Marc Leepson

Marc Leepson (born June 20, 1945 in Newark, New Jersey) is an American journalist, historian, and author.

Marc Leepson
Born (1945-06-20) June 20, 1945
Newark, New Jersey
OccupationJournalist, historian, author.
EducationBA, History
MA, European History
Alma materGeorge Washington University
Notable worksDesperate Engagement
Flag: An American Biography
Saving Monticello
Website
marcleepson.com

Education

Leepson was educated at Hillside High School in Hillside, New Jersey (Class of 1963) and George Washington University where he received his Bachelor of Arts degree in history in 1967 and his Master of Arts degree in European History in 1971.[1]

Military service

Almost immediately after graduating from college, Leepson's draft classification was changed by his local draft board and he was drafted into the United States Army in 1967. Chosen to be trained as a clerk, he served for two years, including a year (December 1967-December 1968) in the Vietnam War with the 527th Personnel Service Company in Qui Nhơn.[2] He received his honorable discharge in 1969.[1]

Career

Leepson was a staff writer at Congressional Quarterly in Washington, D.C. from 1976 to 1986.[3] He has been a full-time freelance writer since 1986. He is Senior Writer, Arts Editor and columnist for The VVA Veteran,[4] the magazine published by Vietnam Veterans of America, since 1986.

His work has appeared in many magazines and newspapers, including The Washington Post, The New York Times, The New York Times Book Review, Chicago Tribune, The Baltimore Sun, and Smithsonian, Preservation, and Military History magazines. He has been interviewed many times on radio and television, including on The Today Show, CBS This Morning Saturday,[5] CNN, MSNBC, Fox News,[6] The History Channel, The Discovery Channel, PBS-TV's History Detectives, All Things Considered, Talk of the Nation, Studio 360, NPR's Here and Now, To The Point, Morning Edition, The Diane Rehm Show, "Imus in the Morning,"[7] the BBC Newshour, Russian Channel 1 TV (RTV), Irish Radio, and CBC (Canada).

He is a contributor to The Encyclopædia Britannica,[8] and has written entries for the Encyclopedia Americana, the Encyclopedia Americana Yearbook, the Oxford Encyclopedia of American Political and Legal History, and the Dictionary of Virginia Biography.

Since the early 1990s, he has been active in many non-profit groups. That includes board memberships on the Middleburg (Virginia) Library Advisory Board (President and Vice President), the Loudoun County (Virginia) Library Board of Trustees, the Library of Virginia Foundation[9] (Treasurer), the Virginia State Library Board, the Friends of Thomas Balch Library, the YMCA of Loudoun County (Virginia), the Goose Creek Association (Secretary), and the Mosby Heritage Area Association (Secretary, Vice President, President).[10] He taught U.S. history at Lord Fairfax Community College in Warrenton, Virginia from 2008 to 2015, and was Scholar in Residence[11] at Mikveh Israel Synagogue in Savannah, Georgia, in May 2017.

A member of The Authors Guild,[12] he was elected to the Board of Directors[13] of the Biographers International Organization (BIO) in 2013. He was named the organization's Treasurer in 2014.

Personal life

Leepson lives in Loudoun County, Virginia. He and his wife, Janna (Murphy) Leepson, have two children, Devin and Cara. He also has a brother, R. Evan Leepson.

Selected bibliography
  • Leepson, Marc. Saving Monticello. New York: Free Press, 2001. ISBN 0-743-20106-X OCLC 46822427
  • Leepson, Marc. Flag: An American Biography. New York: Thomas Dunne Books/St. Martin's Press, 2005. ISBN 0-312-32308-5 OCLC 57366106
  • Leepson, Marc. Desperate Engagement. New York: Thomas Dunne Books/St. Martin's Press, 2007. ISBN 0-312-36364-8 OCLC 122337918
  • Leepson, Marc. Lafayette: Idealist General. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011. ISBN 0-230-10504-1 OCLC 651011968
  • Leepson, Marc. What So Proudly We Hailed: Francis Scott Key, A Life. Palgrave Macmillan, 2014. ISBN 1137278285<
  • Leepson, Marc, editor. Webster's New World Dictionary of the Vietnam War. ISBN 978-0756757359
  • Leepson, Marc. Ballad of the Green Beret: The Life and Wars of Staff Sergeant Barry Sadler from the Vietnam War and Pop Stardom to Murder and an Unsolved, Violent Death. Stackpole Books, 2017. ISBN 0811717496

References
  1. "Marc Leepson". Vietnamwar.net.
  2. Leepson, Marc. "What It Was Like to Be Drafted", The New York Times, July 21, 2017. Accessed December 13, 2018.
  3. "The WETA Book Studio: Marc Leepson". WETA-TV. 2009-08-12. Archived from the original on April 21, 2010.
  4. "The VVA Veteran". vvaveteran.org.
  5. "New book reveals dark history behind the Star Spangled Banner".
  6. New book reveals dark history behind the Star Spangled Banner. YouTube. 13 September 2014.
  7. "Marc Leepson: "Ballad Of The Green Beret" - Imus Clips - Don Imus". www.imus.com. Retrieved 2020-08-19.
  8. "Marc Leepson". Encyclopædia Britannica.
  9. "The Library of Virginia Foundation". virginia.gov.
  10. "Meet the Board".
  11. "Scholar in Residence Shabbat".
  12. "Profile - Marc Leepson - The Authors Guild". go.authorsguild.org. Retrieved 2020-08-19.
  13. "Board of Directors". Biographers International Organization.
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