Mr. Stuart Nicholls

Stuart Nicholls was raised on a small farm near Wheaton, Illinois, and attended high school with Bob Woodward and John Belushi. He was a neighbor of Judy Jacklin, who became Belushi's wife.

Nicholls was a natural born adventurer.

In 1961, at the age of 14, Nicholls wrote a movie script, then sold his cow, calf and chickens for $160 and set off to walk from Chicago to Hollywood where he hoped to sell the script and become a famous screen writer. However, after being kicked out of Paramount Studios by actor Michael Landon and a security guard, Nicholls returned home to Illinois, where his writing career took a hiatus.

Later adventures included a one month canoe trip on the treacherous Allagash River in the wilderness of northern Maine, in 1962.

The following year he canoed down the Mississippi River.

In 1964, after graduating from high school, he drove to Cody, Wyoming to attend forest ranger school and worked on a ranch near Yellowstone Park.

He joined the US Army at the age of 17 and served as a combat infantryman in Vietnam from 1965-1966.

He returned to Fort Carson, Colorado and became an avid rock climber before being discharged in 1967.

After graduating from the University of Hawaii with a B.S. in Tropical Agriculture and a minor in Vietnamese Studies, Nicholls returned to Vietnam in 1987 to search for a daughter he may have fathered during the war. Later, he became one of the very first veterans to live in Vietnam after the war. While there, he helped build medical clinics, taught English, assisted the Vietnam Department of Agriculture, ran veteran tours, and helped the Amerasian orphans. He was finally deported after he was caught searching for American POW's and MIA's. He now lives on his carnation farm on Maui.

His first book THUNDER ROAD:THE JOURNEY HOME was published in December 2012. It is based on the true and unique story of his involvement in Vietnam for over four decades.