William Swears

I was born in Great Falls Montana to an Air Force family - then averaged less than a year anyplace until my late teens. I have lived in England, Iran, Germany, and nine of the United States. I flew military helicopters for twenty-two years, seven in the U.S. Army, and fifteen in the U.S. Coast Guard. During those years, I once got a medal for not dying, and not killing my passenger, flew a little less than six-thousand hours and my crews saved something more than sixty lives at hazard on the sea, interdicted seven plus metric tons of cocaine and more than a hundred illegal immigrants.

On November 15, 2003, I broke my back ditching a Cozy experimental airplane 100 NM out to sea from Maui Hawaii in unreasonably high seas. I finally retired from the USCG in 2004, after spinal surgery and rehabilitation. I guess there is an upside to that. I can now be Googled. http://starbulletin.com/2003/11/18/news/index4.html and http://www.uscghawaii.com/go/doc/800/69155/ are not very wrong.

Before the military, before the flying, and before I could really grow a beard, I met the love of my life, Teri, in high school. We married in 1982. We'll celebrate our 30th wedding anniversary in July in a beat-up old log home on a ridgeline in Peter's Creek Alaska with our two lovely children, born in 1999 and 2004, two Eurasier dogs and two DSH cats. I earned MA in English on Groundhog Day, 2010, and now work as a technical writer/editor and sometime adjunct professor. I've written a high fantasy called "Split Affinity," and "Zook Country," a German language version of which was published (in Germany!) during 2011. I've visited six of the seven continents, and more than 30 countries, and none of that was nearly as exciting as the days our children were born.