Elliot Ackerman
Ackerman at the 2015 Texas Book Festival.
Ackerman at the 2015 Texas Book Festival.
Born (1980-04-12) April 12, 1980
Los Angeles, California, U.S.
CitizenshipAmerican
Alma materTufts University
GenreFiction
Years active2013 to present
Notable awardsSilver Star,
Purple Heart
Website
elliotackerman.com
Elliot Ackerman
AllegianceUnited States United States
Service/branchUnited States Marine Corps United States Marine Corps
Battles/warsWar in Iraq, War in Afghanistan (2001-2021)

Elliot Ackerman (born April 12, 1980) is an American author and former Marine Corps special operations team leader.[1] He is the New York Times–bestselling author of the novels 2034: A Novel of the Next World War, Red Dress In Black and White, Waiting for Eden, Dark at the Crossing, and Green on Blue, and the upcoming Halcyon: A Novel, as well as the memoirs The Fifth Act: America’s End in Afghanistan and Places and Names: On War, Revolution, and Returning. His books have received significant critical acclaim, including nominations for the National Book Award, the Andrew Carnegie Medals in both fiction and non-fiction, and the Dayton Literary Peace Prize. He served as a White House fellow in the Obama administration and is a Marine veteran who served in Iraq and Afghanistan. He is a contributing writer to The Atlantic[2] and The New York Times.[3] He was awarded the Silver Star, the Bronze Star with Valor, and a Purple Heart during his five deployments to Afghanistan and Iraq.

Early life and education

He is the son of businessman Peter Ackerman and author Joanne Leedom-Ackerman and the brother of mathematician and wrestler Nate Ackerman. At the age of nine, Ackerman and his family moved to London.[4] The family moved back to the United States specifcially Washington, DC, when he was fifteen.[4]

Ackerman studied literature and history at Tufts University, where he also joined Marine Corps ROTC.[5] He graduated summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa in 2003.[6] He holds a master's degree in international affairs from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy.[7] He also completed many of the United States military's most challenging special operations training courses.[8]

Career

Military

Beginning in 2003, Ackerman served eight years in the U.S. Marine Corps.[9] He worked as both an infantry and special operations officer, initially assigned as a platoon commander in 1st Battalion, 8th Marines.[9][10] He served multiple tours of duty in the Middle East and Southwest Asia.[11] As a Marine Corps special operations team leader, Ackerman was the primary combat advisor to a 700-man Afghan commando battalion responsible for capture operations against senior Taliban leadership. He also led a 75-man platoon that aided in relief operations in post-Katrina New Orleans.[12] He was briefly attached to the Ground Branch of the Central Intelligence Agency's Special Activities Division.[13]

Second Battle of Fallujah

In 2004, Ackerman led a Marine rifle platoon of 45 men during the Second Battle of Fallujah.[14] During one night of the month-long battle, the platoon established a fighting position in a store. When the sun rose the next day, they were surrounded by insurgents. While wounded himself, Ackerman exposed himself to enemy fire to pull wounded Marines to safety and coordinated four separate medical evacuations. To save the platoon, he ordered his men to use explosives to destroy the store’s back wall. Twenty-five men were wounded, but everyone escaped alive. Ackerman was awarded the Silver Star for his “heroics in the battle” and a Purple Heart for his wounds.[10][14][15]

Afghanistan

USA Today reported that Ackerman was the assault force commander of a group of US Marines that carried out a raid that led to the death of an estimated 33 to 92 civilians in Azizabad, Afghanistan, in August 2008.[16] According to USA Today's investigation, the marines had been set up by an informant who provided them with false intelligence. The Pentagon maintained that such reports were "Taliban propaganda."[17] USA Today later sued the Defense Department to obtain its internal records.[18]

Ackerman received the Bronze Star for Valor for leading his Marine special operations team through an ambush in Herat Province, Afghanistan, in which one Special Forces soldier was killed.[10] He left the Marine Corps in 2009 as a captain after being assigned to the CIA.[19]

