Eddie Abney
The man behind the memoir.
A Marine, a Storyteller
Eddie L. Abner, known to readers of Memories of a Marine Infantry as Eddie Abney, was born in 1950 in rural Southeast Missouri, the son of a sharecropper. At seventeen he enlisted in the Marine Corps, serving as an infantry grunt with Bravo Company, 1st Battalion, 3rd Marine Division in Vietnam.
After his discharge, he earned his degree from Southeast Missouri State University in 1975 and went on to graduate from Whittier College School of Law in 1981. Admitted to the California State Bar in December 1982, he has practiced law for over forty years — primarily bankruptcy and family law — running the Law Office of Eddie L. Abner in San Dimas, California, where he's represented clients including CHP officers and LA County Sheriff's and Police personnel. Eddie married his wife in 1980, and together they raised two sons. In 2012, complications tied to Agent Orange exposure in Vietnam led to the amputation of his left leg — a chapter he writes about with the same directness as the rest of his story. He lives in California and still wears his Vietnam Veteran cap with pride.