Tom Clancy grew up as a technology freak and expressed his attraction for warfare in the many novels he wrote. He loved sub-marines, tanks, and all types of weapons and he just couldn’t get enough of them. He has sent many chills through people with his epic novels that he created through his knack for story-telling. He is easily one of the greatest authors of the 20-21st century by distinguishing himself as the creator of a new genre of writing, bone-chilling video-games, and his suspenseful way of capturing a reader in his magnificent books.

Tom Clancy grew up in the big city of Baltimore, Maryland on April 12, 1947. His father was a mailman for their city and his mother was a department- store credit employee. While his friends were playing baseball and enjoying their lives full of sports and activities, Clancy had other things on his mind. He dreamed of powerful tanks, sub-marines that even the toughest torpedoes and bullets could not penetrate, naval ships, and planes that soared towards enemies with the thought of destruction looming in their mind. As a young chap, Clancy attended the local Catholic Parochial School for his elementary and secondary school degrees. He then went on to Loyola College for liberal arts. Loyola College was a Jesuit university, which further explains Tom’s religion and his dedication towards his beliefs. After graduating from Loyola in 1969, he yearned for a career in the military but he became ineligible after failing a required eye exam in the ROTC (Britannica 1). He then became an independent insurance agent before he decided to be in the literary career. Once he gave up on his career as an insurance agent, he started going into further research about the military and he became interested in some of the information he discovered. He then incorporated these stories and made his own breakthrough novels that started his career off as a famous novelist. He was very interested with the cold-war which led him to creating a genre known as techno-thriller. His first novel was written in 1984 and was known as The Hunt for Red October; it was an instant hit with the public. It was published by the Naval Institute Press and it became a bestseller (Clancy 112). It is a story about a soviet commanders attempt to defect with his state-of-the-art vessel. This book introduces Jack Ryan, a character Clancy uses in many other novels like Patriot Games, Clear and Present Danger, and The Sum of All Fears( Answers 3). Clancy was influenced to write these epic stories not by a person, but by his love for the military, Special Forces, and his attraction towards technology. As he states during an interview with John Mutter of Publishers Weekly, “More than anything else, I’m a technology freak”( Clancy 112).

During his literary career, many people started taking Clancy seriously. By the time his famous novels were published and movies depicted his wonderful stories, Ubisoft, a French video-game manufacture bought his name. These video-games are very similar to his books. Splinter Cell is about a man as a spy and his stealthy ways to assassinate enemies and protect his country (Britannica 4). This is one of his best selling game series. He has many other video-games for example, Ghost Recon, H.A.W.X, and Rainbow Six. H.A.W.X is a video-game based on warfare as a pilot and taking down enemies with a stealth-bomber. Ghost Recon and Rainbow Six, are both first-person shooters where you take out enemies with guns ranging from an AK-47 to a Dragunov. After you play many of his games you understand that his novels and his interest for warfare reflect on his plots, settings, and storylines of his video-games (Britannica 6).

After he graduated from Loyola, he married the beautiful Wanda Thomas. Clancy also has responsibilities at home of raising a family. As he once said,“ Nothing is as real as a dream. The world can change around you, but your dream will not. Responsibilities need not erase it. Duties need not obscure it. Because the dream is within you, no one can take it away”(Britannica 5).He has four children: Michelle, Christine, Kathleen, and Tom. There is a twelve year age difference between the youngest and oldest. Tom Clancy is a very muscular man and he measures up at six foot and two inches tall. It is almost impossible to see Clancy without his tinted sunglasses on ( Clancy 115). It makes a shady identity which is actually reflected on many of his main characters in his novels and video-games. Clancy loves to play video-games and he basically resembles a thirteen year old kid (Clancy 115). He also goes over seas on naval ships and tries to enjoy these things he could have had if he qualified for the military (Tom). He is also the owner of the Baltimore Orioles and attempted to buy the Minnesota Vikings but that deal fell through (Britannica 3).

Life in the military isn’t wonderful to many people, but to Clancy, it means everything. He incorporated his love of warfare through his keen skill of story-telling and he changed the way many people look at war. For Clancy, I think having bad eyesight was a good thing. In that spare time, not in the military, he wrote his wonderful novels that changed his life forever. But who knows, maybe Clancy would have been a Fleet Admiral for the United States Navy.

Works Cited
Britannica. “Tom Clancy.” Answers.com. © 2009. February 22, 2009.

http://www.answers.com/topic/tom-clancy.
Clancy, Tom. Current Biography Yearbook. 1988 ed.
“Tom Clancy Is The Best There Is.” Editorial. San Francisco Chronicle.