In 2021, Ackerman was one of the people who worked with other veterans, journalists, and activists to help evacuate as many Afghan allies as possible in 2021, during the U.S. withdrawal.[20]

Political

Ackerman served as chief operating officer of Americans Elect, a political organization known primarily for its efforts to stage a national online primary for the 2012 US presidential election.[21] As one of its officers, Ackerman was interviewed extensively, notably on NPR's Talk of the Nation.[22]

Ackerman has served on the board of the Afghan Scholars Initiative and as an advisor to the No Greater Sacrifice scholarship fund.[23] He is a lifetime member of the Council on Foreign Relations.[24]

In 2012 to 2013, Ackerman served as a White House fellow in the Obama administration.[23]

Author

Ackerman has written and published five novels (Green on Blue, Dark at the Crossing, Waiting for Eden, Red Dress in Black & White, and 2034: A Novel of the Next World War), the upcoming Halcyon: A Novel, and two memoirs (Places and Names: On War, Revolution, and Returning and The Fifth Act: America’s End in Afghanistan).[25] His fiction and essays have also appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The New Republic, The New York Times Magazine, Esquire, Time, Harper's Magazine, Ecotone and others (see Selected Bibliography). He was a writer for Esquire,[19] and is also a contributor to The Daily Beast.[26]

Green on Blue

Ackerman's first novel, Green on Blue, was published February 17, 2015 by Scribner.[27] Tom Bissell of the New York Times Book Review said,

Like all novels written in skilled, unadorned prose about men and women of action, this novel will probably be compared to Hemingway's work. In this case, however, the comparison seems unusually apt ... Elliot Ackerman has done something brave as a writer and even braver as a soldier: He has touched, for real, the culture and soul of his enemy.[28]

The Los Angeles Review of Books describes the novel as a "radical departure from veterans writing thus far" due to his choice of a first-person narrator, the lowly Aziz, a poor soldier in a local militia.[29] The Stars and Stripes review described Green on Blue and Phil Klay's Redeployment as carrying "the sting of authenticity and the sensory expression of experiences lived".[30] Green on Blue was a New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice.[31]

Dark at the Crossing

Ackerman's second novel Dark at the Crossing, published January 24, 2017, by Alfred A. Knopf, was a finalist for the National Book Award in 2017. In a starred review Library Journal wrote, "Here is a thriller, psychological fiction, political intrigue, and even a love story all wrapped into a stunningly realistic and sometimes horrifying package. Put Ackerman on the A-list."[32] In the New York Times Book Review the novelist Lawrence Osborne wrote, "One could argue that the most vital literary terrain in America's overseas wars is now occupied not by journalists but by novelists ... Elliot Ackerman is certainly one of those novelists ... He has created people who are not the equivalents of the locally exotic subjects in your average NPR story, and he has used them to populate a fascinating and topical novel."[33] Dark at the Crossing was noted as one of the best books of the year by the Washington Post, NPR, Christian Science Monitor, Military Times'', Vogue, and Bloomberg and was a New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice. Ackerman was a featured author at the Miami Book Fair in 2017.[34]

Waiting for Eden

Ackerman's third novel Waiting for Eden was published September 25, 2018, by Alfred A. Knopf. The book was nominated for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction, and it won the Marine Corps Heritage Foundation's James Webb Award. Author Anthony Swofford wrote in The New York Times Book Review, "Masterly ... Brilliant ... In his short novel, Ackerman accomplishes what a mountain of maximalist books have rarely delivered over tens of thousands of pages and a few decades: He makes pure character-based literary art, dedicated only to deeply human storytelling ... Cusk's Outline trilogy and Jenny Offill's Dept. of Speculation have created similarly shimmering portraits of humans at rest and fury ... Ackerman explore[s] conflicted, confused true love in such elegant and humane ways that you will come to question everything you think you know about the meanings of romance and fidelity ... The micro-level power of his unadorned and direct prose lies in no less than an attempt to contain and dramatize the darkness and light of our souls ... To identify this book as a novel seems inadequate: Waiting for Eden is a sculpture chiseled from the rarest slab of life experience."[35] The novel was one of the best books of the year on Amazon, NPR, and the Washington Post and was a New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice.

