David Colclasure

Raised in Panama, David Colclasure attended all the schools in the former American Canal Zone. The jungle was his back yard which he explored enthusiastically most days of the week. He grew familiar with the plant and fauna, creatures and features of the upper and lower canopies through his association with friends, natives of Panama, the scouting program, and through employment working for the Tropical Test Center where he worked as a research statistician documenting sights and sounds in the jungle for the Viet Nam war. He patrolled the area as a Canal Zone Policeman, learning Spanish and the local 'bajin' slang. He learned how to survive in the jungle from instructors in Jungle Warfare, from local explorers (see The Jungle Whispers, by Kenneth Vinton, who was a personal friend of his family), and Neville Hart, who traversed the jungles in search of hieroglyphs carved in stones in the dangerous Darien jungles of Panama. He was a personal friend of Marjorie Vandevelde, an author who wrote about the Indians of Panama and collaborated with Marvel Iglesias, a missionary to the Kuna Indians in the San Blas Islands of Panama.