BYLINE: Don Mecoy, Business Writer

Q: How long did it take you to write "Jack's 45th?"
A: It took three and a half years to research and write it.

Q: How did you carve out the time to do this?
A: It was not unusual for me to get up at 4:30 or 4 o'clock in the morning, and I would write for two or three hours, which was the longest I could sustain the writing effort. It's hard to write. It's hard work. So I would write for a couple of hours before I came to work. That's how I did it. Sometimes if I felt good, I would do it over noon hours. On the weekends I pretty much had the same routine. I would be up early and write before the day really got started.

Q: Did the skills that you developed as an attorney help you in this process?
A: Yes, because I was used to writing legal briefs and memos and things that lawyers do. So writing was not an unnatural exercise. So, yes, it did help.

Q: Did it help you with the research at all?
A: Probably. Just the way you learn how to think in law school. Lawyers have a tendency to isolate in on issues and things of interest, precise facts and things that are of interest to them. So, yeah, I think as a lawyer it helped me focus my research at the (45th Infantry) Division archives because I had an idea what I wanted. I knew what I was looking for.

Q: What overriding message did you take from this whole experience?
A: There's a lot. The first message, and I get very passionate about this, there is little written about the 45th Infantry Division. There are very few publications about it; you won't see any movies about it. This was a group of extraordinary young men. I am convinced that the battle in southern Europe was largely won because the men of the 45th, these guys from Oklahoma, did their job. And they did it irrespective of religious, ethnic, color differences. They demonstrated what good can come of unity and friendship and comradeship. I just felt like that message, that story needed to be told.
The other message is family. Family was important to all these guys. It certainly was to my father. I wanted to do something to tell a story that I've really been blessed and lucky in life because I had two great parents. I think it's important for the baby boomer generation, which is my age group, to stand up and say that. We had great mentors.

Q: Any advice for someone who wants to do what you've done, write a book?
A: Go do it would be my advice. Follow your dream. If you have a desire to tell a good story or do the research necessary to make it a good story, follow your dream and go do it.

Q: Do you wish the Oklahoma City NBA team had chosen the nickname "Thunderbirds?"
A: You know, (team owner) Clay Bennett's a pretty good friend of mine, and we were at a function and he walked up to me and asked me "What do you think the team's name ought to be?" And I said, "Well, the Thunderbirds should be the name of it." He said, "Well, gosh, I don't know if we can do that." There's all kinds of patents and issues related to team names. We kind of laughed about it.