Patrick McMullen

I was born to a large, middle-class family in California in the early years after World War II. All the male members of my family served in the armed forces during the turbulent years of the twentieth century. War, cold, occasionally hot, and the threat of thermonuclear exchange always occupied a portion of my consciousness.

At 17, I volunteered and joined the US Navy for six years. After two tours in Vietnam, my naïve understanding of world affairs began to mature. Thanks to my status as a veteran, I could concentrate on higher education despite my family having no tradition for it. In the ensuing years, I divided my time between marriage(s), work, and higher education with interruptions due to further military service. I spent this service as an army military intelligence officer primarily in Europe. At what I thought was the end of the Cold War in the early 90s, I finally took what looked like an early retirement and emigrated to the Center of Europe—The post-revolutionary country of Czechia.

I turned over a new leaf and became an educator in the Czech system. My peaceful existence suddenly disappeared with the War on Terror in 2001, and President Bush’s mobilizations abruptly changed the direction of my personal life. In 2007 the US Army decided that I could no longer serve in the active forces and I retired as a Chief Warrant Officer.