Robert Townsend is among some of the few men in America familiar with the war of ruse and stratagem between the US and the USSR. His Long War series addresses decent people who make life-and-death decisions and are haunted by their mistakes and everyday judgment day. After graduating from the University of Wisconsin in 1969, at the height of the Vietnam War protests, Townsend flew 130 combat missions in Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos. From 1982 to 1989, he was Deputy Chief of the Air Force Intelligence Agency, counter-deception directorate. He is among few men in America familiar with the war of ruse and stratagem between the US and the USSR. He is currently working on the Long War series addressing deception, war, and peace in a 20th-century world of contrived and real moral ambiguity.  Townsend is fluent (more or less) in Russian and German; his French is—how to say?— so-so. English? Patrice and Google spell-check this dyslexic left-hander. Townsend comes from a long line––father, grandfathers, and great-grandfathers––of soldiers, American and pre-American. Slavic on his mother's side and a deep-south redneck on his father's side, his parents managed money poorly and told stories well. Spare, pithy, lasting the duration of a Pall Mall cigarette, the tales were to entertain while teaching. No one is entirely useless, he was told. He can always serve as a bad example. He learned this lesson: Storytellers are treasured, liars are vexing, and both are often one and the same. The craft is shared; the objectives differ. However, when the skilled liar is armed, crazed, and planning Armageddon, ambiguity in matters of war and peace and life and death has vexed the earth. His stories and novels arise from family history, fables, and stories told around the kitchen table, as well as his own experiences in America's late 20th-century ambiguous wars, deceptions, and counter-deceptions. Fluent in Russian and German with a combat vocabulary in French, Townsend graduated from the University of Wisconsin (BA), studied at Freies Universitat Berlin (Certifikat), and received an MA from Georgetown University. Since leaving the intelligence business, he has turned his attention to writing stories and essays, an early passion that was waylaid by life and work. The Long War is a series of novels that address deception, war, and peace in a 20th-century world of both contrived and actual moral ambiguity.