Bill enlisted in the Air Force in November 1985. Upon graduating the Air Intelligence Analysis program at Lowry AFB, Colorado, he served as Soviet Exercise and Exploitation Analyst; Command, Control, and Communications Analyst; Strategic Rocket Forces Analyst; Strategic Air Command Watch NCO; and Current Intelligence Staff NCO at Strategic Air Command Headquarters, Offutt AFB, Nebraska.

Bill was an intelligence analyst during the Cold War.  Later, he specialized in strategy and communications.  During his career, he’s worked with intelligence and special operations professionals from every service, virtually every intelligence agency, and several friendly foreign governments.

His last military assignment was at the Pentagon where, as Chief of Ground Command and Control and Air Force Cyberspace Branches, he oversaw, guided, and advocated for the capabilities of a $5 billion dollar portfolio of mission-critical programs.

Bill’s deployments took him through combat zones across the Middle East where he played significant roles in Kuwait and Iraq, supported joint coalition operations, and helped nations rebuild after wars.

He was selected as the first US Electronic Warfare Officer in Iraq for Operation Iraqi Freedom, he led the Air Force’s largest network operations and security center, and he was the first Cyberspace Operations officer (and seventh airman) to receive the Air Force Combat Action Medal.  

Bill fell in love with the former Jodi Kramer of Clayton Missouri the moment he saw her at officer training school. She was his upperclassman and, despite the challenges that posed, he married her six-weeks later on the day he graduated. Moments after he was commissioned a second lieutenant, they were married in a surprisingly nice ceremony by the justice of the peace in Montgomery Alabama. Beating significant odds, they’ve stayed together through years apart and multiple combat deployments. They’ve been married more than 20 years and now Bill writes and spends as much time as he can with Jo and their two sons, Xander and Sam.

Bill retired as a lieutenant colonel and became a strategy consultant at IBM where he helped government agencies solve complicated longstanding problems.

Now he writes stories driven by complex characters trying to accomplish impossible tasks in rich, sometimes exotic, locations.

Bill started sketching out stories as soon as he could hold a pencil. His handwriting was and still is, awful but in elementary school, he started to fill notebooks with his observations and stories. When he was young, Bill struggled with dyslexia and he was a late reader, but with the help of his friend Sarah, he was able to finally master reading.  

Writing stories came quickly afterward.

In fifth grade, Bill, then better known as Billy, was given an assignment that for reasons he didn’t understand consumed him: Cut a picture from a magazine, write a poem about it, and present it to the class. He worked on it for the entire weekend and he couldn’t put it down until it was right.

When his turn came to present, he recited the poem he wrote to celebrate the journey of water, down the stones of a waterfall from a picture he cut out of a cigarette ad. It was the first time he shared a story as a poem, in fact, it was the first poem he ever wrote. He put his heart into it, both into the story and in his recitation, and the class was surprised. Some of them closed their eyes and smiled as they listened, others nodded their heads as he spoke.

After a pause at the end, they applauded like they really meant it and for the first time, Billy felt a connection with his classmates.  Electricity flowed through him.  He felt relieved and happy.  At that time in the ’70s, it was a feeling that could be best described as “groovy.”  

It was a rush. Billy thought, maybe one day, he could be a poet. When he turned to face his teacher, Ms. Kretch gave him his grade. It was an “F.” Her verdict silenced all class chatter and pissed him off. When a stunned Billy asked “why?” he was told it was “an ‘F’ for plagiary.” The look on Billy’s face made it clear he didn’t understand but when his teacher explained to him what plagiary was he protested. When he wouldn’t admit to copying someone else’s work, because he didn’t, she told him to pack up his things and sent him to the principal’s office for lying.

After a cooling off period, in one of the hard-plastic easily supervised chairs in the main office, the principal called Billy in.  Then the principal made him recite his poem which, after an exchange of glares and a few deep breaths, he did.  Eventually, the principal said, “It’s a good poem and I’m not much for poetry, but your teacher says you plagiarized it.”

“I didn’t steal nothing from no one,” Billy replied.

“You know the story about the boy who cried wolf?”

“Yeah, I hate that guy. I worked hard to make that poem.” Billy said standing his ground.

“Really? What kind of work did you do?” The principal asked but he stopped smiling when Billy opened his backpack and dumped a pile of drafts, notes, drawings, and annotated pictures on his desk. After making Billy explain how each item related to his poem, the principal gave him a butterscotch, pushed back from his desk, and walked Billy to the hardest chair in a five-block radius of the school. He sat in that chair until school was over. Then his teacher arrived and met with the principal. By that time Billy’s numb butt had turned sore, but he still listened in on their conversation.

“What did he plagiarize?” the teacher replied, “I don’t know for certain but that poem can’t possibly be his. He doesn’t even write at grade level.” The principal talked about the pile of Billy’s poem drafts and after more dialogue, Billy couldn’t make out, he heard the door start to open and he sat up straight in his seat. As she walked from the office, Billy’s teacher frowned turned to Billy and said, “After further consideration, your grade has been adjusted to a “C.”

Ms. Kretch couldn’t cite a different source for Billy’s poem even after weeks of research, but she still couldn’t let it go, and every Friday she’d make him stay after class just to ask, “So, where’d you really get that poem?” It became a routine that continued until the last day of school. The bell rang. Ms. Kretch told Billy to stay after class and when everyone else was out of the room she stared him down one last time. “It’s the end of the year, grades are posted, you have nothing to lose,” she said. “Where did you really get that poem?

“I wrote it myself.” He said. “It was hard to figure out but I did it. I still think I did a good job.”

Then Ms. Kretch sighed and handed Billy a crumpled paper.  When he turned it over it was his waterfall poem. A line of scratched out grades ended with an “A-” at the top right corner of the page. “That’s your final grade.” Ms. Kretch said, “I guess it is true, great writers steal.”

“I didn’t steal nothing.”

“Anything.” His teacher said almost under her breath as she turned away. “You didn’t steal anything.”

“I didn’t steal anything,” Billy said as he rolled up his poem and left class to start summer break.

Sarah was waiting in the hallway. Billy showed her his poem and she squealed when she saw his new grade. She grabbed his hand and dragged him to the one place in the mostly empty school near the teacher’s lounge where voices echoed loud. She made him recite his poem there while she listened and spun in the hall.  To this day all Bill remembers was that it was the start of summer vacation, that Sarah’s platinum blonde hair whipped around her as she twirled, and that the verses coming out of his mouth didn’t sound like poetry anymore.

As the words echoed and jumbled together the poem that came out sounded like a waterfall.