Places and Names: On War, Revolution, and Returning

Ackerman's fourth book Places and Names: On War, Revolution, and Returning was published June 11, 2019, by Penguin Press.[36] The memoir was nominated for the 2020 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Non-fiction.[37] Time magazine named it a must-read book of 2019 and said, "In Places and Names, perhaps the most striking war memoir of the year, Ackerman attempts to make sense of the reasons he served (personal and geopolitical), the people he met, the kinship he felt and the reckonings he has since confronted. Places and Names is as clean and spare in its prose as it is sharp and unsparing in timely observation."[38] It was also a New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice.

Red Dress in Black & White

Ackerman's fifth book Red Dress in Black & White was published May 26, 2020, by Alfred A. Knopf. The novel was nominated for the 2021 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction[39] and was also a New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice.[40] Author Joan Silber wrote in The New York Times Book Review, "Having worked so impressively at overturning the conventions of war fiction, Ackerman has now written a novel without a single soldier in it ... He's decided on a different sort of drama, a territory of intrigue and tricks, entirely absorbing, with other sources of suspense ... Ackerman's rich knowledge of Turkey is evident on every page."[41]

2034: A Novel of the Next World War

2034: A Novel of the Next World War is jointly authored by Admiral James G. Stavridis, USN (Ret.), and was released on March 9, 2021 by Penguin Press.[42]

The Fifth Act: America’s End in Afghanistan

In The Fifth Act: America’s End in Afghanistan, Ackerman recounts his life as an infantry officer on combat missions, his decision to leave the military, and the efforts to get Afghans out of the country in 2021 when the U.S. pulled out.[43] The Fifth Act was published by Penguin Press in August 2022.[44]

Articles, Essays, and Short Stories

For a period of time, Ackerman lived in Istanbul and worked as a reporter covering the Syrian Civil War.[45] His article "Why Bringing Back the Draft Could Stop America's Forever Wars" was featured on the cover of the October 21, 2019, issue of Time magazine.[46]

Awards and honors

Military awards

Writing awards

Select bibliography

Magazines

  • "Why Bringing Back the Draft Could Stop America's Forever Wars". Time October 21, 2019[46]
  • "Goodbye, My Brother". Esquire March 23, 2017[55]
  • "A West Point Literature Professor's Inspiring Plea for Creativity in Our Military". The New Republic October 27, 2014[56]
  • "Hometown Heroes". War, Literature and the Arts October 3, 2014[57]
  • "Pictures from My War". The New Yorker September 21, 2014[58]
  • "Watching ISIS Come to Power Again". The Daily Beast September 7, 2014[59]
  • "Charlie Balls". Ecotone, Volume 9, Number 1, Fall 2013, pp. 81–90[60]
  • "Airstrikes and the U.S. Strategy to Combat ISIS ". The Daily Beast August 8, 2014[61]
  • "The Islamic State's Strategy Was Years In the Making". The New Republic August 8, 2014[62]
  • "Waiting Out the Afghan War". The New Yorker August 6, 2014[63]
  • "Syria's War Poets". The Atlantic July 28, 2014[64]
  • "Four Hundred Grand". The Daily Beast July 6, 2014[65]
  • "A Black Flag and a Rainbow Flag". The New Yorker July 2, 2014[66]
  • "Watching ISIS Flourish Where We Once Fought". The New Yorker June 17, 2014[67]
  • "The Wounds Caused By Friendly Fire". The New Yorker June 12, 2014[68]
  • "The Bored Horsemen of the Apocalypse". The Daily Beast June 9, 2014
  • "I Was a Marine in Afghanistan: Bowe Bergdahl Haunted Us All". The New Republic June 4, 2014
  • "Extraordinary Bravery on the Streets of Fallujah". The New Republic May 25, 2014
  • "The US Marine Who Disappeared in Syria". The Daily Beast May 3, 2014
  • "A Man to Believe In". The Daily Beast March 5, 2014
  • "Joyce Carol Oates Goes to War". The Daily Beast January 30, 2014
  • "I Fought at Fallujah. Here's What I Think About When People Ask If It Was Worth It". The New Republic January 13, 2014
  • "The Case for Female SEALs". The Atlantic December 24, 2013[69]
  • "Greg Baxter's 'The Apartment'". The Daily Beast December 12, 2013

