Born: Lancaster, Pennsylvania, 1939
Served in Vietnam, U.S. Army Security Agency
7th Radio Redearch Unit, Saigon
Radio Monitor in communications security, 1963-64

From the artist:

Before I went to Nam I was trained as an industrial-arts teacher at Millersville University in Pennsylvania. Drawing was always something that I did as an avocation, or for fun. While in Saigon I started carrying a sketch pad with me and would draw street scenes, just to maintain a sense of reality about my situation. Amusingly, street children often gathered round to see what I was doing. They would greet me in French, though many could speak English. I guess they didn't see Americans as being very creative. I gave many of my little drawings to them.

I suppose this encouraged me to become more involved in fine arts, as an artist and teacher. I even developed a keen interest in oriental art. The painting "Fascinating Vietnam" I believe has some of the philosophies of yin and yang that I observed in Vietnam. While there was a great amount of beauty to be seen, it was tempered by the events of that time and place. The mixture of materials and ideas in most of what I try to create has this dichotomy.