Born in 1955 in Nashville, Tenn., Donald graduated from Wake Forest University with a BA in philosophy and took a commission as a second lieutenant in the U. S. Army field artillery.

Don was married in 1980 to the former Catherine Stephens of Durham, N. C. They have two boys, the elder a 2005-2006 Marine veteran of Iraq, the younger just begun college. The Sensings’ daughter is in middle school.

Don retired from the Army in 1995, having served on four continents. He was an artillery forward observer in Korea, a battery commander, a brigade fire support coordinator, and howitzer-battalion operations officer in Germany, and operations officer for a Multiple-Launch Rocket System battalion in 18th Airborne Corps Artillery at Fort Bragg, NC. Don was also qualified as a nuclear and chemical targeting analyst and was trained in counterterrorism at the John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center at Fort Bragg, N. C.

In 1986 Don attended the Defense Information School, from which he graduated first in his class, then served as chief of media relations for XVIII Airborne Corps and Fort Bragg, N. C. During the invasion of Panama in December 1989 (Operation Just Cause), he served on the Corps’ Battle Management Cell.

Assigned to the Pentagon in early 1990, Don served as the speech writer and personal public affairs officer to the Secretary of the Army until January 1991, when he was assigned to the U. S. Army Operations Center for the Gulf War.

After the return of forces to America, Don was assigned to be Director of Media Relations for the National Victory Parades in Washington, D. C. and New York City, coordinating directly with White House staff and more than 650 national and international news organizations.

Subsequently, he was a plans officer on the Army Staff until May 1993. His final Army assignment was as chief of public affairs, U. S. Army Criminal Investigation Command. Just before retiring, he served as a member of the Oklahoma City Bombing Investigation Task Force.

Don retired in August 1995 to answer his call to ordained ministry. He began classes at Vanderbilt Divinity School the same month. He was awarded a Master of Divinity in 1999 and has served full time as a United Methodist pastor since 1997. Don was ordained an elder in full membership of the Tennessee Conference of the UMC in June 2002.

Since beginning blogging in March 2002, Don’s work has been cited by The Washington Post, MSNBC, ESPN, OpinionJournal, Dr. Norman Podhoretz, and many other major media outlets. He authored an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal on the subject of same-sex marriage entitled, “Save marriage? It’s too late,” which was subsequently reprinted in several religious journals.

In April 2005, as a result of his online essay, “The pope and communism’s fall,” Don was an interview guest on FoxNews Channel’s show, “The O’Reilly Factor,” on the topic, “Does the Vatican have a Realistic Plan to Confront Evil in Today’s World?.”

Don’s NormBlog profile is here.

Don lives in Clarksville, Tenn., with his family, where he tries to go trapshooting as often as possible.