Former local author publishes fictional novel about Vietnam Air Force pilot

A pilot himself, Mark Ozeroff was inspired by a book he read as a kid.

By Jarleene Almenas
| 2:00 p.m. February 23, 2018

Mark Ozeroff has held a commercial pilot license for four decades. Photo courtesy of Mark Ozeroff

Ormond Beach Observer
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Hart Stilwell's "Old Soggy No. 1: The Uninhibited Story of Slats Rogers" stuck with author Mark Ozeroff long after he put it down.

It tells the autobiographical story of pioneer aviator in Texas that smuggled liquor into the state from Mexico during Prohibition. That book, coupled with Ozeroff's 40 years in aviation, inspired him to write his second novel "In the Weeds."

“He just wrote so excitingly about this job that he did, that that’s what I wanted to do when I was kid," Ozeroff said. "I wanted to smuggle liquor into the United States. I was a few decades too late, but it planted a seed in my mind that took 40 years to sprout into this novel.”

"In the Weeds" is a fictional humorous novel about a Vietnam Air Force pilot who returns from war suffering from undiagnosed PTSD. He later meets a family of Cuban pot farmers and together, they begin to smuggle marijuana into Florida from the Bahamas.

He said PTSD is almost an unseen character in his book, and hopes his novel will get people to take a look into alternative treatments.