Stop Me If You've Heard This Before...

About the Book

This book is a collection of more than 200 stories and anecdotes, most of them humorous, covering a period of more than sixty years of the author's life. Reminiscenses about early family life in Connecticut are followed by stories of college life, life in the military, travel abroad, and dealing with various bureaucracies. These stories and anecdotes cover a broad spectrum of time and places, from the 1950s to the present, and from the U.S. to Western and Central Europe and Vietnam. They involve people of all different social, economic, and ethnic backgrounds, from a humble innkeeper in Germany to the Minister of Defense of Somalia, to a brief encounter with JFK in happier days as well as to participating in his funeral as a member of the security detail for the King of Belgium. The book concludes with a section containing a number of anecdotes reflecting the fact that the world is a very small place indeed in terms of the author's experience in crossing paths with previously unknown relatives, or friends of friends, both in the US as well as abroad.

About the Author

Raphael Riccio was born in Connecticut in 1939, and grew up in a traditional Italian family environment. He attended Georgetown University, spent 20 years in the Army as an intelligence officer and another 16 years as a Department of Defense intelligence analyst, and held a variety of other jobs between periods of government service. He speaks Italian with native fluency, and speaks French, German, and Spanish as well. He has traveled extensively, having visited some 15 countries in Western and Central Europe, as well as several countries in the Far East. He has published numerous magazine articles, both in English and Italian, dealing with military subjects, and has also published a book on Italian armored vehicles of World War Two. Riccio has been conferred a knighthood by the Italian Government. He enjoys travel and reading (especially history, sociology, and contemporary politics). He lives in Elverson, Pennsylvania, with his wife Charlene.