Following on from my very well-received list of Top Five War Movies (if you did, in fact, read that, please let me know), I decided to list the five best war novels I have read. To be fair, I find I don’t read a lot of fiction anymore, so these are all from my past, but I still regularly revisit them, and they never disappoint.   Once an Eagle by Anton Myrer. Fiction works best when it communicates a larger truth. Myrer’s epic tome demonstrates the conflict between duty and ambition,...

With Christmas approaching, my thoughts naturally turn to war movies. Back when people used to buy DVDs, my friends and family who abhorred violence would occasionally ask me to recommend one so that they could give it as a present. I would offer one of the following with the accompanying justification, which usually resulted in them never asking my advice again. So, here is my two cents’ worth on the best war movies of all time: 1. Platoon: This Vietnam flick doesn’t make it onto many...

After a long and exhaustive search where my book was rejected by 30 agents and publishing houses, I have decided to publish it with Luminare Press, a hybrid press. After making the decision to go with a hybrid press, I talked to 20 houses based in the US and the UK and Luminare stood out for their competence and professionalism. We have started the jacket and interior design processes, and have begun copy editing simultaneously. We're planning on a publication date in December of this year. I...

Before I actually studied writing, I didn't have an appreciation for poetry and I certainly would never have considered myself a writer, but because of the tutelage and patience of professors such as Ed Perlman, I slowly started to put some lines together. Poetry, though not for everyone, is for me the hardest thing to write and requires an understanding of words and how to employ them that you don't really need when writing prose. One of my favorite paintings is "The Bunker" by Victor Juhasz....

Ed Rosenberg was one of my professors when I was studying writing at Johns Hopkins University. So, I was very happy and flattered when he asked me to write a piece for the launch issue of his new website, Defense Opinion. I chose to write about inter-service rivalry and how it affects the defense of our country. I saw this firsthand when I was in the Army (especially at The Pentagon), where service leaders make choices based on the security of their respective branches, rather than defending...

I’m very fortunate that Book of Matches Literary Journal has chosen to publish one of my poems, “The Bunker.” This is based on a painting by Victor Juhasz, which I feel captures the boredom and inner reflection of military service better than anything else I have seen. I have posted the poem under Excerpts, and you can also find it here: https://www.bookofmatcheslitmag.com/post/issue-6-of-book-of-matches-is-live

I decided to write this book because I felt the actions of the regular soldier in Iraq had not been recorded in the media. There have been a lot of excellent books written by and about special operations soldiers since 9/11 (I’ve read most of them), but they don’t represent the experience of the majority of servicemen and -women who served in Iraq and Afghanistan. SOF soldiers are selfless professionals who continuously put themselves in harm’s way, but they were a minority of the troops who...