ABOUT RON
Ron Sorter is the co-author of "Letters in a Helmet: A Story of Fraternity and Brotherhood."
About William “Ron” Sorter
Colorado native Ron Sorter relishes the challenges of leadership. In 1970, he was a Captain in the Infantry and as a 1st Lieutenant, commanded a rifle company in Vietnam. After eight months in combat, he was severely wounded, losing his right leg. After recovering from those wounds, he’s spent his life making lemonade from lemons. His life is a story of leadership, in the public, private and community sectors.
Ron led the Denver and San Diego Prosthetics services for the Veteran Administration, later serving as a consultant for them. After obtaining a graduate degree in Artificial Intelligence from San Diego State University, he worked in the private sector as the Director of Prosthetics for the San Diego firm which had purchased his graduate thesis, as they began developing their own computerized prostheses.
After meeting the love of his life, Michelle, they retired to Redstone, CO and immersed themselves in volunteer work. Ron was project director of the award-winning acquisition and restoration of the town’s major historical landmark, the Redstone Coke Ovens while co-leading the development of the local Caucus’ master plan for the entire Crystal River valley. In his free time, he rebuilt and doubled the size of their home. After his beloved wife suffered a debilitating illness in 2013, they moved to Sequim, WA, where he cared for her in their home until her death in 2019.
Ron has been awarded the Combat Infantryman’s Badge, the Bronze Star, and Purple Heart which hang proudly on his living room wall next to the Olympic Torch he carried during the 2002 Salt Lake Olympics. He holds an MSBA from San Diego State University and a BBA from the University of Oklahoma.
He received the 1974 award for Courage and Inspiration from the Denver Naval Reserve Association, the annual Hands And Heart Award from the Veterans Administration in San Diego, the Redstone Outstanding Community Award with his wife Michelle for their volunteer work and has been honored many times on TV for his service to other members of his Purple Heart brotherhood.
Ron lives next door to his grandsons. When he’s not playing golf, painting or working on his memoir, he’s building race cars and skateboard half-pipes for them and teaching them about brotherhood.
Tell your readers a little about yourself. Where you grew up, where you live now, where you went to school etc. Let them get to know the personal you.
I was born in Grand Junction, Colorado, a small town on the western slope of the Colorado Rockies. My parents had divorced and 15 minutes after graduating my mother and I were on the road to Oklahoma, where her family lived. Like all teenagers, I was happy to leave the town of my birth for new horizons. I was accepted at OU, joined the Deke fraternity and met Bob Tierno, a soon-to-be lifelong friend. Upon graduating I received a commission as a second lieutenant in the Army Infantry. Fifteen months later I was a platoon leader in Vietnam, then given command of a rifle company. A few months later I was severely wounded and evacuated to Fitzsimmons Army Hospital in Denver. After recovering, being fitted with a new leg and a new Corvette, I attacked my new life.in Denver, then San Diego. I’ve been married twice, the final time to a fabulous woman, Michelle. We lived our dream life for 25 years in Redstone Colorado, a little town of 92 people high in the mountains of Colorado. In 2013 she suffered a cerebral hemorrhage, so we moved to Sequim, Washington to live next to our two grandsons. I was her caregiver and admirer for six years. Michelle passed away in March 2019, in her own bed at home, in the loving arms of her children and me.
What inspired you to write this book?
In March 2019, Bob was in the midst of his recovery from prostate cancer surgery and I was dealing with the massive grief of Michelle’s death. He and I’ve been friends for fifty years. When I was wounded in 1970, my family was notified but they had no idea of the severity of my whereabouts. Bob’s dad, Rocky Tierno, was a West Pointer and a Colonel in the Army Infantry. He contacted a friend at the Pentagon who could locate anyone and relayed my daily progress to Bob who kept my mother informed every day. That act bonded our families forever. Bob and I felt differently about service in Vietnam, but our brotherhood overcame all those differences. We decided that the story would resonate in today’s America. And, Bob rightly felt that Ron needed to have a focus on his new life. Ron agreed and told bob, “I’m in.”
Where did you get the inspiration for your book’s cover?
Each day in Vietnam my platoon sergeant would set out his helmet and the guys would toss their letters home in it, starting each letter’s voyage back to The World. I’d written a letter to Bob and thrown it in there, then took a picture of it. That picture is the metaphor for the book, about our connection, even while each of us was on the other side of the world from the other. I drew the helmet and letters on the cover.
Who has been the biggest influence on you personally and as a writer?
My wife, Michelle, was the deepest, most complete person I’ve ever known. Our life in Redstone was filled with laughter and service to the community. We served as presidents on many boards and committees, involving ourselves as completely in that life as possible. She loved books and when I remodeled our house, I built her the Edwardian library she’d always wanted. I wrote often for our projects and had a column in the local paper. I’d tell everyone I’d write up a cheap suit and she’d turn it into a tuxedo. I wrote this book as a way to describe her impact on me and everyone she met. She was a better writer than I, by far.
