Martin Faxon Russ was an American military author, Marine, and associate professor at Carnegie-Mellon University.
Russ was born in Newark on Feb. 14, 1931, to Carroll and Lavinia Faxon Dunn. His parents were professional writers.
After graduating from a private school in Connecticut, Russ attended St. Lawrence University in Canton, N.Y., but dropped out in his junior year to join the Marines. Assigned to an ordnance battalion, Private Russ made a nuisance of himself until his request for combat duty was granted.
Despite the fear and devastation he had faced in Korea and later wrote about, Mr. Russ remained “a gung-ho Marine’’ throughout his life, his sister said. Of his time on the front line, he wrote in his first book: “I’d rather be here than anywhere else in the world. Whether I’m ready for the loony bin or not is beside the point.’’
In later years, although he had no college degree, he taught writing at what is now Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh.