Stars and Stripes and Shadows

About the Book

Tim Haslam is the foremost authority on his own life and little else.  He is the keeper of his remembrances; the chief archivist of his dreams and one of the two-and-a-half million qualified experts who can describe the context of the Vietnam War.  He is a writer now because he wanted to tell his story.  He has learned to write telling it; crafting it with color and shade, detail and nuance, image and imagination.  He is a writer now because he wanted to do this right, because he wanted to take his readers to a distant time and place and to help them transcend into that world for a little while; to share in it, to feel it, to think about it perhaps in relationship to the world of today.  He wanted his wife, his sons and his friends to know.  He wanted to see what he could remember.  He wanted to see.

Tim Haslam has lived the American dream.  Born in Hollywood, California into a comfortable middle class world and raised along with his sister in a traditional suburban household almost as stereotypical of the times as those portrayed on Ozzie and Harriet, Father Knows Best and Leave It To Beaver.  His father, Courtney, an executive at 20th Century Fox Studios, kept the excitement and adventure of the motion picture industry close at hand for the family and Tim’s summer jobs at the Studio furthered his appreciation for the arts and crafts associated with molding facts and fantasy into visualizations.

The only real threat to the American dream came in the Fall of 1967 when Tim, along with thousands of other Americans was drafted into the Army and sent off as an infantryman to Vietnam.  He returned in 1969 to a polarized America, a youth-led cultural revolution and an atmosphere of complexity and doubt unknown to him prior to his experiences in Vietnam.

With his separation from the military in 1969 he returned to college during this era of revolution, graduating with a degree in Psychology in 1973.  With a college degree in hand but still unsure of his calling and unclear on his aspirations he went out into the world at twenty-seven years of age and looked for work.  He began a business career that has continued to the present, adding a Master’s Degree along the way and working his way up into management and leadership positions.

Today he continues living the dream in Walnut Creek, California with his wife Diana and his teenage sons Alec and Austin.  He’s a husband, a dad, shortstop on the softball team in the over-forty league and a Director with Kaiser Permanente.  He reads and studies American history and has developed a particular interest in how Americans behave during times of national conflict.

About the Author

     Tim Haslam is the foremost authority on his own life and little else.  He is the keeper of his remembrances; the chief archivist of his dreams and one of the two-and-a-half million qualified experts who can describe the context of the Vietnam War.  He is a writer now because he wanted to tell his story.  He has learned to write telling it; crafting it with color and shade, detail and nuance, image and imagination.  He is a writer now because he wanted to do this right, because he wanted to take his readers to a distant time and place and to help them transcend into that world for a little while; to share in it, to feel it, to think about it perhaps in relationship to the world of today.  He wanted his wife, his sons and his friends to know.  He wanted to see what he could remember.  He wanted to see.

     Tim Haslam has lived the American dream.  Born in Hollywood, California into a comfortable middle class world and raised along with his sister in a traditional suburban household almost as stereotypical of the times as those portrayed on Ozzie and Harriet, Father Knows Best and Leave It To Beaver.  His father, Courtney, an executive at 20^th Century Fox Studios, kept the excitement and adventure of the motion picture industry close at hand for the family and Tim’s summer jobs at the Studio furthered his appreciation for the arts and crafts associated with molding facts and fantasy into visualizations.

     The only real threat to the American dream came in the Fall of 1967 when Tim, along with thousands of other Americans was drafted into the Army and sent off as an infantryman to Vietnam.  He returned in 1969 to a polarized America, a youth-led cultural revolution and an atmosphere of complexity and doubt unknown to him prior to his experiences in Vietnam.

     With his separation from the military in 1969 he returned to college during this era of revolution, graduating with a degree in Psychology in 1973.  With a college degree in hand but still unsure of his calling and unclear on his aspirations he went out into the world at twenty-seven years of age and looked for work.  He began a business career that has continued to the present, adding a Master’s Degree along the way and working his way up into management and leadership positions.

     Today he continues living the dream in Walnut Creek, California with his wife Diana and his teenage sons Alec and Austin.  He’s a husband, a dad, shortstop on the softball team in the over-forty league and a Director with Kaiser Permanente.  He reads and studies American history and has developed a particular interest in how Americans behave during times of national conflict.