Heath Twichell grew up during World WAR II in State College, Pennsylvania, while his father was helping to build the Alaska Highway. Like his father, he chose a military career, graduating from West Point as an infantry lieutenant in 1956.Many of Twichell's assignments took him where history was being made. In 1958, as a member of the 101st Airborne Division, he helped protect black students as they integrated Little Rock's Central High School; in 1968, he was stationed near Saigon with the 1st Infantry Division during the pivotal Tet offensive; four years later, he was again in Vietnam, this time as an advisor to a South Vietnamese regiment guarding the DMZ, when the North Vietnamese army opened the final phase of the Vietnam war by attacking in force across that line.The Army also gave Twichell the opportunity to become a teacher. After receiving an MA in modem European history from American University in 1964, he spent three years as an instructor at West Point. In 1970 he returned to American University to finish his Ph.D. His dissertation, a biography of Major General Henry T. Allen, a distinguished figure of the World War I era, won the Allan Nevins prize in American history and was published by RutgersUniversity Press in 1974. Graduating from the U.S. Naval War College in 1977, he stayed on to become a faculty member, teaching history, political science, and international relations to senior military and civilian officials.Following his retirement from active duty in 1980, Twichell organized and became the first director of the graduate program in international relations at Salve Regina University in Newport, Rhode Island. He resigned from that position in 1988 to write this book.
