Physically, McGee is a tall, tanned, sandy-haired man with pale grey eyes. Several books hint (or explicitly state) that he is a U.S. Army veteran of the Korean War. However, later books are less precise about exactly when he served. In "The Green Ripper", one of the later novels, there are implications that his military service was during the Vietnam War rather than the Korean. In "The Lonely Silver Rain" he visits a bank safe-deposit box in which he keeps a few precious keepsakes including photos of his father, mother, and brother, "all long dead", and he mentions that the box also contains his Silver Star, Purple Heart, and honorable discharge certificate, all awarded by the U.S. Army to "Sergeant McGee". He also has a daughter named Jean, unknown to him until she reveals herself in "The Lonely Silver Rain" as the result of a long-ago love affair. He was a stand-out college football player (a tight end) but says in "A Deadly Shade of Gold" that he never played professional football due to a knee injury. However, in "The Turquoise Lament" he admits to a sports-trivia fan that he played professional football for a couple of seasons before his knees were wrecked in a tackle by an opponent from the Detroit Lions.