Area Professor and Writer Falls in Love With His Characters

So you want to write that best-seller, believing that all a novelist needs is a word processor, a thesaurus - and "that little book inside" yourself that everyone supposedly has.
Dr. Russell Ramsey will quickly set you straight. It isn't that easy.
"Writing is similar to boxing," said the silver-haired but still fighting trim national security affairs professor at Air Command and Staff College at Maxwell Air Force Base. "Both are tough professions with very few at the top of the fight game or the literary world. Less than 100 make much money. Most people who box or write get their brains knocked out and earn practically nothing. The reality is that most boxers and writers need to have another source of income."
Ramsey's weekends are spent in his Albany, Ga., home with his wife Roberta, who works as an assistant to the vice president for academic affairs at Albany State College. During the week, a trailer outside Maxwell's Day Street serves as Ramsey's home and fortress of concentration for three hours of nightly head banging and writing.
But cry no tears for this writer. His passion for the written word has continued to grow since he peddled his first work to families of World War II troops as a 9-year-old boy in Sandusky, Ohio. After graduating from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in 1957 with a bachelor's in science and engineering, Ramsey wrote books on military subjects. In 1969, after a paratrooping accident and a tour of duty in Vietnam, Ramsey retired from the Army and has since found literary success with his sports articles and in the fickle arena of the paperback novel.
Though far from approaching the best-seller lists, Ramsey's story of a female Olympic swimmer fared well enough to justify two sequels.
"I developed a special love for this character," he said. "I don't think you can create a fictional figure, work with her for any length of time and not fall in love. My character, Angela Weber, became a daughter figure to me when she won the gold medal at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin in the first book, A Lady, A Champion. In A Lady, A Healer, Angela - now a middle-aged lady - became the counterpart to my wife, and transformed into both a world leader and a queenly figure in A Lady, A Peacemaker."
He didn't develop his character through mere daydreaming or divine inspiration. Ramsey did a complete character from the women swimmers he interviewed for articles published in Swimming World. One of these athletes, Marjorie Gestring, who won the diving medal at the 1936 Olympics, went further in telling her story than the writer dared to hope.
"This American swimmer became the youngest Olympic champion every at age 13, but failed to qualify for the 1948 games," Ramsey said. "Reporters slammed microphones in her face, asking how it felt to be around young girls who weren't even around when she won her first gold in 1936. She simply answered, 'They beat me.' Forty years later, when I interviewed her, she told me what really happened. She'd broken her back falling from a 48-foot wooden tower while entertaining soldiers."
This wasn't the only time when Ramsey's careful prodding uncovered a story within a story. After seeing "Chariots of Fire" in 1983, he became fascinated with Eric Liddell, the Scottish runner who refused to compete on Sundays for religious reasons in the 1924 Olympics in Paris.
But before he could begin, Ramsey had to recover from neck surgery that resulted from his paratrooping accident. Then, he was ready to dig.
"My vocal cords were damaged after the surgery, but I miraculously got my voice back three months later. I began asking myself lots of questions.
"Then I found this incredible man who was an Olympic champion but refused to compromise his beliefs. He gave it all up to become a missionary in China. When the war began, he could have left the country, but he sent his wife and children home and entered a prisoner-of-war camp where he died of a brain tumor. Everyone I talked to in his homeland, Scotland, told me there was more to his story than the movie told."
The result was God's Joyful Runner, one of many sports pieces Ramsey has published. His latest, Circles and Wings, is featured in the May issue of Airman magazine. Circles and Wings is a detailed history of military members in the Olympics.
Teamwork between the writer and a heavyweight boxing champion resulted in The Gentle Giant, a story about George Foreman that appeared in Amateur Boxer. Ramsey met the still active fighter while working with the Job Corps in Oregon.
"Foreman was a tough, street-wise kid who was hauled into juvenile court and forced to go to jail or the Job Corps," Ramsey said. "A boxing trainer saw that he was super fast and a terrific slugger and added him to his team. Foreman practically knocked every opponent out of the ring and went on to win the gold medal in the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City. But what impressed me the most was what he did after receiving his medal. While two other black athletes raised their fists in protest, Foreman paraded around the ring with an American flag."
Ramsey's interest in sports writing is no accident. He's an avid runner and swimmer, ranked nationally in his age group. He's recently been named the Air University nominee for the National Fitness Award and teaches an elective fitness elective at ACSC.
The setting for Ramsey's next project is slated to be behind the Iron Curtain. The story deals with Olympic stars in the Soviet Union. The Russian Embassy has arranged for Ramsey to co-write the book with a leading Soviet journalist who covered all the Olympic games since 1952.
"What I really like about this venture is that I'll be in a position to verify that they're telling the truth," Ramsey said. "I'll see the training centers and the athletes and can cross-check with the European and South African press who have covered the events these athletes have competed in.
"I believe the United States and Soviet Union have to find qualities they can respect in each other. I also believe the Russians are closer to the Greek ideal of athletics than we are. When a gymnast, swimmer or boxer succeeds in the Soviet Union, he's made into a role model for the entire country."
Ramsey tries to make his subjects come alive in his work, from the George Foremans to the Eric Liddelels.
"Practically everything I write is centered around a major character, someone who has done something. I try to focus on what makes that person special."

