Gaetano (Guy) V. Cavallaro was born of immigrant parents from Sicily and raised in the Italian section of Poughkeepsie, New York. English is his second language. Attending parochial school he was thought to be mentally retarded because he could not understand or communicate with the Irish nuns. As a young lad, he listened in awe to the animated, wartime stories that his father and his paisans related at the kitchen table while drinking their homemade wine. In each session, they would debate the decisions of the different generals, Cadorna, Badoglio, Capello and others who fought in the Isonzo River Valley. This first-hand introduction to the events surrounding World War I would become a life-long topic of interest and curiosity. One day, one of the elder raconteurs asked Gaetano what grade he was in, to which he responded, “Third Grade.” They looked at each other in amazement, now questioning him on medicine, law and religion, to which he could not respond. Later, he asked his father why the men were asking him these questions. His father would say they were illiterate, but Gaetano did not know what that meant. In their minds a third-grader must surely be “well educated.” 

The author graduated from Fordham University College of Pharmacy with a B.S. in Pharmacy. Later, he graduated from the University of Bologna (Italy) School of Medicine and Surgery. While at Fordham, he studied German in the evenings at Columbia University in order to read Austro-Hungarian and German Army reports. In Bologna, he visited the many battlefields along the Isonzo River, and witnessed the rough terrain which contributed to the high casualties on both sides. Remembering all those kitchen-table discussions some twenty years earlier, these sights left an indelible impression, along with a newfound reverence for the plight of the illiterate soldier. 

He returned to the U.S. for post-graduate work at the Albany Medical Center, Albany, New York, and the Lahey Clinic in Boston, Massachusetts. He settled in Poughkeepsie, New York where he set up a practice of gastroenterology and internal medicine but always accumulated Italian and Austrian military magazines. Upon retirement after 40 years of pharmaceutical and medical practice, he started to write a magazine article in English about warfare on the Austro-Italian Front in the Great War. Researching English-language literature, he was disheartened to find that so little had been written about warfare on the Austro-Italian Front in the Great War. The Encyclopedia Britannica had a single column of twenty-two lines devoted to the Battle of Caporetto which was the first example of blitzkrieg in the twentieth century. While researching the archives in Vienna, London, Rome and Paris, he met other, like-minded people who were interested in the Great War and was asked to lecture on the Battle of Caporetto. His presentation was so well-received that it served as the initiative for a new international career as a lecturer on that war. 

The author found that the Official British Army Report (Italy) lamented the fact that little had been written in English concerning warfare in the Austro-Italian Front. Challenged by this fact, he saw an opportunity to write the definitive work on warfare in this region. In conducting the research, it became evident that as the war progressed, air power was playing an increasingly more important role. Its historical significance resulted in an entire chapter dedicated to the subject of aviation and its impact on the war as the decisive factor in a number of significant battles.

After almost half a century devoted to composing three volumes on the Great War, the author now lectures in major museums and universities in the United States, in addition to significant venues abroad, and is widely recognized as an expert on war and an authority on warfare on the Austro-Italian Front during the First World War. Some of his recent lectures have included presentations at West Point; Boston University; Bard College; Livingston County War Museum, Kansas City, Missouri; University of Delaware; The Great War Society, Stanford, California; and The Union Jack Club, a private British military officers' club located in London, England. During 2011 he presented a series of 8 lectures on the First World War at Poughkeepsie, New York's Marist College Continuing Learning Institute where he drew an overwhelming crowd of interested attendants. In 2011, he was also honored with a prize and an invitation to lecture in Italy by Fogolar Furlan, a worldwide group which represents the Friuli Region of Italy where all the WWI combat took place. The final months of 2011 included a lecture in Sydney, Australia's Italian Cultural Institute where he delivered his presentation in Italian, and at the Victoria Army Barracks where he presented in English, followed by lectures in Brisbane and Melbourne.

He is currently developing a seminar on the Battle of Caporetto with English-speaking European speakers in Kobarid (Caporetto), Slovenia, as well as working on an international television documentary about the Battles of the Isonzo, with more than five hours of original combat film provided by the British, the Austrian and the Italian Army.

To keep current on world events, in addition to major U.S. media, Dr. Cavallaro reads international newspapers online including 3 from Italy (Corriere della Sera – Milano; La Stampa – Torino; La Sicilia – Catania – Palermo), and 2 from Germany (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitunt; Die Welt).

The author is chairman of the New York/New England chapter of the World War One Historical Association which is dedicated to the study of the First World War. He is also a member of the Society for Military History, an organization devoted since 1933 to stimulating and advancing the study of military history, with membership (today more than 2300) including many of the nation's most prominent scholars, soldiers, and citizens interested in military history. In addition, he belongs to The Great War Society, whose mission since its founding in 1986 has been to study all aspects of World War I and to promote a greater understanding of this catastrophic conflict and its profound and lasting effects on subsequent generations. Recently, he has also been elected president of NIDO (Noi Italiani D'Oggi), an Italian/American organization based in New York's Hudson Valley region, dedicated to promoting the Italian language and culture.