The author, Daniel V Carbaugh, was born in Waynesboro, Pennsylvania, in 1942. He attended the local public schools, graduated from high school in 1960, joined the U.S. Marine Corp, and found himself back in his hometown looking for a job in 1965. With a bit of luck and recently found skills acquired in the military, Dan soon found his way to Baltimore, Maryland, and a forty-one-year career in the infamous military industrial complex. Along the way he picked up an undergraduate degree from the University of Maryland and a graduate degree in technical management from the Johns Hopkins University, Whiting School of Engineering. He and family lived in several foreign countries during his career, including Morocco, Germany, Spain, Venezuela, Thailand, Algeria, and Saudi Arabia. **In 2007, Dan retired and returned to his hometown to be near family. In 2009, his mother passed away. He and his wife moved to Florida, where they now reside in the southwest coastal community of Cape Coral.