Patrick O'Donnell

founder, The Drop Zone

Patrick O’Donnell is the critically acclaimed author of *Beyond Valor*, which won the Colby Circle Award for Outstanding Military History, as well as *Into the Rising Sun*, *Operatives*, *Spies*, and *Saboteurs*, *We Were One: Shoulder to Shoulder With the Marines Who Took Fallujah*, and most recently *The Brenner Assignment*. As a combat historian, O’Donnell was the only civilian to spend three months in Iraq in uniform and conduct oral histories of our troops in battle. He literally fought with the marines in Fallujah, was ambushed several times, and dragged a mortally wounded marine from battle. O’Donnell is also the founder of the Drop Zone (www.thedropzone.org), an award-winning web site dedicated to preserving the oral histories of veterans.