Michael Vouri

Mike Vouri was born Dec. 15, 1947 in Berkeley, California. He joined the U.S. Air Force immediately after finishing high school and served as a crew chief of an O-1 Bird Dog reconnaissance aircraft at a forward operating location in Vietnam 1968-69. He remained in the Air Force for nearly nine years until he took his discharge to go to college, majoring in history. He has worked as a public affairs officer for the Air Force, newspaper reporter and editor, and in 1983-84 was assistant director for the Washington State Department of Veterans Affairs. For the latter he founded the Agent Orange Hot Line for state veterans and contributed to making illnesses related to exposure to Agent Orange service-connected disabilities. In 1995 he joined the National Park Service as an interpretive park ranger at San Juan Island National Historical Park, created in 1966 to commemorate the peaceful resolution of the San Juan Boundary Dispute, or "Pig War." He was re-classified a historian in 2004 and currently serves as a chief of interpretation for the park that covers nearly 2,000 acres on San Juan Island at two units: American and English camps, the sites occupied by by U. S. Army soldiers and British Royal Marines from 1859 to 1872. He has written three books about "The Pig War'" and co-written two books about San Juan Island with his wife, Julia Coffey-Vouri.