Ed was born to a lower middle class family in Baltimore, Maryland in 1944. He was one of the few children born during World War II just because his father had been declared "4f" and was not physically acceptable to the military. Always interested in aviation, he was educated as an engineer and worked at Pratt & Whitney Aircraft Corporation upon graduation from the Johns Hopkins University in 1966; but the war in Vietnam was on-going, and he felt a strong desire to be in it with the Navy as a bombardier/navigator in the their newest all- weather attack aircraft, the Grumman A-6 Intruder. Through an extraordinary set of circumstances, this all came to pass; and he eventually found himself in the first aircraft to bomb Haiphong, North Vietnam, after the 1967-declared bombing halt. He and his pilot received a warm welcome.