Philip Morgan Pruett was born in 1948 at Scott Air Force Base, Illinois to Paul Russell Pruett, Jr. and Frances Lydia Henry Pruett. His maternal grandfather was of Irish decent and raced greyhounds. He pioneered the sport and an uncle, Darby Henry, was inducted into the Greyhound Hall of Fame in Abilene, Kansas. His maternal grandmother was sent on the Orphan Train from New York and was picked by a family in Centralia, Missouri when she was about 12 years old. Philip's father joined the army, went to flight school but, because of a vision problem, could not finish. Philip was drafted in 1968 and went to Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri for basic training and then to Special Forces and into medical training at Fort Sam Houston, Texas. He attended jump school at Fort Benning, Georgia and Special Forces training at Fort Bragg. He was deployed to Vietnam in November of 1969 and assigned to Alpha Company, 4^th Battalion, 31^st Infantry as a medic. When he was discharged, he attended Central Missouri University. After college and some graduate school, he moved to Tallahassee and worked at Tallahassee Memorial Hospital. He met his future wife Rebecca while he was at Florida State and they married in 1980. In 2005-2006, Becky and Philip moved back to Tallahassee.