The author retired in 2011 with nearly 24 years as a Special Agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). He has appeared as a military historian on The History Channel in a documentary of the liberation. For the documentary, he traveled with a film crew, as well as with four of the participants, to the Philippines. During the filming in the Philippines, he visited the sites of the two internment camps, Los Banos and Santo Tomas. Additionally, he had firsthand experience in visiting the locations of the beachhead where the AMTRACs came ashore, the airfield used by the paratroopers who parachuted into the action, as well as the vacated prison where the liberated internees were housed. The author spent numerous years researching the liberation and has personally met many of the participants. He has attended six reunions of the former paratroopers and internees.
Gregory Hall's father served as a paratrooper during WWII in the U.S. Army's 11th Airborne Division, which liberated the Los Banos prison camp. The author is a second generation paratrooper and served with the U.S. Army's 82nd Airborne Division during the mid-1970's. He attained the rank of sergeant while in the Airborne Infantry.
The author is a native of California and was raised in Las Vegas, Nevada. After being discharged from the U.S. Army in 1977, he returned to Las Vegas and attended the University of Nevada at Las Vegas (UNLV). Upon graduation from UNLV, he entered the U.S. Air Force and received an officers commission. As as reservist, he lived in Arkansas and was assigned to an active duty U.S. Air Force, Security Police Squadron. Concurrent with his military reserve duty, he was a deputy sheriff for three years before starting his career with the FBI in 1987.
The novel has been a work of passion for Gregory Hall. The desire to write the novel dates back to when he was stationed at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. His father, like many World War II veterans, rarely talked about the war. The author took advantage of being in an airborne division and began researching his father's airborne unit. It became evident to him that the heroic exploits of U.S. paratroopers in the Pacific Theater of Operations were overshadowed by their brother paratroopers in the European Theater of Operations. Similarly, the successful rescue of over 2,000 prisoners 30 miles behind enemy lines in the Philippines was overshadowed by another historical event that happened on the very same day, February 23, 1945. That event was the historical raising of the American flag by U.S. Marines on Mount Suribachi on the island of Iwo Jima.
The title of his novel has multiple meanings; first, that the successful rescue of the internees by U.S. paratroopers is "Not Forgotten"; second, the hardships experienced by the civilian prisoners are "Not Forgotten"; lastly, American civilians and soldiers in the future who may become prisoners of war should remember that even in the darkest of times they too are "Not Forgotten."
