Journalist and author James Brady was born in Brooklyn, New York on November 15, 1928. He graduated from Manhattan College in 1950. During the Korean War, he served in the Marine Corps and was awarded the Bronze Star with Combat V for a firefight against the Chinese army on May 31, 1952 in November 2001. He held numerous jobs in journalism including the publisher of Women's Wear Daily from 1964 to 1971 and writer of the celebrity profile column In Step With for Parade magazine for almost 25 years. He also wrote numerous fiction and nonfiction works including The Coldest War (1990), Further Lane (1997), The Marines of Autumn (2000), The Scariest Place in the World: A Marine Returns to North… Korea (2005), and Why Marines Fight (2007). He died on January 26, 2009 at the age of 80.