Jiri Cernik was born in Jicin, Czechoslovakia and immigrated to the United States in 1967 where he earned an MA in German language and literature at George Washington University. He has worked at the Foreign Service Institute, Educational Bureau of the U.S. Department of State as the Language Training Supervisor of Czech, Slovak, Serbian, Bosnian, Croatian, Bulgarian, Hungarian and Greek sections. In addition to his work in the field of linguistics and language pedagogy he has pursued his interest in American history, particularly the settlement of the American West. He has traveled extensively throughout all states west of the Mississippi and is the author of several novels, stories and non-fiction works dealing with this area and people who settled it. Two, published in the Czech Republic, are "The Wild West" and "With a Tomahawk Against the Muskets," a two-volume detailed history of the Indian Wars covering the time period 1621-1890. He is retired and lives with his wife in Needmore, Pennsylvania where for many years they have raised and showed Morgan horses.