Elliot Ackerman is an American author and former Marine Corps special operations team leader. 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 and The New York Times. He was awarded the Silver Star, the Bronze Star with Valor, and a Purple Heart during his five deployments to Afghanistan and Iraq.
Ackerman at the 2015 Texas Book Festival.
James George Stavridis is a retired United States Navy admiral and vice chair, global affairs, and a managing director-partner of The Carlyle Group, a global investment firm, and chair of the board of trustees of the Rockefeller Foundation. Stavridis serves as the chief international diplomacy and national security analyst for NBC News in New York. He is also chair emeritus of the board of directors of the United States Naval Institute and a senior fellow at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory.
Stavridis in July 2009
ADM James G. Stavridis, former Commander, EUCOM, and NATO Supreme Allied Commander Europe, in 2014
Admiral Stavridis in the remote studio at The Fletcher School in 2016
U.S. Army General David H. Petraeus, right, with the U.S. Navy Admiral James G. Stavridis, commander of European Command and NATO's supreme allied commander for Europe in Brussels in 2011