Books

  • Green on Blue: A Novel. Scribner, 2015. ISBN 978-1476778563[70]
  • Dark at the Crossing. Knopf, 2017. ISBN 978-1101947371
  • Waiting for Eden. Knopf, 2018. ISBN 978-1101947395
  • Places and Names: On War, Revolution, and Returning. Penguin Press, 2019. ISBN 0525559965
  • Red Dress in Black & White. Knopf, 2020. ISBN 978-0525521815
  • 2034: A Novel of the Next World War, with Admiral James G. Stavridis, USN (Ret.). Penguin Press, 2021. ISBN 1984881256
  • The Fifth Act: America's End in Afghanistan. Penguin Press, 2022. ISBN 0593492048

References

  1. ↑ Ackerman, Elliot Leedom; Huber, Andrew, Elliot Leedom Ackerman Collection, Library of Congress, retrieved July 21, 2022
  2. ↑ Ackerman, Elliot. "Elliot Ackerman". The Atlantic. Retrieved March 16, 2023.
  3. ↑ "Elliot Ackerman". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved March 16, 2023.
  4. 1 2 Ackerman, Elliot (December 5, 2014). "Safe on the Southbank". The New York Times Magazine.
  5. ↑ Williams, John (February 27, 2015). "Transcending War". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved March 9, 2023.
  6. ↑ Morelli, Naima (March 11, 2016). "Elliot Ackerman: Intellectuals at war and the ethical soldier - Global Comment". Retrieved March 9, 2023.
  7. ↑ "Afghanistan crisis: Commentary and Insights from Members of the Fletcher Community | The Fletcher School". fletcher.tufts.edu. Retrieved July 21, 2022.
  8. ↑ "Tufts Magazine / Spring 2007". March 5, 2016. Archived from the original on March 5, 2016. Retrieved July 21, 2022.
  9. 1 2 Michael Blanding. "The Opposite of Fear: In the Battle of Fallujah, a Marine Platoon Learns What Its Leader Is Made Of". Tufts Magazine. Tufts Publications. Archived from the original on March 5, 2016. Retrieved January 22, 2015.
  10. 1 2 3 pzdupe1. "A former Marine officer retells his journey from 'fortunate son' to hero in the Battle of Fallujah". Business Insider. Retrieved February 1, 2023.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  11. ↑ "Human Side of War Panel: 2015 National Book Festival". Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. 20540 USA. Retrieved July 21, 2022.
  12. ↑ "What the Response to Hurricane Katrina Taught One Veteran About How We Help One Another". Time. Retrieved July 21, 2022.
  13. ↑ "Assassination and the American Language". The New Yorker. November 20, 2014. Retrieved November 3, 2018.
  14. 1 2 "Elliot Ackerman - Recipient -". valor.militarytimes.com. Retrieved February 8, 2023.
  15. ↑ "Author and Veteran Elliot Ackerman Reflects on the War That Defined His Generation". Esquire. June 11, 2019. Retrieved February 8, 2023.
  16. ↑ Murphy, Brett (December 29, 2019). "Inside the U.S. military's raid against its own security guards that left dozens of Afghan children dead". USA Today. Gannett.
  17. ↑ Craig Whitlock, The Afghanistan Papers (Simon & Schuster 2021) at 178.
  18. ↑ Craig Whitlock, The Afghanistan Papers (Simon & Schuster 2021) at 178.
  19. 1 2 "A Silver Star-Recipient Talks About Returning To The Middle East To Write About War". Task & Purpose. February 9, 2017. Retrieved February 8, 2023.
