Halbert pens autobiography
Nick Johansen
The Red Oak Express
Red Oak native and retired Air Force pilot Tom Halbert has written an autobiography.
“My journalism background and my wire-service background allowed me to write and be succinct, so I had to overcome that to be able to write the book,” commented Halbert.
Halbert’s book, “An American Gypsy: Around the World in 32,620 Days” is now available in paperback and Kindle through Amazon.com, and the title reflects the number of days between his birth to when he finished writing the book, including his adoption by his parents, Mary Pilkington-Halbert and Russel Halbert, and his years growing up in Red Oak.
“I lived in Red Oak from first grade until I was in junior high school. At that time, my parents divorced and my mother got a job in Des Moines, so I ended up in Des Moines, which is where I spent my senior year of high school,” Halbert said.
The divorce, Halbert said, was due to his father’s alcoholism. His mother got a job as a librarian at Drake University, and that simple event had a major impact on his future.
“It was extremely pivotal. I didn’t have any real ambitions or any foresight and after it happened, it opened doors for me that I never would have had without it. Her being a university employee meant I could earn a college degree tuition-free,” explained Halbert.
While at Drake, Halbert studied journalism and broadcasting, and after graduation, he served as a sports reporter, sports editor and United Press staff writer until 1955, when, as Halbert said, the Korean War caught him.
“My career became double-edged. I was still working in public relations, and I was also flying with the Air Force in addition, so it was the best of both worlds. When I first started out in public relations in Lincoln, Neb., said Halbert. “I worked for a general who turned out to be my mentor. My experience in the news business was that I wrote, people edited it, it was published, but an editor never really talked to me or did anything. The general officers did, and that impressed me.”
Halbert served in many roles during his time in the Air Force, including the SAC Radio and TV Branch of Offutt Air Force Base from 1958-1961, SAC KC-97 Pilot with Westover Air Force Base from 1964-1965, C-130 Pilot, Wing Executive Officer, and Public Information Officer with Sewart Air Force Base from 1965-1970, and Branch Chief of the Secretary of the Air Force Office of Information at the Pentagon. His last role in the Air Force was as Deputy Public Information Officer of the Allied Air Forces Central Europe at Ramstein Air Base from 1975, until his retirement Aug. 31, 1979.
“After 1979, I started teaching journalism and public relations at the University of Maryland, and got pulled back into the Pentagon. My civilian experience was as Assistant Director of Public Affairs, as advisor to four Secretary’s of the Air Force, the senior civilian position in Air Force Public Affairs. That was from 1980-87. I traveled with them, and was their public relations guy, both in Washington, D.C., and abroad, wherever they went.”
He finished up his career in civil service as the executive manager of Armed Forces Radio Television in Europe, and was responsible for broadcasting operations from Iran to Scandinavia, North Africa, and to the Azores.
Halbert said the decision to write the biography was, in part, being an adoptee, a fact that he didn’t find out until he was 14 years old, and put him on a quest to find out who he was, something he pondered for many years. As for writing it, there was a two-pronged reason.
“The first thing I wanted to do was leave a record for my future family as to who I was, and my background, and the second thing was to be able to trace back and recall all of these memories, and let my family have a history of what it was like when I was growing up. No one else in my family had ever done anything like that before,” Halbert commented.
Halbert also hopes that people who read the book outside of friends and family will be able to gain insight from the autobiography.
“I wanted to give a roadmap to adoptees, and also give them some inspiration and show they what was possible for them if they put their minds to it.”
Putting the autobiography together took a lot of time, and relied on many of the writing techniques he learned over the years.
“My experience in speech writing helped, as speeches have a start, and a middle and an end. I started out collecting my thoughts on half-sheets of paper, putting them aside, and shuffling them to create a format that I could embellish as I ran across them. Using that technique is how I basically spent the COVID-19 pandemic, and allowed me to write the book,” advised Halbert.
Halbert, now 90, said he probably won’t pursue other writing projects, but he does anticipate taking part in an event at the Red Oak Lied Public Library or the Montgomery County History Center in the fall of this year.
Halbert has fond memories of growing up in Red Oak, and has always claimed the community as his hometown.
“That’s where my life got started, and that’s where everything got put together.”
Halbert’s autobiography can be found at amazon.com/American-Gypsy-Around-World-Days/dp/B09XBQPMKR/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3OKK9R9WNMQGX&keywords=An+American+Gypsy&qid=1650994755&sprefix=an+american+gyp%2Caps%2C1351&sr=8-1.