IN: Patrick O'Brian, CBE (12 December 1914 - 2 January 2000), born Richard Patrick Russ, was an English novelist and translator, best known for his Aubrey-Maturin series of sea novels set in the Royal Navy during the Napoleonic Wars, and centred on the friendship of the English naval captain Jack Aubrey and the Irish-Catalan physician Stephen Maturin. The 20-novel series, the first of which is Master and Commander, is known for its well-researched and highly detailed portrayal of early 19th-century life, as well as its authentic and evocative language. A partially finished 21st novel in the series was published posthumously containing facing pages of handwriting and typescript. O'Brian wrote a number of other novels and short stories, most of which were published before he achieved success with the Aubrey-Maturin series.

O'Brian was born Richard Patrick Russ, in Chalfont St. Peter, Buckinghamshire, to Charles Russ, an English physician of German descent, and Jessie Russ (nee Goddard), an English woman of Irish descent. The eighth of nine children, O'Brian lost his mother at the age of four, and his biographers describe a fairly isolated childhood, limited by poverty, with sporadic schooling and long intervals at home with his father and stepmother Zoe Center in Lewes, East Sussex. His literary career began in his childhood with the publishing of his earliest works, including several short stories, the book "Hussein, An Entertainment", and the short story collection Beasts Royal; the latter two brought him considerable critical praise especially considering his youth. He published his first novel at age 15, Caesar: The Life Story of a Panda Leopard, with help from his father.  In 1934, he underwent a brief period of pilot training with the Royal Air Force, but this was not successful, and he left the RAF. Prior to that, his application to the Royal Navy had been rejected on health grounds. In 1935, he was living in London, where he married his first wife, Elizabeth Jones, in 1936. They had two children. The second was a daughter who suffered from spina bifida; she died in 1942, aged three, in a country village in Sussex. When the child died, O'Brian had already returned to London, where he worked throughout the war.  The details of his work during the Second World War are murky. He worked as an ambulance driver, and he stated that he worked in intelligence. Dean King has claimed that O'Brian was actively involved in intelligence work and perhaps special operations overseas during the war. Indeed, despite his usual extreme reticence about his past, O'Brian wrote in an essay, "Black, Choleric and Married?", included in the book Patrick O'Brian: Critical Appreciations and a Bibliography (1994) that: "Some time after the blitz had died away I joined one of those intelligence organisations that flourished during the War, perpetually changing their initials and competing with one another. Our work had to do with France, and more than that I shall not say, since disclosing methods and stratagems that have deceived the enemy once and that may deceive him again seems to me foolish. After the war we retired to Wales (I say we because my wife and I had driven ambulances and served in intelligence together) where we lived for a while in a high Welsh-speaking valley..." which confirms in first person the intelligence connection, as well as introducing his wife Mary Wicksteed Tolstoy as a co-worker and fellow intelligence operative. Nikolai Tolstoy, stepson through O'Brian's marriage to Mary Tolstoy, disputes this account, confirming only that O'Brian worked as a volunteer ambulance driver during the Blitz. Doing this work, he met Mary, the separated wife of Russian-born nobleman and lawyer Count Dimitri Tolstoy. They lived together through the latter part of the war and, after both were divorced from their previous spouses, they married in July 1945. The following month he changed his name by deed poll to Patrick O'Brian.

Did he serve in military?

OUT: he underwent a brief period of pilot training with the Royal Air Force, but this was not successful,


IN: Gregory LeNoir Allman was born at Saint Thomas Hospital on December 8, 1947 in Nashville, Tennessee, to Willis Turner Allman (1918-1949) and Geraldine Robbins Allman (1917-2015). The couple had met during World War II in Raleigh, North Carolina, when Allman was on leave from the U.S. Army, and were later married. Their first child, Duane Allman, was born in Nashville in 1946. On December 26, 1949, Willis offered a hitchhiker a ride home and was subsequently shot and killed in Norfolk, Virginia.

Allman moved to Richmond Hill, Georgia, in 2000, purchasing five acres on the Belfast River. The last incarnation of the Allman Brothers Band was well-regarded among fans and the general public, and remained stable and productive. The band released their final studio album, Hittin' the Note (2003), to critical acclaim. Allman co-wrote many songs on the record with Haynes, and he regarded it as his favorite album by the group since their earliest days. The band continued to tour throughout the 2000s, remaining a top touring act, regularly attracting more than 20,000 fans. The decade closed with a successful fortieth anniversary celebration at the Beacon Theater, where the band would hold residencies most years during their reunion. In 2014, the Allman Brothers Band performed their final concerts, as Haynes and Derek Trucks desired to depart the group.  Allman struggled with health problems during the last years of his life. He was diagnosed with hepatitis C in 2007, which he attributed to a dirty tattoo needle. By the next year, they had discovered three tumors within his liver. He went on a waiting list and after five months, he underwent a successful liver transplant in 2010.  In 2011, Allman went public about his battle with hepatitis C. He headlined Merck and the American Liver Foundation's "Tune In to Hep C Campaign" to raise awareness and urge baby boomers to get tested and treated. As part of Tune In to Hep C, The Allman Brothers Band headlined a hepatitis C fundraiser and awareness concert at the Beacon Theater in New York. The concert raised $250,000 to benefit the National Viral Hepatitis Roundtable and the American Liver Foundation for education and awareness efforts. The National Viral Hepatitis Roundtable in October 2017 created the Gregg Allman Hepatitis C Leadership Award - an annual award to posthumously honor Allman and others who work on behalf of people living with hepatitis C. Michael Lehman, Allman's longtime manager, accepted the award on his behalf.  Allman's seventh album, Low Country Blues, was produced by T-Bone Burnett. Upon its release in January 2011, it represented Allman's highest-ever chart peak in the U.S., debuting at number five. He promoted the album heavily in Europe, until he had to cancel the rest of the trip due to an upper respiratory infection. This led to lung surgery later in 2011, and rehab in 2012 for addiction following his treatments. That year, Allman released his memoir, My Cross to Bear, which was thirty years in the making. In 2014, a tribute concert was held celebrating his career; it was later released as All My Friends: Celebrating the Songs & Voice of Gregg Allman.

Why did they stop

OUT:
In 2014, the Allman Brothers Band performed their final concerts, as Haynes and Derek Trucks desired to depart the group.