The authors would like to recognize and thank Dana’s lifelong friend and classmate, Paul Divis, for believing in this book project from the very beginning. In the spring of 2015, Paul helped introduce us to our future literary agent—Jan Miller from Dupree-Miller.
We would like to thank Jan Miller, Yvonne Ortega, and their associates for their patience and believing in our book. Jan constantly challenged us to tell our story vividly, and we will always appreciate her devotion to our project. We also extend a gracious thanks to writer Wes Smith for painstakingly helping us craft a book proposal and mentoring us to write with more description, feeling, and clarity.
We extend thanks to Brigadier General Omar Jones and Ms. Lisa Thomas at the U.S. Army Office of the Chief of Public Affairs at the Pentagon, and Mr. Don Kluzik at the Defense Office of Prepublication and Security Review, for helping with the Department of Defense screening of our manuscript for classified content.
We are grateful to so many family and friends for reading our early manuscripts and giving timely and critical advice to make the project better. We’d like to specifically thank colleagues and friends who helped through their consult and support: Army GEN (Ret.) David Petraeus, Army LTG (Ret.) James Terry, Army COL (Ret.) Tim Kehoe, Marine COL Eduardo Abisellan, Marine COL John Barnett, Army COL Clydea Prichard-Brown, Army LTC Brian Ducote, Navy LCDR Aaron Vernallis, Air Force MSgt (Ret.) Marshall Bonham, Mr. Dave Broyles (writer/producer), Mr. James Dolan (CEO), and Chris Pittard.
Finally, we would like to thank our publisher, Anthony Ziccardi, our managing editor, Maddie Sturgeon, and the team at Post Hill Press. Thank you for believing in us, working so hard to get things right, and publishing our story.