"One Bullet Away" Author Nathaniel Fick to Share Lessons In Leadership in September 20 Talk

CHESTERTOWN, MD—Nathaniel Fick, whose 2005 book about his service in Afghanistan and Iraq, One Bullet Away: The Making of a Marine Officer, made the New York Times best-seller list, will visit Washington College on Thursday, September 20, to talk about leadership. Now Chief Executive Officer of the Center for a New American Security, Fick will speak at 4:30 p.m. in Decker Theatre, Gibson Center for the Arts, on the College campus, 300 Washington Avenue. The talk, titled “One Bullet Away: Leadership Lessons from Afghanistan and Iraq,” is free and open to the public.

            One Bullet Away details Fick’s war experiences and reveals to the civilian reader how the Corps goes about selecting and training their elite Recon Marines. From his decision to join the Marines while studying at Dartmouth, through his grueling training, to his time fighting overseas, Fick “does not shrink from the truth –- however personal or unpleasant,” wrote a reviewer for Publisher’s Weekly. The result is an absorbing, thought-provoking memoir that The Military Times named one of the “Best Military Books of the Decade.”

            One Bullet became required reading for officers deploying to Afghanistan and Iraq. It also was the “First-Year Book” for Washington College’s Class of 2016; the students read the book prior to arriving on campus, and then met in small groups to discuss it.

            Fick’s writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Foreign Policy, and Forbes. He serves on the Board of Directors of the Marine Corps Scholarship Foundation, a group that provides education funds for the children of Marines killed in action. He is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

            A book signing will follow the September 20 talk.