Lester W. Grau
Personal Information
Description
Lester W. Grau is a retired U.S. Army Lieutenant Colonel. He served as an infantry officer and a Soviet Foreign Area Officer (FAO) throughout his career. He fought in Vietnam. In 1981, he completed one year of Russian language training at the Defense Language Institute at Monterey, California and then graduated from the U.S. Army Russian Institute (USARI) in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany in 1983. USARI was a two-year post-graduate school which dealt with all aspects of the then Soviet Union and all classes were taught in Russian. He has served in Moscow and traveled extensively in the former Warsaw Pact and former Soviet Union and continues that travel today. Since 1983, his work has exclusively been in the area of Russian and Soviet tactics and operations. As a combat infantryman, he finds it fascinating to compare and contrast how both the US and USSR fought and fight. (From The Bear Went Over the Mountain)
Books
The Bear Went Over the Mountain
A bear goes over the mountain and all he could see was the other side.
The Other Side of the Mountain
The seventh and final volume of Thomas Merton's journals finds him exploring new territory, both spiritual and geographic, in the last great journey prior to his untimely death. Traveling in the United States and the Far East, Merton enjoys a new freedom that brings with it a rich mix of solitude, spirited friendship, and interaction with monks of other traditions. In his last days in the United States, Merton continues to follow the tumultuous events closing the 1960s, including the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr., and Robert Kennedy. Meanwhile, with the blessing of his new abbot, Merton travels to monasteries in New Mexico and among the redwoods of Northern California, keeping his journal all the while. When Merton wins approval to participate in a meeting of monastic superiors of the Far East in Bangkok, Thailand, his life enters its most thrilling period. Arriving in Calcutta, Merton is heartbroken by the poverty of the many beggars; in New Delhi and Dharamsala, he makes contact with local Buddhists, including the Dalai Lama. Recognizing each other as kindred spirits, Merton and the Dalai Lama speak from the heart like old friends.
Viral hepatitis and the Russian War in Chechnya
"This article was first published in the January 1997 edition of Red Thrust Star"--P. 4.