  20. ↑ Magazine, Politico. "Afghanistan, one year later". POLITICO. Retrieved February 21, 2023.
  21. ↑ Klein, Ezra (March 16, 2012). "Americans Elect's plan for primary reform". Washington Post. Retrieved July 21, 2022.
  22. ↑ National Public Radio. Talk of the Nation, July 26, 2011.
  23. 1 2 3 "Press Release: White House Appoints 2012-2013 Class Of White House Fellows". Whitehouse.gov. White House Office of the Press Secretary. September 4, 2012.
  24. ↑ "Council on Foreign Relations". Council on Foreign Relations. Retrieved July 21, 2022.
  25. ↑ "Elliot Ackerman". amazon.com. Retrieved July 21, 2022.
  26. ↑ "Search". The Daily Beast. Retrieved July 21, 2022.
  27. ↑ Green on Blue. February 2, 2016. ISBN 978-1-4767-7856-3.
  28. ↑ Bissell, Tom (February 27, 2015). "Elliot Ackerman's 'Green on Blue'". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved November 29, 2017.
  29. ↑ "Afghanistan: A Stage Without a Play - The Los Angeles Review of Books". The Los Angeles Review of Books. October 2, 2014.
  30. ↑ "Back from the battlefield: Iraq, Afghanistan vets produce a surge of great fiction". Stars and Stripes.
  31. 1 2 "Editors' Choice". The New York Times. March 6, 2015. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved July 21, 2022.
  32. ↑ "Library Journal Fiction Reviews: September 15, 2016".
  33. ↑ Osborne, Lawrence (February 1, 2017). "A Story of Chaos at the Border of Turkey and Syria". The New York Times.
  34. 1 2 "2017 National Book Awards". National Book Foundation. Retrieved September 20, 2017.
  35. ↑ Swofford, Anthony (October 4, 2018). "A Short Novel of Love, War and Comrades in Arms Contains the World in a Foxhole". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved November 27, 2019.
  36. ↑ "Places and Names by Elliot Ackerman: 9780525559986 | PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books". PenguinRandomhouse.com. Retrieved July 21, 2022.
  37. 1 2 JCARMICHAEL (October 19, 2020). "2020 Winners". Reference & User Services Association (RUSA). Retrieved July 21, 2022.
  38. ↑ "'Places and Names' Is One of the 100 Must-Read Books of 2019". Time. Retrieved November 27, 2019.
  39. ↑ Andrew Albanese |. "ALA Announces Longlist for 2021 Andrew Carnegie Medals". PublishersWeekly.com. Retrieved March 16, 2023.
  40. 1 2 "11 New Books We Recommend This Week". The New York Times. June 4, 2020. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved July 21, 2022.
  41. ↑ Silber, Joan (May 26, 2020). "In His New Book, a War Novelist Turns to More Intimate Battles". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved February 10, 2021.
  42. ↑ "2034 by Elliot Ackerman, Admiral James Stavridis, USN: 9781984881274 | PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books". PenguinRandomhouse.com. Retrieved July 21, 2022.
  43. ↑ "To Leave No One Behind in Afghanistan | Tufts Now". now.tufts.edu. August 8, 2022. Retrieved February 15, 2023.
  44. ↑ "Book excerpt: "The Fifth Act," on one American's role in Afghanistan". www.cbsnews.com. Retrieved February 15, 2023.
  45. ↑ "After Five Marine Tours, Elliot Ackerman Has a Different Take on Iraq". Esquire. January 24, 2017. Retrieved February 23, 2023.
