Major Charles D. Melson, USMC (Retired) is originally from the San Fransciso Bay area. He is married to Janet Ann Pope, a former Navy Nurse.

Major Melson completed graduate education at St. John’s College in Annapolis. He is a coauthor of The War that Would Not End, a volume in the official history of Marine Corps operations in Vietnam, and is the author of Vietnam Marines. He served as a historian in the Marine Corps Historical Center, Washington Navy Yard, for six years and continues to deal with the past as the director of The Queen Anne’s Museum of Eastern Shore Life in Maryland. Major Melson was a Marine for 25 years, 1967 to 1992, and served in Vietnam in a variety of Fleet Marine Force positions. He was a history instructor at the United States Naval Academy, and served also at Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps.