John F Simpson
During the author's twelve-year navy career he served as an electronics instructor and flight crewmember tracking NASA manned apace shots. He took the first pictures of the Russian nuclear-powered icebreaker Lenin as it traveled south along the coast of Norway; one of the official U.S.Navy photographs he took was on the front page of the New York Times. He was a member of the navy's Operation Deep Freeze in New Zealand and the Antarctic. During President Johnson's South East Asia tour, he was assigned to President Johnson's White House staff in Wellington, New Zealand and served as a security team leader.
In 1967 he switched from the navy to the army and trained young officers to be avionics maintenance officers. He was recruited by the Green Berets and assigned to jump school. After his special forces training, he was assigned to the 46th Special Forces Company in Thailand where he traveled from Malaysia to Burma installing and upgrading communication sites. On one occasion, he provided support for Special Forces operations in Laos.
In 1970 he graduated from primary flight school and Cobra attack-helicopter training; then went directly to Vietnam and the 25th Infantry Division just outside of Saigon. After six months, he was reassigned to the 101st Airborne Division just south of the dividing line between North and South Vietnam. He received nine air medals, two bronze stars and one army commendation medal in Vietnam.
His next assignment was in Munich, Germany where he flew the border between East and West Germany. While stationed in Germany he was recruited by the Criminal Investigation Division and later Military Intelligence to track military drug dealers; his investigation led him to a French Communist woman who was supporting an underground newspaper that was providing instructions on how to sabotage military aircraft, vehicles, and generators. He also served as an instructor for his company's pilots and the aerorifle platoon for small weapons, jungle survival, physical security, and combat-in-cities.
During his military service he attended colleges and universities in the United States and Germany. He has a BS in physics, an MA in English, and a PhD in philosophy.
After retirement, he worked for Bell Helicopter and was assigned to Isfahan, Iran as a Cobra test pilot. He enjoyed Iran until the terrorism started. They blew up his favorite Korean restaurant just moments after he had walked out. He escaped from Iran just prior to the overthrow of the government. Upon returning home to Ohio, he learned from the evening news that some of the Iranian military officers he had worked with had been executed (murdered) under orders from Ayatollah Khomeini.
Since leaving Bell Helicopter, the author has worked as a technical writer, publications consultant, and engineer for Siemens, IBM, Motorola, and Dresser Industries. He has written more than 300 technical manuals on computers, computer controlled equipment, central-office telephone equipment, pagers, robots, hydraulics, pneumatics, diesel engines, jet engines, helicopters, and mining equipment. He continues to work as a research and development engineer for an Aerospace Technologies Group. He lives in Florida with his wife JoAnn and his four-pound Chihuahua named Chiquita.
