![[Image]](pict2.jpg) |
After graduating from the University of South Florida, Jim Hooper worked
as a documentary research-writer for WFLA-TV in Tampa, with weekends set
aside as a skydiving team captain and instructor. He gave up television to
devote himself full time to jumping out of airplanes, logging over 3500 freefalls
and building the world's premier skydiving center in Zephyrhills, Florida.
His thirst for adventure unfulfilled, he sold the business in 1984 to realize
a long-held dream of being a war correspondent and author.
Within two years, his byline was appearing in publications ranging from The
Daily Telegraph of London to Jane's Intelligence Review. Following
publication of Koevoet and its American edition, Beneath the Visiting
Moon, he collaborated on Flashpoint - At the Frontline of Today's
Wars and was a principal contributor to the best-selling World's Most
Dangerous Places, and its companion, Hotspots. The only journalist
to accompany the mercenaries of Executive Outcomes on operations, Hooper
recorded their campaigns in his book Bloodsong. The Balkan wars of
the 1990s found him crossing back and forth between the Croatian, Serbian
and Muslim frontlines in search of stories, the most memorable when he was
captured by Muslim extremists in central Bosnia. |
