J.T. McDaniel Official Website

Biography

Taken December 1998 at Price Communications Wire-
less Holiday party.

I was born on 12 March, 1949, in Bedford Municipal Hospital, in Bedford, Ohio. At the time, my parents lived on Broadway (U.S. 14), just across the city line in Oakwood Village, which was one of several municipalites created from the original Bedford Township. Dad had been a truck driver before being drafted into the 37th Infantry Division, Ohio National Guard. After returning from military service in the Pacific during World War II—including service on New Georgia, Bougainville, and in the Philippines—he went to work as a millwright at the Republic Steel plant in Cleveland.

In December 1947, Mom and Dad were married in Garrettsville, Ohio, and then moved into an apartment on Hough Avenue in Cleveland. At that time, this was considered a pretty good neighborhood, though a few years later that had changed. As soon as they could do so, they bought the house on Broadway and, in 1949, I came along as the first of three children. Dad continued to work at the steel mill. For the next few years, until we were well along on growing up, Mom stayed home and took care of us and the house. She did get involved in local politics, serving a couple terms as Village Clerk, and would later go to work for the Bedford City School system.

I think I had a fairly typical childhood for the period. Not exactly Ozzie and Harriet—though we watched it regularly—or Leave it Beaver, but it did include fishing, wandering through the woods, epic battles with wooden swords and the normal collection of toy guns, and school in the days before it ever occurred to anyone that you could make grade school kids do homework, or that kindergarten should be turned into first grade. In the summer, each of us kids was sent out to spend some time on my Aunt and Uncle's farm in Garrettsville, where my Mom had grown up after her parents died. We all learned a lot out there, including such vital information as the fact the dinner and supper are not two names for the same meal, regardless of the uninformed opinions of the city-bred. (Dinner is eaten at noon, supper is eaten in the evening.)

When I was a kid, I started school with the old-style, traditional half-day kindergarten at Interstate Elementary School, then started first grade at Carylwood Elementary, which had just been built. Carylwood, considerably enlarged, is still there. Interstate is long gone. They didn't have "middle school" in those days, so I stayed at Carylwood through the sixth grade, then moved on to Moody Junior High School. That's gone now, too, though at the time I started there it was actually being enlarged.

While I was at Moody, they build a highway through our house, so we moved into Bedford. I finished school at Bedford Senior High School, graduating with the Class of 1967. I was writing by then, including a couple of novels that I would prefer to disown, should anyone dig them up. They really weren't very good, but you have to start somewhere. I was heavily into photography back then, working on the yearbook, my senior year as head photographer.

I went into the Army later that year, going through Basic at Fort Knox, and advanced training at the Defense Information School, which at that time was located at Fort Benjamin Harrison, Indiana, just outside Indianapolis. (It has since moved to Fort George G. Meade, Maryland.) This was a Department of Defense school, so in addition to Army personnel, the class included Navy, Marine, and Air Force types.

Photo taken in Atami, Japan, during R&R from Viet Nam in 1968. I actually became failrly familiar with the town after leaving Viet Nam, since I was stationed at Sagamihara Depot and USARJ Headquarters at Camp Zama, so Atami became a regular destination on weekend passes.

From there, it was off to Viet Nam, where I was assigned to HHC, 308th Combat Aviation Battalion, 1st Aviation Brigade, as Public Information NCO. (An odd designation, really, since I was a Spec 4, which is not a non-commissioned officer, though the pay grade is the same as a corporal.) The 308th was stationed at Camp Eagle, near Phu Bai, in I Corps, providing aviation support (helicopter) for the 101st Airborne Division. Later that year, the entire unit was absorbed into the 101st, becoming the 159th Assault Support Helicopter Battalion. We kept the Chinooks, and the Hueys were transferred to a new battalion. Since there was no longer a slot for me at battalion level, I was sent to Group.

I eventually wound up at Division Rear, located at Bien Hoa Army Base, near Saigon, then took an intra-theatre transfer to Japan, where I completed my military career.

I was still writing stuff, of course. The quality was improving by then, what with the journalism courses and a little more life experience. One of my first jobs after getting out of the Army in 1970 was as either assistant editor, or an editorial assistant, at the Bedford Times-Register, back in the old home town. (The title depended on whether you were asking the Publisher, who liked assistant editor, or the Editor, who didn't think he needed that much assistance.) It was the normal weekly newspaper routine, going to City Council and School Board meetings, and reading all the letters to the editor we received. (The ones from God and Jesus tended to be the most interesting, even if you couldn't really publish them.)

Later, I got into broadcasting, holding down a couple of radio news director jobs in North Carolina and Florida. I also worked as a disc jockey, which was a lot more fun. Somewhere in there I started writing books, and by now they were getting good. I also managed to get married for about seven years. With Honour in Battle was written during this period, though it wasn't published until 2001. The most important outcome of the marriage was my oldest son, Richard. I expect to see him picking up a Grammy in a few years. I also have another son, William, who took the author photo used on Bacalao's back cover. Richard, meanwhile, is finishing up college and plays lead guitar with the Colombian Death Metal group Phalogore.

The last few years, in addition to writing, I've been working in the cellular industry, annoying a few people on UseNet, and doing a lot of research. A while back I created the KZRider website, which was turned over to a new webmaster after I bought a '93 Vulcan 88 a while back. The website I currently spend a lot of time on is FleetSubmarine.com, which is planned as a comprehensive internet resource on American submarines and submarine operations during World War II.

And, now that Bacalao is finished and released, my literary work is mostly centered on editing the American Submarine War Patrol Reports series, which is coming along slowly during the few free hours in my schedule..