Hey Team Room,

Thanks to all of our new members for signing up and supporting SOFREP. I’m in the process of lining up some awesome new writers for the site and am really excited about that. I also wanted to take a moment to introduce myself to our new members.

I grew up in New York and joined the Army when I was 19 with an Option 40 contract, which puts you on the path to becoming a member of the 75th Ranger Regiment. I graduated the Ranger Indoctrination Program and served in 3rd Ranger Battalion as a Anti-Tank gunner, Sniper, and Team Leader. While in Ranger School, I was really impressed with one of the Special Forces Sergeants who sort of took me under his wing and this made me decide that Special Forces was my next challenge.

Coming off a deployment in Iraq, I got caught up doing airfield seizures for two weeks and then literally the next day was on a plane to start the Special Forces Assessment and Selection course. No rest for the wicked! Eventually I graduated the Q-Course as an 18B (Weapons Sergeant) and got assigned to a MFF (HALO) team in 5th Special Forces Group.

Afghanistan

I won’t BS any of you, I was pissed when I left the Army after eight years. I was bitter because I felt that way too many of the people in the Army were putting their careers ahead of victory in the war we were fighting. I wasn’t interested in contracting, it sounded like being a glorified mall cop to me. I thought about traveling to South Sudan to train Christian militias or linking up with Karen fighters in Burma.

The reality was far less romantic. Like many separated veterans, I spent the first month out of the Army doing PT everyday and playing video games in my mom’s basement. Seriously. I took another path and married my longtime girlfriend who I had first met while on leave in Belize after I graduated the Q-Course. I was interested in business and was in the process of putting my Special Operations career behind me.

I started college, figuring I’d use that GI Bill for something while I figured out what kind of business I wanted to start. I saw how things were blowing up on Amazon and there were a lot of opportunities for writers to publish their work for the Kindle. I had always wanted to write the ultimate military thriller as I thought most of the books in the genre had not quite gotten it right. While going to college, that’s exactly what I did. I wrote my first novel called “Reflexive Fire.”