Tom Clancy Dead at 66

I’m illiterate so I haven’t read any of Tom Clancy’s novels. I’m actually writing this by angrily shouting at my computer’s voice recognition software. Anyway, you might remember his novels that were adapted into movies. There were a lot of them. Many of them really, really good and/or fun to watch. Patriot Games, The Hunt for Red October, Clear and Present Danger and more. Well, he’s dead now. He died in a hospital in Baltimore at just 66. No cause of death has been revealed.

Born to a middle-class family in Baltimore on April 12, 1947, Mr. Clancy skipped over the usual children’s literature and became obsessed by naval history from a young age, reading journals and books whose intended audience was career military officers and engineering experts.

He absorbed details of submarine warfare, espionage, missile systems and covert plots between superpowers.

He attended Loyola College in Baltimore, where he majored in English, and graduated in 1969. While Mr. Clancy harbored ambitions to join the military, even joining the Army R.O.T.C., he was told that he was too nearsighted to qualify.

That explains his obsession with war stories and how small details may have given his stories an air of credibility thus elevating them slightly above others. He’ll be missed. Especially by moviegoers as Hollywood has pretty much abandoned any films that need technical research instead relying on Michael Bay to give them his best kablooey.