Eric Mansfield is a U.S. Army veteran with service in Iraq, Honduras, Hurricane Katrina and state emergencies during his 20-year career with the Ohio Army National Guard. A retired Major, Eric continues to serve the Army representing soldiers, families and veterans in the Buckeye state with his appointment from the Pentagon as the Civilian Assistant to the Secretary of the … Read More

Brian Duchaney is a freelance editor and writer.  A ten year veteran of the U.S. Army, his memoir about his military service, published by the journal War, Literature, & the Arts, was nominated for inclusion in the Best American Essays of 2014 and will be included in the forthcoming anthology: Quagmire:  Personal Responses to Iraq and Afghanistan (University of Nebraska … Read More

Dave Lara is a Mexican-American-Jew born in Castroville, California, to a poor family of migrant workers. In 1965, at seventeen years of age, he was emancipated and joined the U.S. Navy in the hopes of avoiding duty in the Vietnam War. Eleven months later, he found himself in the jungles of Vietnam where he learned he could be someone of … Read More

Melissa had already published two children’s books and several magazine articles by the time she joined the Navy.  She was gunning for a cushy job in Public Affairs, but the Detailer barked back,  “It’s Intelligence or nothing!”  a new career track that Melissa found a strange but comfortable fit.  During one deployment, she recalled how the military pressed her literary … Read More

Cathy Torres grew up in Lindale, Texas, and enlisted in the Marine Corps right after high school in 2000. She had duty stations in Okinawa, Japan, and Edwards AFB in Southern California, where she worked as a Personnel Clerk. At the end of her four-year enlistment, Cathy enrolled at Baylor University in Waco, Texas, and graduated in 2007 with a … Read More

After spending over 13 years as an Active Duty Army Officer, Barrett left active duty to pursue a career in music and teaching. His time in the Army was wonderful and meaningful. Some highlights of his time were when  Barrett served as a paratrooper and a platoon leader in D Troop, 1/509th Airborne Infantry Battalion and later as the commander … Read More

“Molly Huggins is a 14 year veteran of the Army National Guard, former helicopter pilot, Army spouse, and work-at-home mom to four children ranging in age from 13-5. She has lived the Army life in some form or fashion since the age of 18, joining the Tennessee National Guard at 18 as the first female armament technician ever in the … Read More

Steven M Miska is a United States Army veteran. Steve Miska is the Principal Investigator for Strategically Protecting Soft NetworksTM, a project supported by the Pacific Council on International Policy in L.A. and numerous other partners to protect vulnerable allies who work with Americans in conflict zones. As Executive Director of First Amendment Voice, he leads a nonpartisan effort to … Read More

Michael Shusko, MD, MPH, FAAFP, FACOEM, was raised in Long Branch, NJ. He enlisted in the Marine Corps in 1985 after graduating high school. Dr. Shusko cut his teeth in the military in the mid-1980s and early 1990s. As his first assignment, he attended the Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center in Monterey, CA, where he studied Arabic. Upon completing his … Read More