Professional Military Education Presentation by Authors Steven Pressfield and David Danelo
(25 January 2007 – Camp Pendleton, California)
 Lt Gen James N. Mattis, CG I-MEF conversing with author Steven Pressfield during MCA PME |
 Author Steven Pressfield PME Presentation |
 Author David Danelo PME Presentation |
 Author Steven Pressfield Book Signing |
Click on the books below to see details... By Steven Pressfield By David Danelo |
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In what was one of the best PME events of the past several years held at Camp Pendleton, Steven Pressfield and David Danelo teamed up to give a highly interested audience their perspectives on warfare and followed up with a lionized book signing opportunity.
Sponsored by the Marine Corps Association in partnership with the Marine Memorial Association and Marine Corps Community Service organizations, the event featured a pair of popular and highly regarded writers; Historical fiction novelist Steven Pressfield and contemporary history author, David Danelo. A popular event, over 350 guests, including a range of Marine General Officers, attended to listen to the author’s presentations, and Q&A session which followed. Subsequently, the authors made themselves available to autograph their books while heavy hors de oeuvres and drinks contributed to the festive air.
Pressfield is the author of Gates of Fire, The Virtues of War and, more recently, The Afghan Campaign, all novels set in the ancient Hellenistic world. David Danelo is the author or Blood Stripes: The Grunt’s View of the War in Iraq, which portrays small unit actions in an embattled infantry battalion in Iraq in 2004. Steven Pressfield wrote the forward to David Danelo’s Blood Stripes.
In The Afghan Campaign and, also in Blood Stripes, both authors treat the subject of warfare in the Middle East and bring out the special environment and unique social constructs that make conflict throughout the region so complex and horrific. During their presentations, both author’s summarized their latest books, for those unfamiliar, and then dealt with the larger issue of social relations in the region as they relate to the current conflicts in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Their comments basically focused on the subjects of tribalism and insurgency in the region and the impact of these concepts on warfare there through the ages. The aspect of tribalism in Pressfield’s Afghan Campaign, set in an Afghanistan occupied by the forces of Alexander the Great, is a factor that makes the current fight so timeless. Alexander’s forces fought the same kind of tribal based insurgency American forces face today. The bitter nature of the fighting described in Danelo’s Blood Stripes is a regional constant, preceding even Alexander and derives in large measure from the social constructs of tribalism. Both authors argued convincingly that we still don’t have an understanding of this concept and its implications on the way we fight in this environment.
MCA thanks Steven Pressfield and David Danelo for spending an exciting and valuable day with us at Camp Pendleton.
