Rufus McGaugh was born on January 30, 1949, in Detroit, but his family moved to the suburbs when he was five. After two years at Macomb County Community College, he gave up his college deferment and enlisted in the Marines, where he served for two years-one year in California and one year in Vietnam (1970-71)-with the 5th Marines as a grunt (infantry) machine gunner. Four months into his tour of duty, he was wounded in combat and received the Purple Heart. After hospitalization, he returned to his unit and served six more months before returning home as part of a "troop withdrawal." He became a registered student at Wayne State University within 24 hours of his return home. After earning a bachelors' degree in education, he worked a series of blue-collar jobs until he was hired as a teacher in the Grosse Pointe Public School System in Michigan in 1974. Later he went on to earn a Master's degree from Wayne State. He taught full time for 36 years, retiring in 2011, but continues to work part time and to volunteer in the school system-and other school systems-since then. His interests and hobbies include travel (surprise!), backpacking, mountain trekking and climbing, canoeing, hiking, camping, reading, photography, and his very favorite-teaching. The most important thing in his life is his family: wife Monica and sons Eric and J.T. (Jason). The two things he enjoy the most on Earth are nature and its solitude and kids (both his own and all the others that he teaches and has taught).