Bing West, a bestselling author and former assistant secretary of defense, served as a Marine grunt in Vietnam and later as a dean at the Naval War College. A graduate of Princeton and Georgetown Universities, he is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Infantry Order of St. Crispin. He is the recipient of the Defense Distinguished Public Service Medal, the 2004 and the 2012 Marine Corps Heritage Awards, the Colby Military History Award, the Marine Corps Foundation Award for Leadership, the Goodpaster Prize for Military Scholarship, Tunisia’s Medaille de Liberté, the Father Clyde Leonard Award, the Free Press Award, the Veterans of Foreign Wars National Media Medal and the Marine Corps Combat Correspondents Award.

His bestselling books include The Village; The Strongest Tribe, a History of the Iraq war; The Wrong War, a History of the Afghanistan war; and One Million Steps: a Marine Platoon at War. His articles appear in The Wall St. Journal, The New York Times, The Atlantic, National Review, Foreign Affairs and The Washington Post. He also appears on The News Hour and Fox News. He is currently writing a combat leadership book with Marine General James Mattis.