What were your struggles or obstacles you had to overcome to get this book written?
Re-examining one’s life becomes fraught with questions, and the memoir author must dig up many answers perhaps better left untouched. It was no different in this book; deciding what to put in and, more importantly, what to leave out. After all, the grandsons will eventually read it. I wrote the book, wondering how or if I could write the final chapters about Michelle. To describe her decline and death in words was the most difficult thing I’ve ever done. We adored each other and it was challenging to describe that in a way that does her honor. I’m happy with the result and the act of telling that story has healed me.
Tell your readers about your book.
The book is like the DNA double helix. Bob’s and my lives twist and turn and we’ve connected and intersected in countless places and times. This memoir is a weaving of our lives to help explain the wisdom we think we’ve uncovered about deeper themes, like the importance of laughter. And the benefit of a total eradication of pity. Life can be difficult but it’s survivable with friends. And lifelong friends are the only ones who’ll be there at the end, when they’re needed most.
Who is your target audience and why?
Any person 50 or over who can relate to the 60s and 70s. That context of those times is the context of the early book when Bob and I meet. Women of any age will enjoy reding about a man who loves a woman so much he will lovingly care for her, washing her, feeding her, telling her he loves her until she draws her last breath. Men of any age who are interested in Vietnam and combat will be intrigued by an honest portrayal of it. As well as how one goes about rebuilding a shattered life and then lives a truly wonderful life.
If you were going to give one reason for anyone looking at your book to read, why should they buy it?
We all feel as if we live uncommon lives. But we know there are common threads running through all those lives and this book is a celebration of those common threads with a frosting of laughter.
What do you consider your greatest success in life?
Keeping myself awake and alive as a medevac chopper, streaming my blood across its floor and out the door, raced me to a MASH unit. I arrived with a BP of 70/40, and I was alive.
Everyone has life lessons to learn, tell your readers one or two of yours and how they make you the person you are today.
Self-pity has no place in an Army hospital amputee ward. To pity one’s self leads to victimhood and there’s no recovering from that because, as a victim, one has ceded complete control of their life to others.
Always do the hard things first, the things you most want to put off. Once you do that, you needn’t worry about that big awful job anymore since it was the first one resolved. After doing that, each remaining task is easier.
What one unique thing sets you apart from other writers in your genre?
Our book is a game of catch between lifelong friends. Bob likes a fastball; I prefer the curve.
Tell your readers anything else you want to share.
Losing one’s leg, and one’s daughter and one’s wife will not kill you. Only giving up does that.
ABOUT THE BOOK
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Our book is a collaboration between me and my lifelong friend, Bob Tierno. We were fraternity brothers at college in the 60s when Vietnam, the draft and “The Lottery” split our brotherhood, and all males of draft age, in the most irrevocable way since the Civil War. Bob’s and my brotherhood was powerful enough to overcome those times and our book, a kind of double-helix memoir, describes how we accomplished that. Laughter and a complete lack of pity has propelled us through half-a-century of combat wounds, careers, families, advancing age, Bob's cancer scare and my massive bereavement.
Here's an example: I was a First Lieutenant in the Infantry in 1970, commanding a rifle company in Vietnam. I was severely wounded, losing a leg, and the Army notified my family. When Bob found out, he called his dad, a West Pointer, a Colonel in the Infantry and Pearl Harbor survivor who, from a friend in the Pentagon, acquired my whereabouts and condition every day to relay to my mother. Those actions bonded our families forever. Another heartfelt link: Bob’s dad, Rocky Tierno, and I both earned Combat Infantry Badges, Purple Hearts, and Bronze Stars.
My part of the book, I admit, evolved from a war story and a memoir into a love story. In 1994, I married Michelle, a fabulous woman, and we lived in complete bliss for 20 years in the tiny town of Redstone, high in the mountains of Colorado. In 2013, she suffered a cerebral hemorrhage which required me to care for her until her death in 2019. She drew her last breath, at home, in the arms of her children and me.
I practiced the entire book to be able, at the end, to describe her impact on me in the most honest, cinematic language possible. She had a smile that never left her face. She was once the youngest person in the Pentagon with a Top Secret, Eyes Only clearance. She was an amazing mother.
Bob's half of the memoir acquaints the reader with an army brat's ability to love his family while still finding a way to create his own path in life. His marriage to his college sweetheart was the key in navigating a rewarding career at Intel and 13 years owning a three-star BnB in the Sierras.
As our eighth decade looms, we decided to mine our lives and recognize how our intersections and lifelong friendship helped us thrive through it all. And laugh with amazement. This book is the result.
Bob has written another book which may be of interest: "The Prostate Chronicles – A Medical Memoir: Detours And Decisions Following My Prostate Cancer Diagnosis," which is also available on Amazon.
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