loyola College in Baltimore to study English Literature. He had hopes of becoming a writer, and he occasionally submitted short stories for publication, but they were never accepted.
I am pretty sure when the president of the United States and the people in the Pentagon decided to send their troops to fight in Vietnam, they did not think that the veterans would write, and would become a famous literature writer. (Zins)
man. Finally, he uses the book to compare the Vietnam conflict to the American Revolution.
The Cold War and post Cold War eras have brought with them many interesting aspects. New technologies initially meant for mass destruction filter down into the civilian world, making current lives easier. One example of this is the anti-lock braking systems of today’s cars. Originally designed to slow fighter-planes on landing without skidding, these systems make it safer for parents to take their children on vacation. One less noted advancement the eras brought is a considerable amount of exciting and forewarning fiction. While most authors chose to warn of nuclear and post nuclear holocaust, one significant author chose a different approach. Tom Clancy chose to write of conventional warfare and sometimes unconventional enemies. Between his novel Red Storm Rising and Debt of Honor, Tom Clancy makes evident the changing face of America’s enemies and threats, while staying true to issues that keep people interested in his books.
Clancy had always expressed interest in the military as he always had liked books on the military and contraptions/technology. While at Loyola College, he joined the Army Reserve Officers’ Training Corps or the ROTC. However, due to his nearsightedness, Clancy was not allowed to serve (Rooney 98) and had no future in ...
The reports in this novel are prefaced with a quote by Robert Shaplen, which sums up the feelings of those Americans involved in the Vietnam conflict. He states, "Vietnam, Vietnam . . .. There are no sure answers." In this novel, the author gives a detailed historical account of the happenings in Vietnam between 1950 and 1975. He successfully reports the confusing nature, proximity to the present and the emotions that still surround the conflict in Vietnam. In his journey through the years that America was involved in the Vietnam conflict, Herring "seeks to integrate military, diplomatic, and political factors in such a way as to clarify America's involvement and ultimate failure in Vietnam."
...unt for Red October, Clancy was suddenly a celebrity. He was invited to the White House for a private meeting with President Reagan and was met by military enthusiasts around the country. Now he had the opportunity to gain firsthand experience with the military operations and hardware he had known only from books and technical manuals. Clancy observed joined in training exercises and spent a week at sea on a mishearing frigate, and another on a submarine. Despite the detailed descriptions of life aboard a submarine in The Hunt for Red October, Clancy had never set foot on one until after the novel was published.
Homel, David. "Tim O'Brien Tells Vietnam War Stories Like no Other Author." The Gazette May 05 1990: 0. ProQuest. 17 Dec. 2013.
As private as Wheeler was a person, you can only speculate as to why he wrote over 40 books under three different pseudonyms. His seemingly quiet private life may have been vicariously lived through the lives of the many characters he created in his mystery novels. The series of Puzzle novels were his most popular and were written under the pseudonym Patrick Quentin and collaborated with Richard Webb (Obituar...