Robert Skirmin is a retired U.S. Army officer, artist, and Pulitzer Prize

Pulitzer Prize

The Pulitzer Prize is a U.S. award for achievements in newspaper and online journalism, literature and musical composition. It was established by American publisher Joseph Pulitzer and is administered by Columbia University in New York City...

-nominated and award-winning author of both fiction and historical books. Died May 9, 2011 in El Paso, Texas.

Military career

Born in a small village in rural Ohio

Ohio

Ohio is a Midwestern state in the United States. The 34th largest state by area in the U.S.,it is the 7th‑most populous with over 11.5 million residents, containing several major American cities and seven metropolitan areas with populations of 500,000 or more.The state's capital is Columbus...

, Skimin became an army aviator

Army aviation

Army Aviation refers to aviation-related units of a nation's army, often described as an air corps. These units are generally separate from a nation's dedicated air force, and usually comprise helicopters and light support fixed-wing aircraft....

 during the Korean War

Korean War

The Korean War was a conventional war between South Korea, supported by the United Nations, and North Korea, supported by the People's Republic of China , with military material aid from the Soviet Union...

. He was awarded the Purple Heart

Purple Heart

The Purple Heart is a United States military decoration awarded in the name of the President to those who have been wounded or killed while serving on or after April 5, 1917 with the U.S. military. The National Purple Heart Hall of Honor is located in New Windsor, New York...

, the Bronze Star, and the Army Commendation Medal with Oak Leaf Cluster.

Author

Skimin has written a number of books of both factual and alternate history. The Library of Congress

Library of Congress

The Library of Congress is the research library of the United States Congress, de facto national library of the United States, and the oldest federal cultural institution in the United States. Located in three buildings in Washington, D.C., it is the largest library in the world by shelf space and...

 lists 14 titles to date. He has received several awards, including induction into the El Paso Writers Hall of Fame, and received the Ohiana Book Award in 1984 for Chikara. In 1993, he earned a Pulitzer Prize nomination for Apache Autumn with most other titles being best sellers.

His current works are a book series called Danny Drumm's Heroes:
Author speaks of series on YouTube.

• Volume 1: Johnny Clem - This book introduces the narrator, a Civil War
  American Civil War
  The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
  
   drummer boy
  Drummer boy (military)
  Drummer boys were children recruited as military drummers for use on the battlefield.Armies regularly recruited young boys for this service, well into the nineteenth century...
  
  , and his dog Shadow. It tells the story of one of the many drummer boys in the Civil War who later became a two-star general, John Clem
  John Clem
  John Lincoln Clem was a United States Army general who had served as a drummer boy in the Union Army in the American Civil War. He gained fame for his bravery on the battlefield, becoming the youngest noncommissioned officer in Army history. He retired from the Army in 1915, having attained the...
  
  .
• Volume 2: America's Beginnings - The Spaniards - Danny Drumm narrates the early exploration of the Americas.
• Volume 3: The Early Settlement of New Mexico - This book is largely about the Spaniard's conquest of New Mexico and touches on the Indian rebellions.
• Volume 4: "The Pilgrims" - and the Indians they met and the unrest with the colonies.
• Volume 5: about battles and presidents. In the works, not yet released.

Literary accomplishments

• The Booze Game (1976) Personal battle with alcohol and how he overcame this battle.
• Soldier for Hire #1. ZULU BLOOD #2. TROJAN IN IRAN #3. U.N. SABOTAGE #4. BLOOD LETTING!
• Chikara!
• Gray Victory
  Gray Victory
  Gray Victory is a 1988 alternate history novel by Robert Skimin, taking place in an alternate 1866 where the Confederacy won its independence.-Plot introduction:...
  
  
• Renegade Lightning
• Apache Autumn
• Ulysses
• The River and the Horsemen
• Custer's Luck
• Footprints of Heroes: From the American Revolution to the War in Iraq
• Danny Drumm's Heroes Children's history series

Future works

• Tilley (Tilley Howard) El Paso's most prominent madam. (looking for publisher)
• Hardin (John Wesley Hardin) Gun slinger true story (looking for publisher)
• Violent Sky #1] aviation thriller (looking for publisher)
• Violent Sky #2 being rewritten, aviation thriller to book #1 (looking for publisher)
• Derzhava Russian Novel (looking for publisher)