The Last Word

About the Book

The outspoken account of a lifetime spanning five continents as determined youth, committed naval person, energetic diplomat, adventurous aviator, budding politician, mini-farmer and church insider - all despite numerous trials and tribulations.

About the Author

Jim Welsh, a French- and Turkish- speaking Annapolis graduate and naval officer turned press/cultural attachŽ after a stint in Big Steel public relations, served in fighting ships of the U.S. Navy and as assistant naval attachŽ to Turkey before assignment in Turkey, the French West Indies, Central Africa, Morocco and France in the American Foreign Service. As a civilian he attended the U.S. Naval War College and in less than six years compiled nearly 2000 hours of pilot time in single-engine light aircraft, including nonstop crossings of the Atlantic and Sahara. A brief eye-opening campaign for the governorship of New Hampshire was followed by a quarter-century of continuous residence in France as gentleman farmer, ordained Catholic deacon and close-up observer of current events, all featured in his memoir. Father of two children and widower of three years after the death from cancer of his French-born first wife, Jim resides with Claude, a distinguished former French school principal whom he married in 1992, near the French PyrŽnŽes.