The author was in the 17th & 101st Airborne divisions and participated in the battle of Ardennes, Rhineland, and airborne operations in central Europe as a platoon leader. He was awarded two purple hearts. He later went on to work for Lockheed in the Advanced Development Projects division, otherwise known as "The Skunk Works". During his retirement, he wrote these two books of poetry, puns and prose. Ted was a brilliant man with a great sense of humor. He was proclaimed by some to be the "poet laureate" of the 17th airborne division, and his writings could be found in the "Thunder From Heaven" newsletter. If you like poetry, puns and humorous anecdotal type writing, you should enjoy these two volumes. The first to be published was "Poetry and Puns of a Paratrooper". He had a couple hundred of these hardcover books printed in the early 1990s. There is no copyright date on them. The second book is a paperback published in a similar small number in 1996 entitled "Pith and Vinegar"