This Veterans Day we’re celebrating our veteran authors who have risked their lives for our country from WWII to present day. From leadership lessons to stories of bravery, loss, and redemption, each of these authors shares their unique learned experiences from their time in the military and beyond.
by Jocko Willink and Leif Babin
Combat, the most intense and dynamic environment imaginable, teaches the toughest leadership lessons, with absolutely everything at stake. Jocko Willink and Leif Babin learned this reality first-hand on the most violent and dangerous battlefield in Iraq. In gripping, firsthand accounts of heroism, tragic loss, and hard-won victories, they learned that leadership—at every level—is the most important factor in whether a team succeeds or fails. Since it’s release in October 2015, Extreme Ownership has revolutionized leadership development and set a new standard for literature on the subject. Detailing the resilient mindset and total focus principles that enable SEAL units to accomplish the most difficult combat missions, Extreme Ownership demonstrates how to apply them to any team or organization, in any leadership environment. A compelling narrative with powerful instruction and direct application, Extreme Ownership challenges leaders everywhere to fulfill their ultimate purpose: lead and win.
by Dave Berke
The Need to Lead invokes the classic Top Gun movie quote. It is also an undeniable truth that author Dave Berke experienced as a Marine Corps officer, fighter pilot, TOPGUN instructor, ground combat leader, husband, and father. This book, based on his experiences in combat and TOPGUN training as well as his teachings at Echelon Front, helps readers be better leaders and understand that leadership is a universal requirement for success, no matter the environment. By adopting the right leadership mindsets and behaviors, we gain the capacity to solve problems, support the people around us, and amend our mistakes. How do we develop these necessary skills? By embracing the principles imparted to Berke from each humbling moment in the cockpit. Through compelling stories from TOPGUN training and combat to the boardroom and at home, Berke gives readers the necessary tools to succeed.
by Tee Marie Hanible
In The Warrior Code, entrepreneur, philanthropist, reality star and retired Gunnery Sergeant Tee Marie Hanible serves up eleven principles to awaken your inner badass and thrive in the face of adversity. After surviving the death of her father, enduring foster care and being expelled from school, Tee joined military reform school, where she began uncovering her inner warrior. As part of one of the first female classes of recruits to complete the Marine Corps Crucible and the Marine Combat Training, and as the only woman to deploy with her unit to Iraq in 2003, Tee tested her mettle and learned the key to becoming an unbreakable woman. With insightful honesty and wisdom, and set against the backdrop of Tee’s life, The Warrior Code will help you understand that things can beat us back from realizing our true potential…but the key is finding the way to realize one’s own innate strength.
by Hasard Lee
Based on a career of making high-stakes, split-second decisions as a U.S. fighter pilot, The Art of Clear Thinking teaches readers to apply Hasard Lee’s combat-tested techniques in everyday life. Lee distills what he’s learned during his career flying some of the Air Force’s most advanced aircraft. With gripping firsthand accounts from his time as a fighter pilot and fascinating turning points throughout history, Hasard reveals powerful decision-making principles that can be used in business and in life.
by Beau Wise and Tom Sileo
From Beau Wise and Tom Sileo comesThree Wise Men, an incredible memoir of family, service and sacrifice by a Marine who lost both his brothers in combat—becoming the only “Sole Survivor” during the war in Afghanistan. Shortly after the 9/11 attacks, three brothers by blood became brothers in arms when each volunteered to defend their country. No military family has sacrificed more during the ensuing war, which has become the longest ever fought by America’s armed forces. While serving in Afghanistan, US Navy SEAL veteran and CIA contractor Jeremy Wise was killed in an al Qaeda suicide bombing that devastated the US intelligence community. Less than three years later, US Army Green Beret sniper Ben Wise was fatally wounded after volunteering for a dangerous assignment during a firefight with the Taliban. United States Marine Corps combat veteran Beau Wise is the only known American service member to be pulled from the battlefield after losing two brothers in Afghanistan. Told in Beau’s voice, Three Wise Men is an American family’s historic true story of service and sacrifice.
