Author Bio
This
www.bookworldinfo.com page provides a short author biography
for novelist Robert A. Gallinger.
Author
Biography:
During
the early years of the great depression, Robert A. Gallinger
faced life for the first time in a hospital in Syracuse, New
York. It was January 23, 1932, a bitter cold day that he does
not recall, but has been told about repeatedly since his
birth. And why not? He was almost killed that day.
An
anxious doctor told Robert's father that the baby or the
mother, or both, could die. But there were options: remove
Robert's arm and/or his head, and that would almost certainly
save the mother's life.
"Can
you guarantee that my wife will live if you take such drastic
action?" the father asked.
"There
are no such guarantees in my profession," the doctor replied.
"But we have to act quickly if either of them is to
survive."
Before
the final decision could be made, luck or fate or faith
interceded, and Robert came screaming into the world with his
head and arms intact.
Both
the mother and he survived the ordeal, which was but one of
many traumatic experiences he had to face in his life, but,
according to him, "there were plenty of good times,
too."
Robert
was never interested in school during the early years, so
ended up failing repeatedly.
Eventually, he found himself in the eighth
grade at the age of sixteen. He was wild in his youth, but
not violent. And he liked to play soldier a lot, too.
He'd
"scout" the thick woods near his home in Marcellus, New York
where he lived with his parents, his three older sisters, and
two older brothers until he did go into the Army later. He
was the youngest, and the last to be born into the
family.
It was
hard during his youth, but, he says, "I never remember being
hungry or recall ever having the urge to steal, even though I
did experience periods of envy over the years, especially
whenever I saw other kids more fortunate than me with fancy
toys and clothing that did not have any holes in them.
But
envy was the least of my worries during my youth. My main
goal was to survive in a world that seemed indifferent to
people like my family, who had no money or property, not much
at all.
Later,
I learned that there were a lot more things in life than
money and property. And that's when I grew up, no longer
envious of the good fortune of others."
To make
a few dollars, Robert worked during school vacations for
Onondaga County, cutting grass and tarring roads. He even had
a paper route. But he soon learned that delivering papers was
not a good way to make money.
He
recalls that sometimes at the end of the month when he had to
pay the company for the papers he'd collected for, he could
hardly afford two ice cream cones. Not a profitable way to
success, but he did learn a lot about people on the route.
The young ones and the old.
"Some
were different and some were difficult," he
says, "but that's what life and writing are all about, too:
the different and difficult parts."
Other
times, he worked on the farms between Marcellus and Syracuse,
getting up and going to bed in the dark, helping with the
milking chores and removing manure from the barns.
Being a
farmhand was not easy labor or much more profitable than a
paper route, but it helped strengthen his body and his
resolve to do something more before he died.
He
learned humility in those early days of poverty, too, and it
never left him, the same as his quick smile even during the
worst of times.
Robert
never thought much about writing in his youth. He was too
busy surviving, or dreaming of the day he could become a
soldier.
By
1942, when his oldest brother enlisted in the Army to be a
paratrooper, Robert was only ten years old. But he wanted to
go into the Army so badly he could taste it.
And
later, when his next older brother enlisted in the Army in
1947, he wanted to go in then, too. In peace or war, he felt
that he belonged in the Army, so one day decided to give it a
try.
He ran
away from home to join up, using a "doctored" birth
certificate that could not conceal his youthful face.
He was
caught, severely lectured by the officer at the recruitment
station, and then returned home, but the urge never left
him.
Frustrated more than angry, his parents
allowed him to quit school, still in the eighth grade at the
age of sixteen.
He went
to work in the local woolen mill in Marcellus, where his
father and his father before him worked their entire
lives.
With a
limited education, It looked like Robert faced the same fate.
Still, he was getting older each day, and the day he'd been
waiting for finally arrived.
His
parents signed his enlistment papers and he joined the Army
two days after his seventeenth birthday.
It was
the happiest day of his life, he recalls, except, he says,
"that day I met and married Renate, my wife for life, and
later had three wonderful daughters along the way."
After
basic training at Camp Pickett, Virginia, Robert suddenly
became interested in reading and writing.
According to him, it had something to do
with the others he trained with in the Army. Most had a lot
more education than him, and seemed to know more things than
he'd ever heard about in his life.
He
thought it was time to move up the education ladder, so he
went for it.
He was
transferred to the signal school at Camp Gordon, Georgia
after basic, and began to take night school classes to
prepare for a high school General Educational Development
(GED) test.
It was
a start, but it was six years later in 1955 before he finally
got around to taking the test. He passed it, and New York
awarded him the diploma without fanfare.