Living My Storytelling Dream

While looking at the clouds through the window on my flight from San Antonio, my thoughts weren't where they normally are on the way to an assignment. I usually spend this time preparing for interviews or mulling over research.

This flight was different because this assignment was special. This was the first assignment for my dream job. I was reflecting on my first flight to San Antonio almost two decades ago for basic military training at Lackland Air Force Base, Texas. I've always enjoyed a good story. I've also love to tell stories, whether they are to readers of a daily newspaper in Alabama or to the first grade children I taught in Florida. That first flight was 20 years ago. Then, I traveled with a copy of Airman magazine in my hands, as my dream was to become a storyteller for Airman.

My dream didn't come true during my first active-duty enlistment, or during a I second that sent me from Alabama to the frigid climate of Grand Forks Air Force Base, N.D. However, when I left the 319th Air Refueling Wing, everyone knew my dream and I was given a mock cover of Airman with a photo of a prairie dog. It has a prominent spot on my desk to this day.

After several other public affairs jobs, in and out of uniform, I was finally given my chance in September. Two weeks after joining the Airman staff, I was on my way to my first assignments--Arnold Air Force Base, Tenn. and Robins Air Force Base, Ga.

Of course, I had to get there first. The trip northeast with veteran photojournalist Lance Cheung and broadcaster Tech. Sgt. Steve German began in a stormy fashion--literally. A severe thunderstorm knocked out electricity in my neighborhood, so my trust,/alarm clock, which I counted on to awaken me in time for the 7:30 a.m. flight, let me down. Instead, I awoke at 6 a.m. I panicked because the drive to the airport takes 45 minutes in good weather. As it turns out, the same storm knocked out electricity at the airport, delaying our flight for more than two hours.

Fortunately, the stories we found at Arnold and Robins made the adventurous trip worth it. At the Arnold Engineering Development Center, located in a remote area in the middle of southern Tennessee, we got an extensive tour of the largest aerospace ground test facility in the nation.

As a shameless history buff, I enjoyed hearing the stories behind the Propulsion Wind Tunnel Facility and the yon Karman Gas Dynamics Facility, not to mention the Mark 1 Test Facility. This 82-foot, state-of-the-art space environment simulation test chamber was originally built for the Air Force space program, but its purpose changed with the creation of NASA in 1958.

The chamber is now used for full-scale space systems testing.

I was especially interested in the building of the von Karman facility, which was named after Dr. Theodore yon Karman, a leading aeronautical scientist who father of supersonic flight. Von Karman's findings led to the building of the facilities in 1957, and it was renamed for him two years later.

After the wind tunnels, it was off to Robins for a visit with the people at the maintenance depot. Our hosts at the 402nd Maintenance Wing introduced us to some pretty amazing technology such as the Aerial Multi-Axis Platform, commonly called an AMP.

However, what are most interesting at both installations are the perspectives of the people there. I enjoyed hearing how they view their work and its impact on the mission. These are the people who, in some cases, work 10 hours a day, six days a week, to make sure our warfighters are getting safe aircraft as soon as possible. Of course, there are many people just like them all over the Air Force and we need to hear their stories.

On the way back to San Antonio, my mind was back on the things it normally is after a story assignment. I was reflecting on how to best tell the stories of the people I met. I hope my effort will do them justice because all the people I interviewed had wonderful stories to tell. I am very happy to be the outlet that allows them to tell them to you.