Jim Morris, an American Hero

My Most Adventurous Friend

I am fortunate to have many colorful friends. However, the most adventurous and helpful with my writing career has been Jim Morris. He is a former Green Beret major and the man who penned the real-life story that became the Disney film Operation Dumbo Drop. Writing has continually provided Jim with the opportunity to marvel at the ironies of life and war, as he captured in his award-winning autobiography, War Story, about his three tours of duty in Vietnam.

For those of you not familiar with the Disney film, it takes place during the Vietnam War. Someone up the chain of command decides that it would be a good idea to help an indigenous tribe of allies, the Montagnards, by supplying them with elephants to help them farm. Agreeing to deliver the elephants, though, proves much easier than it was to logistically accomplish the task.

As part of the team assigned to the operation, in charge of communications, Jim recorded the facts as they developed step-by-step and misstep-by-misstep. All the while he was hoping to get good press for a Special Forces' project called "Revolutionary Development", a buzzword for the United States' nation-building efforts. One elephant was eventually airlifted and dropped safely to one of the tribes. However, that rare bit of good news coming out of an unpopular war was overshadowed. For on the same day, April 4, 1968, Martin Luther King was assassinated.

Following his three tours of duty, with the war behind him, I suspect Jim missed the adrenaline rush he'd grown accustomed to expecting from life as a young soldier. Therefore, he began taking advantage of every opportunity he got to make parachute jumps in a host of foreign countries to earn another new set of wings. Furthermore, he went on to work for many years as an editor and foreign correspondent with Soldier of Fortune. Up close and personal, he witnessed and covered numerous wars and conflicts.