John R. McClarren - Writer/Military Consultant

AUTHOR BIO

I am John McClarren, a retired US Army infantry officer, having served for over thirty years, prior to my retirement as a lieutenant colonel. During my Army active duty service, after a year as an enlisted man, I was a training officer at Fort Polk Louisiana, an infantry platoon leader in the Republic of Vietnam, a plans and operations officer at Sixth Army Headquarters at the Presidio of San Francisco, and finally both a psychological operations officer and an infantry company commander with the Second Infantry Division in the Republic of Korea.

After coming off of active duty in 1970, I remained in the reserve components of the Army until my retirement. During that time I trained young reservists to become non-commissioned officers at an NCO academy in Tucson and Phoenix, Arizona, as well as Las Vegas, Nevada, and later I was a company commander of a tank company in Escondido, California, which was part of the California National Guard. I was also sent to Germany as a maneuver damage control officer during an annual exercise in that country. I served two consecutive tours as a German liaison officer for a multi-national logistical exercise at Fort Lee, Virginia

Army schools that I completed included Infantry Officer Candidate School at Fort Benning, Georgia , Jungle Operations Course in Panama, Infantry Advance Course at Fort Benning and Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth Kansas .

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Debbie and I live in northern Michigan, and we try to go anywhere we can find water. Even though I was born with salt water in my veins, being from coasal southern Californiat, I'll take what I can get. We live on Lake Huron, but this picture is on Higgons Lake, near Roscommon, Michigan, where Deb grew up.

 Besides my military service, I graduated from the University of Arizona with a BA in secondary education, majoring in German and minoring in English. I did graduate work at the University of Arizona as well as the University of San Diego in the fields of German, secondary education and counselor education. I taught high school German and English at Torrey Pines High School, Del Mar, California for twenty years, where, as well as teaching, I was active in the local teachers’ union as site representative for many years, as well as grievance chairperson for the teachers of the district. 

My family and I then relocated to northern Michigan where I engaged in many occupational fields outside of education, the last of which had me traveling the country, being on the road or in the air about three hundred days each year. It was truly a cultural enlightenment, working with people from all walks of life and ethnic diversity.

In regard to my family life, I have been married for thirty years and it has resulted in a wonderful life with three fine boys, all off on their own, two, Brent and Scott having been in the Army, both with combat tours, and now out, and the third, Craig, a geologist with a Master of Science degree, working towards his doctorate in volcanology. He is currently at the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia, working on geothermal energy for that country, as well as working toward this PhD. He is currently engaged to be married to a young lady from China in the summer of 2011. Brent is married and he and his wife, Jenny, have given us our first grandchild, Rylee. Scott is now at Michigan Tech University in forestry, and doing extremely well. My wife, Debbie, is a special education teacher, still loving nearly every moment of it. Living in the northern reaches of the lower peninsula of Michigan provides the perfect atmosphere for creative thinking, which is so all important for my relatively new writing career.

With the tremendous length and diversity of my military career, my educational background, and my phenomenal array of travels around most of the world, I really could not be better suited for writing IF ALL ELSE FAILS, THERE’S ALWAYS CIVILIAN LIFE. It is a natural for me. I do consider myself an expert when it comes to military subjects and what the military is all about, and I have included some excellent examples for nearly every subject I cover in my book. Much of the above can be echoed in regard to my memoir.