I was born in 1942 and raised in Chicago, Illinois. I served in the U.S. Navy from 1961 to 1968, where I received training in Chinese language while working with the Naval Security Group and did Vietnam service on an aircraft carrier in the Tonkin Gulf. I am divorced, with two grown children (Lisa and Jack) , a twenty-two-year-old granddaughter (Alana, my daughter's daughter), and another granddaughter (Anya), born to my son and his wife (Katie), on April 30, 2002.

After military service, I began my college studies, obtaining a Bachelor's in Political Science from the University of Illinois at Chicago in 1971. Then, I went to graduate school, first obtaining a Master's in Asian Studies in 1974, then a PhD in Political Science in 1979, both from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

My first academic position was with the Politics Department at the University of Melbourne (Australia), from 1979-1983, where I taught courses in Chinese Politics and Society and Communist Political Theory. During 1985-1987, I was a visiting assistant professor at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. From 1988 to 2001, I served as the Undergraduate Academic Advisor in Political Science at UIUC, as well as an adjunct assistant professor in that department.

Since 2001, I have worked full time as an Advising Specialist in the Student Academic Affairs Office of the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. I also teach courses in political science and cinema studies.

I also serve as one of the National Coordinators of Vietnam Veterans Against the War, an organization I have been with since 1969.