by Mark Divine
What does it take to command a team of elite individuals? It requires a commitment to seven key principles: Courage, Trust, Respect, Growth, Excellence, Resiliency, and Alignment. All of these are present in an elite team which commits to them deeply in order to forge the character worthy of uncommon success. In Staring Down The Wolf, retired Navy SEAL Commander, entrepreneur and New York Times bestselling author Mark Divine, reveals what makes the culture of an elite team, and how to get your own team to commit to serve at an elite level. Using principles he learned on the battlefield, training SEALs, and in his own entrepreneurial and growth company ventures, Mark knows what it is to lead elite teams, and how easily the team can fail by breaching these commitments. Drawing from his twenty years leading SEALs, and twenty five years of success and failure in entrepreneurship and ten years coaching corporate clients, Mark Divine shares a very unique perspective that will allow you to unlock the tremendous power of your team.
by Robin Dreeke and Cameron Stauth
Robin Dreeke is a 28-year veteran of federal service and the former head of the Counterintelligence Behavioral Analysis Program, where his primary mission was to thwart the efforts of foreign spies, and to recruit American spies. His core approach in this mission was to inspire reasonable, well-founded trust among people who could provide valuable information. The Code of Trust is based on the system Dreeke devised, tested, and implemented during years of field work at the highest levels of national security. Inspiring trust is not a trick, nor is it an arcane art. It’s an important, character-building endeavor that requires only a sincere desire to be helpful and sensitive, and the ambition to be more successful at work and at home. To be successful with this system, a reader needs only the willingness to spend eight to ten hours learning a method of trust-building that took Robin Dreeke almost a lifetime to create.
by Caroline Johnson with Hof Williams
Caroline Johnson was an unlikely aviation candidate. A tall blonde debutante from Colorado, she could have just as easily gone into fashion or filmmaking, and yet she went on to become an F/A-18 Super Hornet Weapons System Officer. She was one of the first women to fly a combat mission over Iraq since 2011, and one of the first women to drop bombs on ISIS. Jet Girl tells the remarkable story of the women fighting at the forefront in a military system that allows them to reach the highest peaks, and yet is in many respects still a fraternity. Johnson offers an insider’s view on the fascinating, thrilling, dangerous and, at times, glamorous world of being a naval aviator. Not just a memoir, this book also aims to change the conversation and to inspire and attract the next generation of men and women who are tempted to explore a life of adventure and service.
by Will Chesney with Joe Layden
No Ordinary Dog is the powerful true story of a SEAL Team Operator and military dog handler, and the dog that saved his life. Two dozen Navy SEALs descended on Osama bin Laden’s compound in May 2011. After the mission, only one name was made public: Cairo, a Belgian Malinois and military working dog. This is Cairo’s story, and that of his handler, Will Chesney, a SEAL Team Operator whose life would be irrevocably tied to Cairo’s. A grenade blast in 2013 left Will with a brain injury and PTSD. Unable to participate in further missions, he suffered from crippling migraines, chronic pain, memory issues, and depression. Modern medicine provided only modest relief. Instead, it was up to Cairo to save Will’s life once more—and then up to Will to be there when Cairo needed him the most.
by Senior Master Sergeant Israel “DT” Del Toro, Jr. (Ret.) with T.L. Heyer
When Israel “DT” Del Toro, Jr.’s Humvee rolled over a roadside improvised explosive device in Afghanistan, he had one thought as he lost consciousness: I have to keep the promise I made to my dad. DT was orphaned at the age of fourteen, and on the night before his father died, he repeated the promise his dad had required of him: “Take care of your brothers and sisters.” When DT was injured in action, he lay in a coma for three months with third-degree burns on 80 percent of his body. DT pushed through every limit to his full recovery, and he became the first 100 percent disabled veteran to reenlist in the Air Force. DT’s promise to his dad extends now to his fellow wounded warriors throughout the world as he advocates for awareness and affecting change in public policy for wounded, injured, and ill soldiers. He is a patriot who has kept his promise and changed the world with the spirit of his heart, soul, body, and mind.
