L. C. Tomlinson Jr.

L. C. “Tom” Tomlinson Jr. is a retired Marine Master Gunnery Sergeant and a two-tour Vietnam veteran. After the Marine Corps, he earned a BA in Psychology and an MS in Mental Health Counseling, then taught emotionally handicapped students, kindergarten through twelfth grade, in the Orange County Public Schools. Along with his fiction work, he has just started publishing high-quality CHILDREN'S MYSTERY and MAZE ACTIVITY BOOKS as well as GAG JOURNALS for many service occupations.

He grew up an Army brat, living in Japan during the Korean War and in France in the late 1950s. In 1963 he went through Marine Corps recruit training at Parris Island. He later returned to recruit training on the other coast, serving as a Drill Instructor, Senior Drill Instructor, and Chief Drill Instructor at MCRD San Diego. He spent the last seven years of his career in professional military education and retired in 1991.

After the Marine Corps, he earned a BA in Psychology and an MS in Mental Health Counseling, then taught emotionally handicapped students, kindergarten through twelfth grade, in the Orange County Public Schools.

His fiction draws on all of it. The Last Words: Hold Your Gap is a novel based on true events: the 1965 attack on the American enlisted billet at Qui Nhon, Vietnam. The Muddy Creek and Billy Ray and Leonard, both set at Parris Island in 1955, follow recruits through the place he knows best. Delta Site One Standard is a thriller. No One To Hug is a quiet novella about an old Marine, his dog, and the life he thought he had finished arranging. It was inspired by his own dogs, Sophie and Liska.

He writes and develops the way he trained recruits: straight, honest, and with no wasted motion.