Leland McCaslin has worn many titles in his lifetime. Son. Brother. Army brat. Soldier. Counterintelligence agent. Veteran.
Now, the Lee High and Mississippi State University alumnus can add one more title to his dossier: Published author.
Sunday, from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m., McCaslin will be at Books-A-Million, signing copies of his first book, “Secrets of the Cold War: U.S. Army Europe’s Intelligence and Counterintelligence Activities Against the Soviets,” which offers an in-depth look at the men and women who helped bring the Cold War to an end.
Speaking via telephone from his home in Trussville, Ala., McCaslin fondled a grayish chunk of concrete, a piece of the Berlin Wall which fell in 1989, precipitating the end of the Cold War and the reunification of Germany.
This was the type of moment he and the other members of the military intelligence community worked for, what they dreamed about, believed in, risked their lives to accomplish — a world free of Soviet reign and a pervasive threat they sometimes thought may never end.
“What amazes me is we grew up, we loved, we had fun, we had disappointments while this serious threat was going on,” McCaslin recalled. “We went along with our normal lives as if that was the way it was supposed to be.”
Even as a child, moving city to city, making friends, losing them, making new friends as his father’s Army career took the family across the world, McCaslin always knew he would follow in his father’s footsteps.
All the members of his family, including his mother, who was a nurse, were Army officers. After graduating from MSU in 1969, McCaslin was commissioned into the Army and attended tanker school, followed by military intelligence school at Fort Holabird, Md., where he became a counterintelligence special agent.
By the time he retired in 1995, he was the most senior security specialist in Europe. Following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, he was even called in by Immigration and Customs Enforcement to assist.
His personal experiences over 25 years in civil service could have filled the pages of several books, but instead, he chose to focus on the exploits and adventures of his colleagues.
The 248-page book, published last year by Helion & Company Limited, covered such sensitive information that McCaslin had to seal the book and send it to the Army for review to make sure it didn’t contain any classified information.
Their verdict? The text was fine, but a few photographs would have to be omitted.
McCaslin seemed pleased and surprised by the response the book has received. It has been purchased by a number of universities, including Harvard, Yale and Rice. The United States Air Force Academy is planning to use McCaslin’s book for a Cold War class in 2012.
Writing the book was as enjoyable for the author as reading it has been for his fans.
“Those were the best days of my life,” McCaslin said. “Most of the people that were involved in it feel that way. In my book, there’s a general that made the statement, ‘the good old bad days.’ Yes, they were bad, but we were serving our country, and we were proud that we, in fact, won the Cold War.”
On the eve of Veterans Day, as he reflected on the way life has changed in the past few decades, McCaslin said the world is “a little bit” safer.
“It’s safer in that the Soviet threat of an invasion has been quashed, but with Iran and Korea, it’s never-ending,” McCaslin said.
One thing that has changed for the better is the way veterans are treated upon their return home.
“I’m glad to see our veterans are getting the recognition they deserve,” McCaslin said.
So does he plan to write another book?
“I’m not a real writer per se,” he insisted. “I just had this one story I wanted to tell. … I’m just glad God gave me the chance late in life to write this book.”
Carmen K. Sisson is the former news editor at The Dispatch.
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