If
nothing more, he was persistent, albeit a little slow in
those days. But then again, he had military duties to contend
with that many times required twelve-or-more-hour
days.
After signal school, he was
transferred to Germany the latter part of 1949. Over there,
he served as a communications center specialist, which
involved a lot of shift work.
That
had its advantages. He could do more off-duty schoolwork, and
he somehow met Renate.
They
married before he was much past twenty-one and they left for
the states in 1953 with one daughter, Sherri.
Through
a fluke in orders, they were stationed at Holloman AFB, New
Mexico, where Coleen, his second daughter, was born in
1954.
After a
short tour in Washington, DC, they had to pack up and
relocate to Eritrea on Army orders in 1954. That was the year
they really moved a lot.
After
another tour in Washington, DC, they were shipped to Paris,
France in 1956, where Cathy, their youngest daughter was born
in 1958.
It was
not an easy life, keeping up with pressing Army reallocations
and duties, family responsibilities and obligations, and
finally pursuing courses toward a degree.
"But,"
he says, "there was always love in the house, and Renate
handled many family matters for me that took a considerable
burden from my shoulders.
"She
did that a lot in those days and later, still does now." His
love for Renate is obvious even after over fifty years of
marriage.
Things
began to look better by 1962. Robert had accumulated over
three years of college credits in Business Administration
from the University of Maryland's global night school
programs.
He
progressed from sergeant to warrant officer, taking on added
responsibilities as the officer-in-charge of a communications
center in Alaska.
He
continued night school with the University of Alaska, until
he finally earned a bachelor's degree in Business Management
in 1963.
A year
later, he received a direct commission to first lieutenant.
Things were looking up, until he received orders in
1965.
He had
to leave his family in the states while he went to Vietnam
for a one-year tour as a duty officer in a major
communications relay station outside of Saigon.
By
1969, after a three-year tour in Germany, he was back to
Vietnam, now a major, serving as the executive officer of a
strategic communications battalion.
Like
most who served there in various jobs and capacities, he
still has flashes of incidents and events, both good and
bad.
He
recalls one amusing part of the tour over there, though, that
included a more diligent effort at writing.
"I
tried writing short stories, which I promptly mailed off to
various publishers, who just as promptly returned them with
curt rejections attached.
I
tacked them to the walls of the small battalion dayroom to
give the troops a laugh at some of the critical
comments contained in them.
"They
enjoyed the notes as much as I did. But I kept writing
despite the rejections, eventually getting the bug to write
the longer stuff, the novels, which I've worked at ever
since."
Retired
from the Army in 1974, Robert went to work for the National
Security Agency, and then for the Army as a civil
servant.
As a
civilian, he went on to earn a master's degree in
Telecommunications Operations Management in 1977 and a second
master's in Public Administration in 1979 from the George
Washington University in DC.
Later, in 1984, he had to pack up for
Germany with Renate, where he served in a joint headquarters
as a communications management specialist.
By
then, his daughters were grown with their own families, which
to date include five healthy grandsons, three beautiful
granddaughters, and three great grandsons.
He
loves to reminisce about his military life.
"The
life of a soldier is not an easy one," he says, "but neither
is the life of an Army wife or the children born into
it.
"There
are many separations, many fears and tears, many times of
hardship and sorrow.
"But
there is great happiness, too, and the good times. And that
made all the difference in the world."
Now
retired a little and writing a lot, Robert resides with
Renate in Mobile, Alabama.
To
Date, he has published nine suspense novels that include
No Time to Die, Suffer the Fool, Deadly Encounters, A
Crooked Path, Dead Light, A Debt of Honor, Whispers,
Escape and Taken by Force.
He is
currently working on other drafts in his spare time.
Before
he is finished, he hopes to write fictionalized accounts of
more of the places he has seen and some of the events he has
witnessed, but says his characters will remain totally
fictional, becoming bits and pieces of many others, to avoid
any resemblance to real persons, living or deceased.
Sometimes, someone asks him how he comes up
with his writing ideas.
He
tells them that he may see someone on the street, read an
article or book, see something on TV, or something hits him
in the head from nowhere, and he writes a draft from the
images in his brain.
"Writing is hard work," he says, "but it's
a heck of a lot of fun to twist plots and bring characters to
life, trying to make up something that's worth reading,
something that will make readers laugh or cry, make them
angry, maybe happy, entertain them.
"And
that, to me, is what fiction writing is all about: the
entertainment part that is filled with honest emotion
whatever it might be."
Biography of author Robert A. Gallinger.
Copyright 2001 © by Robert A. Gallinger.