John R. Cronin

John R. Cronin was raised in an Army family, mostly in the Washington, DC area, and after one year at VMI, joined the Marines at 19. He went through Parris Island and radio telegraph school in San Diego before going to Vietnam twice with Battalion and Force recon units from 1967-69, where he was wounded once during each tour. He returned to the States and finished his BA in political science at The Citadel before being commissioned back into the Marines as an infantry officer for three years. Following his discharge in 1976, he went to Rhodesia for four years where he served as an officer on Fire Force with the Rhodesian Light Infantry and then as a deployed operational Group second in command with the Selous Scouts.

He left Rhodesia in 1980 and in 1982 went to Cairo and then Beirut, where, after having survived a kidnapping by Hizbollah, he received an MA in Middle East Studies, and then went on to The School of Oriental and African Studies at The University of London for his PhD in Middle East Politics. He has since held a series of administrative positions in, and taught international politics at, the university level in the Washington area and worked as a consultant on educational administrative policies in the Middle East.

He currently lives in Alexandria, VA with his wife, Cheri Reiser, an attorney, and their two children: Amelia (6), who is working on her double axel; and McKinley (4), who has archived what we believe to be the Eastern seaboard’s largest collection of sticks, dead leaves, rocks, branches, plants, grass, stems, dandelions, pinecones, bird nests, roots, berries, acorns, wire, asphalt, dirt, sand, string, concrete and brick chips, plastic tubing, construction tape, pavement coins, cork, feathers, birdseed and bark. Some of this he eats and some he doesn’t.