Phillip Thompson

Phillip Thompson

In his startling first novel, Enemy Within, Phillip Thompson wove together two central themes from his own background—his rearing in Mississippi and his service as a U.S. Marine. The book examines the frightening possibility of armed troops being dispatched to Mississippi to destroy an armed militia, a possibility some feel could happen sooner rather than later.

A native of Columbus, Mississippi, Thompson was born on March 26, 1962, the same day as fellow Columbus native and Mississippi playwright Tennessee Williams. He spent his first three years living in the tiny West Lowndes railroad hamlet of Artesia before moving to Meridian. In 1970 he returned to Columbus, where he lived until he attended Ole Miss to pursue both a journalism degree and a commission in the Marine Corps.

He joined the Marine Corps in 1984 as an artillery officer and spent the next twelve years in various duty stations in California and Hawaii. He served in combat with the 1st Marine Division during Operation Desert Storm. While on active duty, he began to put together the ideas that eventually became his first novel, and he penned several historical pieces for Civil War magazine.

After leaving the Marine Corps in 1996 to pursue a journalism career, he worked as a reporter at his hometown newspaper, the Commercial Dispatch, and as an editor at the Tupelo-based Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal. In late 1997, he moved to Virginia to work as a reporter and editor with Marine Corps Times, an independent newspaper that covers the Marine Corps and the Navy. He has since completed a second book, a non-fictional account of his service during Operation Desert Storm, and is at work on his second novel.

(Article first posted June 1999)

Information about Enemy Within is available from the Salvo Press web site.