At the Broken Places

ABOUT JOHN REED Philadelphia native John Reed, a retired U.S. Army master sergeant, settled in 1960 with his wife and daughter in New Windsor, New York, and began writing. Reed served in the prewar Pineapple Army in Hawaii as an infantryman in the same 27th Regiment as the author James Jones. He also fought the Japanese in World War II as a waist gunner on B-17s and B-24s for the Army Air Forces in the China-Burma-India Theater of Operations, and later served in Army intelligence units in Korea and Germany. Between military commitments he attended the University of Chicago, where he was highly active in numerous student political debates. One of his classmates, Kurt Vonnegut, became a famous American author. Reed reviewed more than thirty books for The New York Times Book Review, the Saturday Review, and The Christian Science Monitor. He published an op-ed page piece for the Times, as well as interviews for the Monitor with such notables as Gunter Grass, Elvis Presley, Hildegard Knef, and Tolstoy's daughter Alexandra. He also sold articles to Esquire, Mademoiselle, and True Magazine. The writer ended his days in New York, enjoying his friends and family, especially his grandson Sean and dog Jack. ABOUT CLARK BROWN Clark Brown retired from the U.S. Army in 1984 after more than twenty years of service. His experiences included two years in Vietnam in special forces and intelligence units. He also served in various command and staff positions in combat arms and intelligence units in Germany and the United States. His last assignment brought him to the faculty of the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York. He graduated from the Universities of Nebraska and Northern Colorado, and the Armed Forces Staff College. A native of Cornwall, New York, Clark now lives with his wife Susan in Scottsdale, Arizona.