It’s been over a decade since I left a career in intelligence and special operations. Since then, people have occasionally commented on how it seems unexpected that I went on to become a writer, especially a writer of fiction. A career filled with night raids, long distance patrols, and clandestine asset meetings does, at first glance, seem to have little to do with a career spent sitting at a desk day after day dreaming up a story. However, I became a special operator about the same time I became a serious reader of fiction. In my mind, the two have always been intimately entwined.
The summer after 9/11, I attended the Amphibious Reconnaissance School, which trained Marine Corps special operators. When we weren’t lugging heavy packs through the woods, practicing night raids, or running on the beach, we lived in an open barracks. One of my classmates, who became a close friend, was the senior man in our class. Beneath his bed, beside his muddy boots and sneakers, he kept stacks of books. When we had downtime—late at night or on a Sunday morning—he could reliably be found sprawled on his bed reading: Faulkner, Styron, Didion, le Carré, and Glück, to name a few of his favorites. His taste ran almost exclusively to fiction and poetry. He would say those were the types of books he enjoyed, but he also believed fiction and poetry gave him a capacity to understand others, one he felt was invaluable. You can read every book on military history and tactics you want, but if you cannot understand your adversary or the motivations of your troops, what good are you?
My friend loaned me his copy of The Sound and the Fury, a novel I’d read in high school and hadn’t liked. I gave it a second try and was deeply moved by it. Another book from his pile soon followed. When, at the end of that summer, I graduated the course and took my first step into a career as a special operator, I had also taken my first step into my career as a writer, because every writer is a reader first.
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Author: Elliot Ackerman
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