For readers of American Sniper, the stirring account of a life of service by the "father of the US Navy SEALs" One month after the Bay of Pigs fiasco, when President John F. Kennedy pressed Congress about America's "urgent national needs," he named expanding US special operations forces along with putting a man on the moon. Captain William Hamilton

Author Biography

William H. Hamilton Jr. graduated from the US Naval Academy in Annapolis in 1949 and served as a fighter pilot in the Korean War. Fascination with unconventional warfare led his involvement in underwater demolition teams. In 1961, he became the commander of UDT-21, in Little Creek, Virginia, where, with Roy Boehm as his operations officer, he was responsible for developing the Navy SEAL program. Hamilton subsequently conducted missions with SEALs and CIA in Cuba, Vietnam, Latin America, and Africa. After the Iran Hostage Crisis, he worked in counterterrorism, and was one of two men responsible for developing SEAL Team Six. He also advised the Reagan White House on the security of the Strategic Defense Initiative. Hamilton retired from the Navy in 1986. He resided with his wife in Virginia Beach, Virginia, until his death in November 2016. Charles W. Sasser is a full-time freelance writer, photographer, and journalist with more than sixty published books and thousands of magazine articles in publications from Reader's Digest and Time/Life to Soldier of Fortune and WWII History. A former Navy journalist, then an Army Special Forces (Green Beret) soldier, he is now retired from the Army (active and reserve). He also served fourteen years as a police officer in Miami, Florida, and Tulsa, Oklahoma, where he was a homicide detective. He has taught history and other subjects at universities, lectured nationwide, and traveled extensively throughout the world. His bio is included in Who's Who in the World, and he was awarded the organization's 2019 Lifetime Achievement Award. In 1986 he was a finalist to fly into space with NASA's Journalist-in-Space Project; in 2001 he set a world's record by making the first transcontinental flight in an ultralight powered parachute aircraft; he has sailed a forty-foot sloop across the Caribbean, solo-kayaked Canada's Inside Passage, climbed Africa's Mt. Kilimanjaro; guided missionaries into Algeria; ridden horses across Alaska, and dog-sledded the Arctic. His published books have been translated into Chinese, Russian, Serbian, Thai, French, Spanish, and other languages. His most recent and successful books include: Crushing the Collective; Two Fronts/One War; One Shot-One Kill (with Craig Roberts); and The Night Fighter (with Bill Hamilton). He lives in Chouteau, Oklahoma. Lt. Colonel William Craig Roberts, USA (Retired) served in combat with the US Marine Corps during the Vietnam War, where he was awarded a Purple Heart, Vietnam Cross of Gallantry, and Presidential Unit Citation, among other awards. He also served twenty-five years in the Army National Guard (Infantry) and Army Reserves, retiring as a lieutenant colonel in 1999. In addition he served twenty-seven years until retirement with the Tulsa, Oklahoma, Police Department in various assignments to include TAC/SWAT, Bomb Squad, Fugitive Warrants, and police helicopter pilot. As an expert in various weapons, he trained law enforcement and military personnel, including members of the Queen's Regiment in England. Roberts is author, co-author, or contributing author of fourteen published books: Police Sniper; Kill Zone-A Training Manual for Riflemen; The Medusa File: Crimes and Coverups of the U.S. Government; The Medusa File: The Politics of Terror and the Oklahoma City Bombing; Combat Medic: Vietnam; Hellhound (w/Allen Appel); JFK: The Dead Witnesses (with John Armstrong); The Dragunov Solution; The Hind Heist; The New Face of War, Time Life series (contributing); One Shot-One Kill (with Charles W. Sasser); Crosshairs On The Kill Zone (with Charles W. Sasser); The Walking Dead-A Marine's Story of Vietnam (with Charles W. Sasser). He lives in Locust Grove, Oklahoma.