Cragg, Dan 1939–

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Cragg, Dan 1939–

(D.J. Cragg)

PERSONAL:

Born September 6, 1939, in Rochester, NY; son of James Wilson (a cavalryman) and Gertrude Cragg; married Sun Pok Yi (a homemaker), March 28, 1974; children: Tam Le (son). Ethnicity: "Anglo-American." Education: University of Maryland at College Park, B.A. (summa cum laude), 1982; graduate study at George Mason University, beginning 1983. Politics: Conservative. Religion: "Deist."

ADDRESSES:

Home and office—Springfield, VA.

CAREER:

Writer. U.S. Army, career soldier, 1958-80, retiring as sergeant major; duty assignments included tours of duty in the Republic of Vietnam (South Vietnam; now Socialist Republic of Vietnam), 1962-63 and 1965-69; Office of the Secretary of Defense, Washington, DC, management analyst, 1982-2004. Fairfax County History Commission, member.

MEMBER:

Company Military Historians, National Rifle Association, Arlington Historical Society, Fairfax Historical Society, Rochester Historical Society.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Military: Republic of Vietnam Honor Medal, Vietnam Service Medal, with eleven campaign stars.

WRITINGS:

The NCO Guide, Stackpole (Harrisburg, PA), 1982, 3rd edition (with Dennis D. Perez), 1989.

A Travel Guide to Military Installations, Stackpole (Harrisburg, PA), 1983, 2nd edition published as A Guide to Military Installations, 1988, 6th edition, 2000.

(With John Elting and Ernest Deal) A Dictionary of Soldier Talk, Scribner (New York, NY), 1984.

The Soldier's Prize (novel), Ballantine (New York, NY), 1986.

(With Michael Lee Lanning) Inside the VC and NVA: The Real Story of North Vietnam's Armed Forces, Ballantine (New York, NY), 1992.

(With William G. Bainbridge) Top Sergeant: The Life and Times of Sergeant Major of the Army William G. Bainbridge, Ballantine (New York, NY), 1992.

Generals in Muddy Boots: A Concise Encyclopedia of Combat Commanders, Berkley Publishing (New York, NY), 1996.

(With David Sherman) Star Wars: Jedi Trial ("Star Wars" series), Random House (New York, NY), 2004.

Author of "Military Fiction," a column in the Washington Times, 1988—. Contributor to numerous periodicals.

STARFIST SERIES; WITH DAVID SHERMAN

First to Fight, Del Rey (New York, NY), 1997.

School of Fire, Del Rey (New York, NY), 1998.

Steel Gauntlet, Del Rey (New York, NY), 1999.

Blood Contact, Del Rey (New York, NY), 1999.

Technokill, Del Rey (New York, NY), 2000.

Hangfire, Ballantine (New York, NY), 2001.

Kingdom's Sword, Ballantine (New York, NY), 2002.

Lazarus Rising, Del Rey (New York, NY), 2003.

A World of Hurt, Ballantine (New York, NY), 2004.

Flashfire, Del Rey/Ballantine (New York, NY), 2006.

Firestorm, Del Rey/Ballantine (New York, NY), 2007.

EDITOR; AS D.J. CRAGG

(And author of introduction) Francis Grose, The Mirror's Image: Advice to the Officers of the British Army, with a Biographical Sketch of the Life and a Bibliography of the Works of Captain Francis Grose, F.S.A., Owlswick, 1978.

Guardians of the Republic (history of the non-commissioned corps of the U.S. Army), Random House (New York, NY), 1992.

Operation Thirty-Four Alpha (history of U.S.-controlled commando operations in North Vietnam), Ballantine (New York, NY), 1992.

SIDELIGHTS:

Dan Cragg served as a career soldier in the United States Army, entering the service in 1958 and retiring as a sergeant major in 1980. Over the course of his career, he served two tours of duty in Vietnam. In 1982, Cragg graduated from the University of Maryland at College Park, summa cum laude. He went on to do some graduate studies at George Mason University and accepted a position with the Office of the Secretary of Defense, where he worked until 2004. During this time, he has always been interested in writing and in spending time with writers. His own efforts have yielded numerous books, including several volumes on the military, such as The NCO Guide, which has gone through several editions, A Dictionary of Soldier Talk, Top Sergeant: The Life and Times of Sergeant Major of the Army William G. Bainbridge, and Generals in Muddy Boots: A Concise Encyclopedia of Combat Commanders. Inside the VC and NVA: The Real Story of North Vietnam's Armed Forces, which he cowrote with Michael Lee Lanning, attempts to give readers an inside look at the Vietnam War from the viewpoint of the enemy soldiers—the Vietcong and the North Vietnamese Army. The authors' investigation into papers and records captured from the Vietnamese depicts an organized fighting force that was in no way ready to retreat or surrender at any point. Charles E. Neu, writing for Reviews in American History, noted that the book "provides little consolation for those who argue that a different American strategy could have won the war."

