Don Neal, author of the recently published Ben Hunnicutt novels is a retired soldier. Reared in Suffolk and in Surry County, Virginia, he dropped out of the College of William & Mary and enlisted in the Army after the Chinese entered the Korean War in 1950. His subsequent 28 years of service encompassed nearly the entire Cold War, taking him to Japan, Germany, Korea, and Alaska. He has served in the Infantry, Artillery, Armor, and Air Defense Missile branches, his last ten years being with the Nike Hercules Air Defense Missile units protecting Alaska's population centers during the Cold War. He and his family have resided in Alaska for nearly fifty years. His hobbies include military history and the research and study of historical firearms, with an occasional foray into drag racing. His novels first reflect Alaska as a Territory, then as a new State, before it was transformed by the discovery of oil and the building of the trans-Alaska oil pipeline.
In the early 1970's, Don encountered rumors of stores of military and survival equipment being found in caves, old mines, and tree-top caches in south-central Alaska. Some guesses connected them to preparation for guerilla warfare had the Japanese over-run Alaska in World War Two, others with Russian spies during the Cold War years, and some with revolutionary conspiracies during the turbulent 1960's.
Finally, in 2015, the Defense Department declassified a trove of secret documents which revealed "Operation Washtub", a Secret project which involved training typical frontier Alaskans as intelligence agents to remain in the Territory should Russia occupy Alaska, and prepare for its re-taking when the time was right.
Don sorted through hundreds of highly redacted FBI and OSI documents out of curiosity, finally deciding that there had to be a book lurking within the material. He took the basic facts from the documents, added fictional characters, and brought forth "Washtub Gold" the first of his Ben Hunnicutt novels.
This was followed by "Warhead", a detailed account of the Nike missile men who manned the Air Defense Missile units surrounding our cities and military installations from the 1950's through the 1970's. The novels track Alaska from its final frontier days into statehood and into the years of technology and being overtaken by the modern world.
The third novel, "CrossKill", brings Hunnicutt into confrontation with a political assassin, with Ben and the killer hunting each other through the rural backwoods of not-quite-yet-civilized Alaska.
The fourth book in the Ben Hunnicutt series, “The Last Kill”, Ben has left Alaska and “Operation Washtub” to continue his interrupted journey to the battlefields of Korea. It is 1953; both sides have emerged from a frigid winter of slugging it out on a line near the 38th parallel while endless peace negotiations drone on at a small camp at Panmunjom. Ben sees his fair share of battle, broken by a brief interlude in Japan which plays an important part in his later life.
In the early 1970's, Don encountered rumors of stores of military and survival equipment being found in caves, old mines, and tree-top caches in south-central Alaska. Some guesses connected them to preparation for guerilla warfare had the Japanese over-run Alaska in World War Two, others with Russian spies during the Cold War years, and some with revolutionary conspiracies during the turbulent 1960's.
Finally, in 2015, the Defense Department declassified a trove of secret documents which revealed "Operation Washtub", a Secret project which involved training typical frontier Alaskans as intelligence agents to remain in the Territory should Russia occupy Alaska, and prepare for its re-taking when the time was right.
Don sorted through hundreds of highly redacted FBI and OSI documents out of curiosity, finally deciding that there had to be a book lurking within the material. He took the basic facts from the documents, added fictional characters, and brought forth "Washtub Gold" the first of his Ben Hunnicutt novels.
This was followed by "Warhead", a detailed account of the Nike missile men who manned the Air Defense Missile units surrounding our cities and military installations from the 1950's through the 1970's. The novels track Alaska from its final frontier days into statehood and into the years of technology and being overtaken by the modern world.
The third novel, "CrossKill", brings Hunnicutt into confrontation with a political assassin, with Ben and the killer hunting each other through the rural backwoods of not-quite-yet-civilized Alaska.
The fourth book in the Ben Hunnicutt series, “The Last Kill”, Ben has left Alaska and “Operation Washtub” to continue his interrupted journey to the battlefields of Korea. It is 1953; both sides have emerged from a frigid winter of slugging it out on a line near the 38th parallel while endless peace negotiations drone on at a small camp at Panmunjom. Ben sees his fair share of battle, broken by a brief interlude in Japan which plays an important part in his later life.