  46. 1 2 "Why Bringing Back the Draft Could Stop America's Forever Wars". Time. Retrieved November 26, 2019.
  47. 1 2 "U.S. Marine Corps 1st Lt. Elliott Ackerman - U.S. Department of Defense Official Website". May 29, 2011. Archived from the original on May 29, 2011. Retrieved November 26, 2019.
  48. ↑ "2016 Dayton Literary Peace Prize Finalists". www.daytonliterarypeaceprize.org. Retrieved November 21, 2017.
  49. ↑ "Amazon's 2015 Best Books of the Year: The Top 100 (100 books)". www.goodreads.com. Retrieved July 21, 2022.
  50. ↑ "10 New Books We Recommend This Week". The New York Times. February 9, 2017. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved July 21, 2022.
  51. ↑ JCARMICHAEL (October 19, 2020). "2019 Winners". Reference & User Services Association (RUSA). Retrieved July 21, 2022.
  52. ↑ "Annual Awards Program: 2019 Award Winners!". Marine Corps Heritage Foundation. Retrieved July 21, 2022.
  53. ↑ "'Places and Names' Is One of the 100 Must-Read Books of 2019". Time. Retrieved July 21, 2022.
  54. ↑ JCARMICHAEL (October 18, 2020). "2021 Winners". Reference & User Services Association (RUSA). Retrieved July 21, 2022.
  55. ↑ "Going Back to Fallujah". Esquire. March 23, 2017. Retrieved July 21, 2022.
  56. ↑ Ackerman, Elliot (October 28, 2014). "A West Point Literature Professor's Inspiring Plea for Creativity in Our Military". The New Republic. ISSN 0028-6583. Retrieved July 21, 2022.
  57. ↑ Ackerman, Elliot (October 3, 2014). "Hometown Heroes" (PDF). War, Literature and the Arts (26): 1–15.
  58. ↑ "Pictures from My War". The New Yorker. September 21, 2014. Retrieved July 21, 2022.
  59. ↑ Ackerman, Elliot (September 7, 2014). "Watching ISIS Come to Power Again". The Daily Beast. Retrieved July 21, 2022.
  60. ↑ Ackerman, Elliot (2013). "Charlie Balls". Ecotone. 9 (1): 81–90. doi:10.1353/ect.2013.0034. ISSN 2165-2651. S2CID 201741118.
  61. ↑ Ackerman, Elliot (August 8, 2014). "Airstrikes and the U.S. Strategy to Combat ISIS". The Daily Beast. Retrieved July 21, 2022.
  62. ↑ Ackerman, Elliot (August 8, 2014). "The Islamic State's Strategy Was Years in the Making". The New Republic. ISSN 0028-6583. Retrieved July 21, 2022.
  63. ↑ Elliot Ackerman (August 6, 2014). "Waiting Out the Afghan War". The New Yorker. Condé Nast.
  64. ↑ Ackerman, Elliot. "Syria's War Poets". The Atlantic. Retrieved July 21, 2022.
  65. ↑ Ackerman, Elliot (July 6, 2014). "Short Stories from The Daily Beast: Four Hundred Grand". The Daily Beast. Retrieved July 21, 2022.
  66. ↑ "A Black Flag and a Rainbow Flag". The New Yorker. July 2, 2014. Retrieved July 21, 2022.
  67. ↑ "Watching ISIS Flourish Where We Once Fought". The New Yorker. June 17, 2014. Retrieved July 21, 2022.
  68. ↑ "The Wounds Caused by Friendly Fire". The New Yorker. June 12, 2014. Retrieved July 21, 2022.
  69. ↑ Ackerman, Elliot (December 24, 2013). "The Case for Female SEALs". The Atlantic. Retrieved July 21, 2022.
  70. ↑ Green on Blue: A Novel. Scribner. February 17, 2015. ISBN 978-1-4767-7857-0.
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