Dana J.H. Pittard, Major General, U.S. Army (Retired)
Co-author Dana Pittard retired from the U.S. Army in 2015 at the rank of Major General after thirty-four years of active duty service. From a young age, he has had a passion for the art of war and military history.
Pittard was a highly decorated combat leader and commanded units at every echelon from platoon through division, including multiple combat tours in Iraq and the Middle East. In 2014, he was chosen to lead the initial U.S. response to halt the aggressive spread of ISIS in Iraq.
Dana has earned a B.S. from West Point, a master’s degree from the School of Advanced Military Studies at the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, and attended the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University as a Senior Fellow. He is currently a vice president with a manufacturing company in Indiana where he lives with his wife, Lucille, and their two sons.
Wes J. Bryant, Master Sergeant, U.S. Air Force (Retired)
Co-author Wes Bryant retired from the U.S. Air Force in 2018 at the rank of Master Sergeant after twenty years of active duty service. In 2014, as a senior Special Operations Forces Tactical Air Control Party-Joint Terminal Attack Controller (SOF TACP-JTAC), he was part of the elite special operations task force chosen to secure Baghdad and northern Iraq against the newly emerged threat of ISIS.
Embedded with Special Forces teams under a Navy SEAL task force, Wes was the tactical lead for a contingent of special operations JTACs to first set foot in Iraq to stop ISIS. As the senior enlisted JTAC to establish the BIAP Strike Cell, Bryant coordinated and controlled the first airstrikes against ISIS in the Baghdad region. He later deployed as the senior Special Tactics JTAC for special operations task forces hunting ISIS in Syria and Afghanistan.
Wes earned a bachelor’s in Asian Studies from the University of Maryland University College. He’s been a lifelong writer, amateur philosopher, and avid student of the martial arts. He currently pursues writing and editing, and teaches Chinese Kung Fu and Tai Chi in his community in North Carolina, where he lives with his wife, Katie, and their two daughters.
