The true author of this book is, of course, Ralph J. Miles (1921–2008), who kept a scrupulously detailed war diary spanning the years 1943–1945.  Some six years after the war, Ralph used his diary and other war memorabilia as the basis for a compelling two-volume WWII memoir/scrapbook of his wartime experiences.

In 2022, David, the youngest of Ralph’s three children, decided to edit and publish Ralph’s fascinating war memoirs — the result is Led by Love of Country.

David was born in 1953 in Dallas, Texas, where Ralph had been assigned as a newly minted Special Agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Over the next decade and a half, David and his family lived a nomadic life as Ralph rose rapidly through the Bureau's ranks, moving from one FBI office to the next: Texas, Washington, DC, Oregon, Minnesota, back to Northern Virginia and, finally, in 1968, to Birmingham, Alabama, where Ralph eventually retired and where David met and married his high school sweetheart, Nancy Yvonne Liles.  Following his retirement, Ralph devoted his time and energy to his three great passions, after Eleanor:  church, genealogical research, and fishing.  Ralph passed away in March of 2008, a few days short of his 87th birthday.

David obtained undergraduate, graduate and post-graduate degrees from Samford University and the University of Alabama in Birmingham in Secondary Education.  After a 39-year career as teacher and administrator, David retired in 2014. He currently lives in Moody, Alabama, a northeastern suburb of Birmingham, with his wife Nancy and their cat, Hobbes.