In addition to writing nonfiction works about various aspects of military life, Cragg has authored several works of fiction, including The Soldier's Prize, a novel that he wrote on his own, and the "Starfist" science fiction series, which he cowrites with former U.S. Marine David Sherman. The series begins with First to Fight and has more than ten volumes, each of them furthering the adventures of an elite team of Marines who fight on an intergalactic scale across a federation of twelve planets. A reviewer for the SF Signal Web site said of the series: "The universe is rich with a solid backdrop to the situations that develop."

Cragg, continuing to write with Sherman, has also contributed to the books in the "Star Wars" extended universe series. In Star Wars: Jedi Trial, which is set in the time when Anakin Skywalker is still training to become a Jedi Knight, the Jedi Masters Yoda and Mace Windu are concerned about Skywalker's leaning toward the Dark Side. He is presented with a new mission, one that may test his fortitude and determine whether he can remain on the Light Side of the Force. David Maddox, reviewing the book for the SF Site, found parts of the story unbelievable but concluded that, "in the long run, this novel is a good example of a Clone Wars skirmish. It whets the appetite for the big show, Revenge of the Sith, and the culmination of all these battles as well as the saga itself."

Dan Cragg once told CA: "The greatest joys of my writing career are the friends it has made for me over the years, and the opportunity it has given me to help other writers. I have been blessed with good health, an exciting life, many interests, and domestic tranquility, but for me, the company of writers is one of life's finer pleasures. I define a ‘writer’ as anyone who can tell a good story, whether fact or fiction, whether for muse or for money. And a ‘good story’ is anything other people will read, whether they pay for the privilege or get it free.

"Writing for me is mostly sheer drudgery, writing against a deadline is pure hell, and writing with economy nearly impossible. Editing myself is like cutting off my own fingers with dull shards of glass; editing someone else's stuff is slightly less difficult. But all the agony is worth it when at last you see your work in print.

"Editors in my experience are at different times either godlike persons who dispense literary immortality, or illiterate, penny-pinching bastards sworn to stifle all creativity. I forgive them everything when those tiny but beautiful checks come rolling in. Some writers find agents indispensable but I've only had one, and that relationship ended in an exchange of four-letter words.

"As for the old argument whether writers who make a lot of money are necessarily any better than those who don't, I have concluded that I'm as talented as I want to be, and since I'll never be paid what I'm really worth anyway, I don't worry about it.

"My advice to aspiring writers is to read widely and write constantly; learn and observe the rules of language; never allow yourself to be discouraged by criticism and rejection; write about what you know (or write convincingly about what you don't, and that's why research is indispensable); never give up faith in your own ability to write; and keep a second income. My advice to experienced writers is keep that second income."

Later, Cragg added: "I can remember when I could not read and what a revelation it was to me when I first deciphered the meaning of a complete sentence all by myself. Literacy truly is liberating. Since then I've been a slave to language. The world is full of good writers who will never be published because they didn't get the all-important break. A good editor who recognizes talent when he sees it can be that break for an aspiring writer. That editor for me was Owen A. Lock, formerly of Ballantine Books. I never would have met Owen (or David Sherman, for that matter) if it hadn't been for Mr. J.B. Post of Philadelphia, a lifelong friend who thought I had some talent worth mentioning.

"I never in my wildest imagination thought I'd one day wind up writing ‘science fiction,’ but today my main literary occupation is the ‘Starfist’ science fiction series that David Sherman and I are writing. These novels are the ‘future combat’ subgenre of science fiction and, as such, will never rank as classics of imaginative fiction. But David and I have distilled into them all of the knowledge and experience we've garnered as military men, writers, and students of human nature. The good guys in our books are good, but they're human; the bad guys are bad, but also interesting—and real. Our books reflect the universal commonality of the military experience as it has been since the time of Caesar and as it shall be as long as war is part of the human condition. If anyone wants to be a good small-unit leader, he could do worse than read what we've written about leadership."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Reviews in American History, March, 1995, Charles E. Neu, review of Inside the VC and NVA: The Real Story of North Vietnam's Armed Forces, p. 144.