Gary Slaughter was born and raised in Owosso, Michigan. After graduating from the University of Michigan, he served seven years, during the Cold War, as a Naval officer, principally on anti-submarine warfare (ASW) destroyers. Following a distinguished military career, he became an expert on managing corporate information technology and consulted to clients world-wide. In 2002, he put his career on hold and began to write the award-winning Cottonwood series of five novels, depicting life on the American home front during the last five seasons of World War II. In 2016, his critically-acclaimed memoir, Sea Stories, was published. The book's 60 vignettes recall Gary's life in the Navy. One vignette tells of the once top-secret role he played in avoiding an all-out nuclear exchange with the Soviet Union during the Cuban Missile Crisis.
