Among other awards, Bud Sparhawk's stories have been a finalist for a Nebula Award three times (Primrose and Thorn, 1996; Magic's Price, 2001; Clay's Pride, 2004) and have been selected for several "Years Best SF" anthologies. His first short story appeared in 1976 and he has published about 90 short stories and novellas since then.
He writes about writing on his blog, Musings.
This first part is on Bud's career in the Air Force.
Q1: You have a biography online but could we go into more detail? You got a degree in Mathematics from UMCP.
A: And a minor in philosophy. The only reason I got that minor was because the philosophy department was the only place that taught Logic in those days.
Q2: Was there a favorite philosopher or was it really the logic courses?
A: It was the logic. Although, I did take some other courses as well - "Philosophers of the Western World,'' that sort of survey course.
Q3: Your online biography mentions that you went to Air Force Officer Training School after graduation.
A: Right - Lackland Air Force Base, San Antonio, Texas.
Q4: Was this during the Vietnam War?
A: Leading up to it.
Q5: Your bio mentions you went into the communications community.
A: Yes, but I applied for computers. I had taken some of the first computer courses ever offered at the University of Maryland. The instructor was Dr Sinkov, who was head of the computer department at NSA.
Q6: The same one who wrote a book on cryptography?
A: Yes. A very well-known man. He was very very proud of their recent acquisition of a frame of tiny magnite donuts (holds up hands in shape of a 6''x6'' square), with copper threads running in 6 directions connecting the donuts. This thing had the capacity of 120 bits! That was amazing! And there was an entire room full of equipment depending on this one little thing.
These things were actually made - this was Ross Perot's early business - by Mexican women sitting in his garage threading the copper threads through those little donuts on those frames.
How far we have come. Now we have these (taking out an iphone)!
Q7: You went to UMCP, then to Air Force communications school ...
A: I put in for computers but instead they sent me to communications/electronics school at Keesler [an Air Force base in Biloxi, MS]. When I was in the third from the last class in that sequence of courses, they started the first computer course for those going into the computer community. It was in the same facility, so I wandered over to talk to them. I found that they were mostly English and History majors! (Laughs.) There just ain't no justice in this world! (Laughs.)
Q8: Did you laterally move over to another community later?
A: No. I was always a communications/electronics officer. My first assignment was to Waco, TX, supporting Tactical Air Command for the Twelfth Air Force. Then I was sent to Europe. I went to a small station in Vernou-la-Celle-sur-Seine, about 75 miles south of Paris near Fontainebleau. We had a microwave station which was the central node for all microwave communications in Europe. We also had a World War II era manual telephone exchange switchboard, operated manually by operators using a plug-board, where every appearance of a call between military installations in Europe were routed.
Then de Gaulle kicked us out. I had volunteered for Vietnam duty twice, and tried to get into Army helicopters. I was not successful. Instead, I was sent to Uxbridge, England, where I worked for the Eighth Air Force. I began working in communication security there, which immediately put me into a new category. After that I went to Keesler AF Base for more communications/electronics training, I then got assigned to Security Service. This bumped up my security classification so high that I could not be assigned to certain locations. I was eventually stationed in Okinawa, where I was responsible for CommSec and OpSec review of the entire Pacific theater - from Hawaii to the Indian Ocean, from North Pole to South Pole. OpSec, or Operations Security, is the job of figuring out what others can figure out about you without knowing any classified information. Case in point: Thailand. C130 recon missions were being shot at. They couldn't figure out how the enemy knew about their flights. It was operationally no different - their flights were at night without patterns to their flight plans. No radio communications were used. They could not figure out how anybody was finding them. We looked at every single procedure they followed and could not figure out how people would know these recon flights were going on. Then we went to the flight line and asked them which plane they were using. They said "The black one!'' (Laughter.) People are so oblivious to the most commonplace events that they don't even notice them anymore.
During my stationing in Japan, I had to travel to Osawa Air Force Base in far northern Japan, near Sapporo. It was winter and there it got unbearably cold. I didn't feel like putting on heavy clothes to walk the quarter mile to the Officer's Club, so I sat down and read this paperback book I'd picked up. It was called "Dangerous Visions" by some jerk named Harlan Ellison. I read it and got halfway through the book and thought "This is crap! I can write better than this. These guys just don't have any decent ideas!" That week I wrote my first science fiction story in long-hand. When I got back to Okinawa, I typed it up and sent it off to Ben Bova at Analog. It got rejected. Then I sent a second story to him and got a two page letter of rejection. I did not realize the importance of a 2 page rejection letter personally signed by Ben Bova. I threw that draft away, and the letter, and, 35 stories later, I managed to make a sale.
This is continued in part two here.
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