Elliot Ackerman

Elliot Ackerman (born April 12, 1980) 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.

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.

The family moved back to the United States specifcially Washington, DC, when he was fifteen.

Ackerman studied literature and history at Tufts University, where he also joined Marine Corps ROTC.

He graduated summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa in 2003.

He holds a master's degree in international affairs from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy.

He also completed many of the United States military's most challenging special operations training courses.

Beginning in 2003, Ackerman served eight years in the U.S. Marine Corps.

He worked as both an infantry and special operations officer, initially assigned as a platoon commander in 1st Battalion, 8th Marines.

He served multiple tours of duty in the Middle East and Southwest Asia.

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.

He was briefly attached to the Ground Branch of the Central Intelligence Agency's Special Activities Division.

In 2004, Ackerman led a Marine rifle platoon of 45 men during the Second Battle of Fallujah.

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.

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.

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."

USA Today later sued the Defense Department to obtain its internal records.

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.

He left the Marine Corps in 2009 as a captain after being assigned to the CIA.

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.

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.

As one of its officers, Ackerman was interviewed extensively, notably on NPR's Talk of the Nation.

Ackerman has served on the board of the Afghan Scholars Initiative and as an advisor to the No Greater Sacrifice scholarship fund.

He is a lifetime member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

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

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).

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).