Smith, Larry 1940–

PERSONAL:

Born October 5, 1940, in Central Lake, MI; son of William Lysle and Mary Smith; married Dorothea Steudle (an artist), November 13, 1961; children: Stacey Louise, Jennifer Lee, Stephen Alexander. Education: University of Michigan, B.A., 1962.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Norwalk, CT.

CAREER:

Hayward Daily Review, Hayward, CA, reporter, 1964-65; Reporter Dispatch, White Plains, NY, night editor and assistant city editor, 1965-68; Tarrytown Daily News, Tarrytown, NY, editor, 1968-69; New York Daily News, New York, NY, copy editor, beginning 1969; Parade, managing editor, beginning 1981. New York Times, New York, editor. Also worked for the Wyoming Eagle (newspaper), Cheyenne.

MEMBER:

Explorer's Club.

WRITINGS:

The Original (novel), Herder & Herder, 1972.

(With Nat Frankel) Patton's Best: An Informal History of The 4th Armored Division, Hawthorn Books (New York, NY), 1978.

(With Ronald G. Warfield and Lee Juillerat) Crater Lake, KC Publications (Las Vegas, NV), 1982.

Beyond Glory: Medal of Honor Heroes in Their Own Words, Norton (New York, NY), 2003.

The Few and the Proud: Marine Corps Drill Instructors in Their Own Words, Norton (New York, NY), 2006.

Contributor of a short story to Redbook. Contributing editor, Columbia Journalism Review.

ADAPTATIONS:

Beyond Glory: Medal of Honor Heroes in Their Own Words was adapted for the stage, directed, and performed by Stephen Lang as Beyond Glory, 2004.

SIDELIGHTS:

Seasoned reporter and editor Larry Smith has worked for the New York Daily News, the New York Times, and Parade magazine, where he served as managing editor for nineteen years. For Parade, Smith interviewed global leaders, including Violetta Chamorro, former president of Nicaragua, and Carlos Salinas, former president of Mexico. An interview Smith conducted with nine Medal of Honor recipients on July 4, 2000 inspired his 2003 book Beyond Glory: Medal of Honor Heroes in Their Own Words. Actor Stephen Lang adapted the book into an acclaimed one-man show, which he performed for U.S. troops and their families in the United States and abroad.

Smith developed a passion for storytelling early in life. "Working on a northern Michigan farm and working in the woods skidding logs with a team of horses as a kid, I grew up among men whose principal entertainment was telling tall tales around campfires," he told Kathryn Jean Lopez in an interview for the National Review Online. In 1972, Smith published The Original, a novel about rural tragedy. While The Original met with critical acclaim, the author soon turned his attention to military history, publishing Patton's Best: An Informal History of The 4th Armored Division in 1978. As he explained it to Lopez: "To me there's nothing better than ‘a good war story.’"

Beyond Glory offers first person accounts from more than twenty Medal of Honor recipients, including former U.S. Senators Bob Kerrey and Daniel Inouye, and it also contains stories from World War II, Korea, and Vietnam. Raymond Puffer, writing in Kliatt, observed that "strangely, nearly all of [Smith's] choices are from the Army and the Marines," but added that all of the stories "are gripping and leave the reader feeling that he has really met the person honored." However, many reviewers remarked upon the diversity of the narrators featured in the work. As James H. Willbanks noted in the Military Review, Beyond Glory features a "cross section" of Medal recipients that includes "officers and enlisted men; African-Americans; Japanese-Americans; Hispanics and Caucasians; the famous and not so famous." He went on to state that the shortage of in-depth analysis "is not a shortcoming," as "the Medal of Honor recipients are eloquent, and their interviews require no elaboration." Booklist contributor Gilbert Taylor called the book "a visceral volume that will arrest readers of military affairs."

Smith followed Beyond Glory with another oral history, The Few and the Proud: Marine Corps Drill Instructors in Their Own Words. Published in 2006, the book presents interviews with active and retired U.S. Marine Corps drill instructors (DIs) whose collective service spans from World War II to the wars in Iraq. While the DIs tell their own stories, Smith adds details about racial integration and prejudice, treatment of women, and events like the ill-fated 1956 training march at Ribbon Creek, during which seven recruits drowned. Booklist reviewer Roland Green commented: "If the book doesn't exactly make one admire the DI, it argues strongly for the DI's indispensability." A Publishers Weekly critic, reviewing The Few and the Proud, felt that "former Marines and military buffs will find much to pique their interest."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, June 1, 2003, Gilbert Taylor, review of Beyond Glory: Medal of Honor Heroes in Their Own Words, p. 1717; May 1, 2006, Roland Green, review of The Few and the Proud: Marine Corps Drill Instructors in Their Own Words, p. 57.

Kliatt, September, 2004, Raymond Puffer, review of Beyond Glory, p. 43.

Library Journal, June 15, 2003, Edwin M. Burgess, review of Beyond Glory, p. 88.

Military Review, July-August, 2004, James H. Willbanks, review of Beyond Glory, p. 100.

Publishers Weekly, July 14, 2003, review of Beyond Glory, p. 71; March 13, 2006, review of The Few and the Proud, p. 57.

Reference & Research Book News, August, 2006, review of The Few and the Proud.

ONLINE

CNN.comhttp://www.cnn.com/ (July 7, 2003), Nick Bacon, interview with author.

National Endowment for the Arts Web sitehttp://www.arts.gov/ (March 8, 2007), biography of author.

National Review Onlinehttp://www.nationalreview.com/ (August 3, 2006), Kathryn Jean Lopez, "Drillin' It In: Larry Smith Writes the Book on the Best and the Brightest," interview with author.