Michael Lee White - Biography Before Controversy

Biography Before Controversy

White was born in 1967, the second son of Philip L. White, later a Professor Emeritus of History at the University of Texas at Austin. White served in the United States Army from 1992 to 1997 as a Petroleum Supply Specialist in Fort Campbell, Kentucky, Germany, and Bosnia. He fueled helicopters, drove fuel trucks, and, according to a resume posted on the internet (which he says he wrote ), he graduated from Air Assault training school in 1993. Although part of the curriculum of this school has included training in the application of infiltration and extraction techniques (such as Special Patrol Insertion Extraction), it is very common for soldiers with non-elite specialties to attend the 10-day course. This is especially true for soldiers stationed at Fort Campbell (the location of the school) and assigned to the 101st Infantry Division (Air Assault), as this entire division is supposed to be able to perform the helicopter air assault operations taught by the school. After two years at Fort Campbell, White was transferred to the 1st Armored Division in Germany in 1994, where he continued to work as a fueler. The division was deployed to Operation Joint Endeavor in January, 1996 as part of the multinational effort responsible for carrying out the Dayton Peace Accords.

After his single term of enlistment, White earned a degree in Public Management at Austin Peay State University in Tennessee. He got his first teaching assignment in the Haidian District of Beijing in 1998. It was the first of many education-related travels around the world, including teaching stints in Kazakhstan, Vietnam, and Japan, in addition to graduate work in Development Studies at the University of Melbourne in Australia, and at the University of Essex in Colchester, and Communication, Psychology, and Business at Angelo State University in Texas. Mr. White also claims to have visited more than 85 countries, and all major regions of the world, while attending graduate classes or working on four different continents over the past 15 years. The Wall Street Journal reported that he married and later separated from a Kazakh citizen.