Louis Edward Rosas III is the son of Mexican Immigrants whose father Luis served in the US Army in Vietnam. In his youth during the Post Vietnam Era, he grew up on glamorized war films and military aviation in the seaside plains of Oxnard California. It was there he watched waves of vintage warplanes fly overhead as they filmed various WWII dramas out of the Oxnard Airport which became the basis for his first book Ichiro Dreams In Color. With an early fascination of WWII during the post Vietnam era, it was his exposure to Akira Kurosawa's Samurai epic Ran (Toho, 1985) that changed his views on war while creating a lasting impression of Japanese culture and history. This led to extensive years of study in Japanese Culture, History, Language, Literature, Martial Arts, and Swordsmanship embodying the ideals of Bushido in the modern world that helped shape the creative force which he writes under as American Mishima.