by Nicholas Irving with Gary Brozek
Groundbreaking, thrilling and revealing, The Reaper is the astonishing memoir of Special Operations Direct Action Sniper Nicholas Irving, the 3rd Ranger Battalion’s deadliest sniper with 33 confirmed kills, though his remarkable career total, including probables, is unknown. Irving shares the true story of his extraordinary military career, including his deployment to Afghanistan in the summer of 2009, when he set another record, this time for enemy kills on a single deployment. His teammates and chain of command labeled him “The Reaper,” and his actions on the battlefield became the stuff of legend, culminating in an extraordinary face-off against an enemy sniper known simply as The Chechnian. Irving’s astonishing first-person account of his development into an expert assassin offers a fascinating and extremely rare view of special operations combat missions through the eyes of a Ranger sniper during the Global War on Terrorism. From the brotherhood and sacrifice of teammates in battle to the cold reality of taking a life to protect another, no other book dives so deep inside the life of an Army sniper on point.
by Frank Murphy
The epic true story of an American hero who flew during WWII, as featured in the Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks TV Series, Masters of the Air. Beginning on August 17, 1942, American heavy bomber crews of the Eighth Air Force took off for combat in the hostile skies over occupied Europe. The final price was staggering. 4,300 B-17s and B-24s failed to return; nearly 21,000 men were taken prisoner or interned in a neutral country, and a further 17,650 made the ultimate sacrifice. Luck of the Draw is more than a war story. It’s the incredible, inspiring story of Frank Murphy, one of the few survivors from the 100th Bombardment Group, who cheated death for months in a German POW camp after being shot out of his B-17 Flying Fortress.
by Adam Gamal with Kelly Kennedy
The Unit is the first and only book to ever be written by a member of America’s most secret military unit―an explosive and unlikely story of service and sacrifice. Inside our military is a team of operators whose work is so secretive that the name of the unit itself is classified. Highly-trained in warfare, self-defense, infiltration, and deep surveillance, “the Unit,” as the Department of Defense has asked us to refer to it, has been responsible for preventing dozens of terrorist attacks in the Western world. Never before has a member of this unit shared their story — until now. From Adam Gamal, one of the only Muslim Arab Americans to serve inside “the Unit,” comes an incisive firsthand account of our nation’s most secretive military group. With humor and humility, Adam shares stories of life-threatening injuries, of the camaraderie and capabilities of his team, and of the incredible missions―but also of the growth he experienced as he learned to understand his own moderate faith. Enthralling and eye-opening, The Unit is at once a gripping account of the fight against terror, an urgent examination of the need for diversity, and an inside look at how America fights its battles abroad in the modern age of terrorism.
by Paris Davis
When Col. Paris Davis was selected to lead one of the Green Beret A-teams organizing resistance to Communist incursions into South Vietnam, his commanding officer warned him that some of his soldiers would resent his authority. This was no surprise; there were only a handful of Black officers in the Special Forces. Davis quickly won the respect of his soldiers, and would soon fight beside him as bullets snapped past and mortars exploded overhead. On June 18th, Davis led a group of inexperienced locals and Special Forces soldiers in an attack on a Viet Cong base in Bong Son. They were met by a superior enemy force, and Davis led the charge in a grueling firefight. He was seriously wounded, but he disobeyed a direct order to retreat until he dragged three injured Green Berets off the battlefield to safety. Every Weapon I Had is an inspiring tale of valor and sacrifice, set against the backdrop of major escalations in both the Vietnam War and the Civil Rights movement. It is also a story of deferred honor and delayed recognition; Davis earned the Silver Star and Purple Heart for his actions, but his nomination for the Congressional Medal of Honor was repeatedly “lost.” No official reason has ever been given for this oversight, but those who fought to correct it believe that it was motivated by racial prejudice. Davis was finally awarded the Medal in 2023, 58 years after the battle.
