Long before I reinvented myself as an author of military history and military fiction, I wandered the concrete sidewalks of Detroit. Smack in the middle of America's great melting pot, my father was the original Archie Bunker. Warnings about fraternizing with the Jewish kids in the two-story flat next door, the "micks" down the street, the "polocks," and especially those German immigrants, who I was told were probably Nazi spies, was standard dinner-table fare.

 When I wasn't getting in a fight or being reprimanded in the principal's office for drawing cartoons of teachers and other children, I was hanging out in the library. I loved to read and fantasized about adventures in far away lands. Books about the Navy and sea adventures were my favorites -- the adventures of John Paul Jones and the "Battle of Britain," which told of Spitfire pilots shooting down German Messerschmitts, left a lasting impression.

The ideas from early dreams and adventures were firmly embedded in my boy mind when, a few years later, I found myself strapped behind an R 2800 horsepower Pratt & Whiney 18-cylinder radial engine, driving a Navy F6F Wildcat and making landings on aircraft carriers. I met a "Baylor Girl" who was my intellectual superior, married her and launched a Navy career as a young "nugget" (Navy talk for a first tour carrier pilot).

The years rolled by and when I returned from the Korean War I embarked on an engineering career at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor that has served me well throughout my life. Little did I know as a boy that I would one day cross all of the great oceans and travel the fabled caravan and spice routes, leading young adventurous engineers in their first trek across the "singing sand dunes of the Arabian desert" or that I would manage 35 nationalities numbering tens of thousands of workers, speaking 30 different languages while building petrochemical edifices that would rival the ancient pyramids. But then, life is often stranger than fiction.

Contact the Author

I love to hear from readers, and I'm available for personal appearances. Contact me at stan@sowensmith.com if you'd like to chat about my book or the topics I discuss in my articles on US and China relations.

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