Keith W. Nolan

Keith William Nolan (May 7, 1964 – February 19, 2009) was an American military historian, focusing on the various campaigns of the Vietnam War. He was born in Webster Groves, Missouri, and lived in southeastern Missouri as well as in the St. Louis suburbs. Nolan’s father, William Francis Nolan, was the son of an Irish immigrant father and a German mother and taught history at St. Louis Community College after serving his country as a Marine. His mother, a Swedish immigrant from Falköping, worked as a dental hygienist. As a child, Nolan was deeply affected by reports of war that he would see on the nightly news; as he grew into a young man, he would later say that these images are what sparked his interest in writing about the Vietnam conflict. His first book was published when Nolan was 19 years of age, his first magazine article was published for Vietnam Magazine when he was 14. Nolan graduated from Webster University in Webster Groves, Missouri in 1989 with Bachelor's degree in History. Nolan was in good health and working on his twelfth manuscript (published posthumously) in 2007 when a routine office visit to his general practitioner revealed a large, late-stage tumor in his lung. Despite intensive treatments, Keith William Nolan died of lung cancer in February 2009 in Wentzville, Missouri at the age of 44. He left behind a young daughter and many loved ones, as well as a tight-knit community of Vietnam War-era veterans whose stories he wrote about in his books.