Paul Scotti

In 1960, at age 17, Paul Scotti enlisted in the Air Force and spent four years as an x-ray technician. In 1965, he joined the Coast Guard, trained to be a weapons specialist, and volunteered for duty in Vietnam, where he served aboard a patrol boat during some of the heaviest fighting of the war. After Vietnam, he became a public information officer and was the USCG spokesperson during the recovery of the space shuttle Challenger. He retired from active duty in 1991 and is the author of two other non-fiction works: Seaports: Ships, Piers and People (Simon & Schuster, 1980) and Police Divers (Simon & Schuster, 1982).