ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Author, Lt. Kruger on a M60 A1 main line battle tank in the Fulda Gap in Germany in 1981.
Tom Kruger
Tom P. Kruger graduated in 1974 from Shelton High School, located in a small farming community along the Platte River in central Nebraska. He went on to college at Kearney State and holds an undergraduate degree in history and social sciences as well as a graduate degree in high school administration. He taught and coached in St. Paul, NE, and Lexington, NE. He was a principal at Lexington High School and assistant principal at Grand Island Senior High School. He retired after thirty years as an educator.
Tom also had a second career in the military. After graduating from college and completing four years of Army ROTC, Tom was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant and assigned to the armor branch of the Army. He is a graduate of Armor Officer Basic Course as well as Advanced Armor Office Course for Armor Captains. He spent his last fourteen years in the Army National Guard and retired as a Major and operations officer for the 195 Armor Battalion.
Major honors include induction into the University of Nebraska at Kearney Athletic Hall of Fame for playing football and being an All-American wrestler at UNK.
In a time honored celebration he was also knighted and awarded the Medallion of the Order of St. George, the patron saint of armor and cavalry. The award is given to a select group (top two percent) of noncommissioned and commissioned officers for excellence in armor.
Tom lives in Grand Island, where he and wife Ronda raised their three sons--Heath, Cole, and Tad. He is currently researching and interviewing more veterans to complete Cornhuskers Go To War: The European Theater and Cornhuskers Go To War: Meet Me in Manila.
Over the years, Tom has conducted over a hundred interviews with war veterans from WWI to Desert Storm to present day. Most of these interviews were conducted with WWII warriors. His experiences and military education and a life-time as a military historian made the writing of Cornhuskers Go To War a labor of love and a tribute that honors all who have worn the uniform honorably, and especially the WWII veterans. “When we honor one we honor all.”
Jeff Hower
Jeff Hower is a once upon a time a high school English teacher and school administrator with the Grand Island Public Schools.
Jeff writes the news, sports, and a weekly column for the Central City (Nebraska) Republican-Nonpareil, and has filed numerous interviews with veterans and their family members in the attempt to document the memories and legacies of American heroes. Cornhuskers Go To War is an extension of his interest in the men and women who built—and are building—the story of this great nation.
Jeff and his wife Daurice live in Grand Island, where they are raising their two children.