[2][3] He was named after his mother, Leona;[2] his father, Fred,[3] worked as a travelling salesman who sold a machine that sealed parcels.
Hale's family moved frequently during his childhood because of his father's employment, relocating to Fort Worth when he was seven years old before leaving for Eastland during the Great Depression.
[2] An avid reader of the Horatio Hornblower novels, Hale attempted to join the US Navy and later the Marine Corps during World War II.
[2] He eventually enlisted into the US Army Air Corps;[2][3] his 1941 training stint in Nebraska marked the first time he left his home state.
Hale played down his military career, claiming that he never "fir[ed] a shot at an enemy plane or g[ot] as much as a skinned finger".
[2] Upon his return from military service in 1945,[2] Hale went back to Texas Tech and obtained a bachelor's degree in journalism the following year.
He proceeded to author a memoir in the form of a story titled Paper Hero (1986), in which he discussed how his personal life influenced his work.
[2] Hale was a member of the Texas Institute of Letters, a literary group in Austin, which recognized the writer with the Lon Tinkle Award for Excellence Sustained Throughout a Career.