VIC PATTERSON

According to the bio on Amazon: "I grew up in the middle of the U.S. I have always been a creative person. My hobbies include art and writing. I have also always been very independent and resistant to following the prescribed normal scripts that most people pursue. For example, my stepping out of the herd of academia caused me to be conscripted into the Vietnam War as a soldier. But from that experience comes most of my knowledge of the military involvements of my main character, Dred James. 

Later I became an English teacher, eventually wandering abroad to teach in Kuwait, where the Iraqi army was lined up on the border prepared to attack, and South Korea, where the North and South characteristically threatened to annihilate each other over a border fracas. I eventually returned to Southeast Asia--where I had previously served in the Vietnam War--to teach English in Thailand. I have now lived in Thailand for about twelve years and am retired for the most part. I love being here. It is exotic and a little bit wild and unpredictable.

If you scratched beneath the surface, you would probably find that there is something of a frustrated Dred James inside me. He is a wild guy who is, nevertheless, a hero. Do I envy him?"