About
AUSA’s Thought Leaders webinar series—an extension of our Thought Leaders podcast—focuses on contemporary military authors and senior military leaders. Thought Leaders seeks to educate the public on critical issues affecting land forces and strategy.

Please join us on Thursday, 9 December 2021, at 1400 EDT, to hear a presentation by N.W. Collins, author of Grey Wars: A Contemporary History of U.S. Special Operations, Jessica Donati, author of Eagle Down: The Last Special Forces Fighting the Forever War, Tony Brooks, author of Leave No Man Behind: The Untold Story of the Rangers’ Unrelenting Search for Marcus Luttrell, the Navy SEAL Lone Survivor in Afghanistan. Collins, Donati, and Brooks will speak about their books and share their thoughts on the future role of the special operations forces in the U.S. Army.

WEBINAR ENDED
Presenters
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LTG Guy Swan III, U.S. Army Retired
AUSA Vice President, Education
Lieutenant General Guy C. Swan III currently serves as an AUSA Vice President. During more than 35 years of active service he commanded at every level through Army Service Component Command. A career armor/cavalry officer, his general officer assignments included Commanding General, United States Army North/Fifth Army; Commanding General, United States Army Military District of Washington and Commander, Joint Force Headquarters-National Capital Region; Commanding General, 7th Army Training Command, United States Army Europe/Seventh Army; Chief of Staff and Director of Operations, Multi-National Force-Iraq during Operation Iraqi Freedom; Director of Operations, United States Northern Command; and Chief of Army Legislative Liaison.

General Swan's other key assignments included Commander, 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment; Assistant Deputy Director for Strategy and Policy for the Joint Staff; and Deputy Operations Officer for the 1st Armored Division during Operations Desert Shield/Desert Storm.

A 1976 graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point, General Swan holds a Master of Military Art and Science degree from the United States Army's School of Advanced Military Studies. He also holds a Master of Arts degree in National Security Studies from Georgetown University and was a National Security Fellow at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.

General Swan is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the Aspen Institute Homeland Security Group, and the FEMA National Advisory Council. He is also a Certified Emergency Manager(CEM) and a Certified Protection Professional (CPP), board certified in security management.

General Swan is married to the former Melanie Taylor Curry of Fort Lauderdale, Florida. They have two children: Ryan, a US Army lieutenant, and Melissa, a college junior.
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Jessica Donati
Jessica Donati covers foreign affairs for The Wall Street Journal in Washington DC, and has reported from over a dozen countries in the role. She joined the paper as the bureau chief in Kabul in 2015, and lived in Afghanistan for over four years. Previously, she worked for Reuters in Europe, the Middle East and Asia, covering both the conflicts in Libya and Afghanistan. Her work on a series on the war in Libya was chosen as a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting in 2012. She is British-Italian, and grew up in Italy. She lives with her husband and son in Washington DC.
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N.W. Collins
N.W. Collins writes about U.S. defense, national security, and military technology. Her essays and commentaries have appeared in a range of publications, including Forbes, The New York Times, TIME, U.S. News and World Report, and The Wall Street Journal. She is the author of Grey Wars (Yale University Press, 2021).

Collins is the chair of Defense and Security Studies at Columbia University. She is a senior fellow of the Modern War Institute at West Point. Over the past two decades, she has received fellowships and grants from, among others, the University of Chicago, Harvard University, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Wilson Center, and Yale University, and is a recipient of the U.S. Congressional Dirksen Award and the NCAFP 21st Century Leadership Award.

Since 2010, Collins has worked on occasional special projects for the U.S. Department of Defense. She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the U.S. Commission on Military History.

Collins earned a BA in government from Georgetown University and a PhD in history from the University of London, where she was named the Thornley Fellow, an international prize.
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Tony Brooks
Dr.
Like his fellow Rangers, Dr. Tony Brooks lived―and many died―by the axiom, “Leave No Man Behind.” The summer of 2005 was no different. Dr. Brooks, then a newly minted Army Ranger, was part of one of the most rigorous and dangerous rescue operations in modern military history: the 75th Ranger Regiment’s search for twelve Navy SEAL casualties and eight downed Night Stalkers—with just one survivor. If this sounds familiar, some of it was depicted in the book and film, Lone Survivor. But most people only know part of the story.
Leave No Man Behind: The Untold Story of the Rangers’ Unrelenting Search for Marcus Luttrell, the Navy SEAL Lone Survivor in Afghanistan [Diversion Books, August 10, 2021], by former Army Ranger Tony Brooks, is the riveting story of courage, perseverance, and patriotism behind the 75th Army Rangers’ rescue mission following one of the deadliest Special Ops incidents in Afghanistan. Through fascinating first-hand accounts, Dr. Brooks describes the daring recovery of downed chinook helicopter, Turbine 33, and The Lone Survivor—a grueling and determined search through treacherous terrain, violent weather, and enemy attacks. The Rangers would need to overcome a lack of intel and an enemy that was born and raised to fight.
“War, I’d quickly learned, was not, as I’d thought, glorious. War was ugly,” recalls Dr. Brooks. “Everyone lost something on that day. The soldiers and their families certainly did. America certainly did. And I did. I’d been baptized by fire, the smoke from that wreck casting my naivete of war into the Afghan skies.”
In Leave No Man Behind, Dr. Brooks is the first to tell the story that other books and films have left out—one of valor, skill, and resilience in surmounting overwhelming odds to accomplish a mission: to bring every soldier home.
“Not a day passes that I don’t think of the sixteen men with whom I’ll be forever linked,” says Dr. Brooks. “Sixteen men who I had the small privilege to help bring home to the country and families they belong. Sixteen men who have done something I can only hope to someday do: Die a hero.”
Through the captivating pages of Leave No Man Behind, readers discover:
• A different kind of war story: Get inside the human mind of an elite Army Ranger—yes, with the blood-and-guts combat, but more importantly the honor, courage, and reality
• The most difficult aspect about the recovery and rescue of Turbine 33 and the Lone Survivor
• Hate the war, not the warrior: Why today’s civilians have little understanding of today’s military
• September 11, 2001: How the attack that changed the world propelled Brooks to serve his country
• The power of why: A higher sense of purpose will drive an average person, like Brooks, to do extraordinary things
• Live like a R.A.N.G.E.R.: The honorable creed behind our nation’s most elite warriors
• “We were one:” The warrior mindset—the men to your left and right are more important than any politics or differences in religion, race, or creed
• Leave no man behind: Why it’s so important to bring all soldiers home

DR. TONY BROOKS—former member of the elite 75th Army Ranger Regiment—is an internationally recognized Doctor of Chiropractic Medicine, author, and highly sought-after speaker. Using his strategic background and inspirational story, Dr. Brooks’ new mission is to guide others toward previously unachievable heights—allowing businesses and sporting organizations to improve strategy, morale, and the team-first ethos of “Leave No Man Behind.”

Dr. Brooks deployed to Afghanistan (2005) and Iraq (2006; 2007) in support of the Global War on Terror. He participated as the primary combat search and rescue element for downed MH-47 Turbine 33 during Operation Red Wings II. While serving in Iraq, he participated in the “Battle of Ramadi.”

After serving in the 75th Ranger Regiment, Dr. Brooks earned a Bachelors in Biological Sciences from the prestigious University of Southern California and his Doctor of Chiropractic degree from the University of Western States. He is certified in treating disorders related to whiplash and has a niche treating perinatal and pediatric patients. Dr. Brooks is also the founder of “Objective Healthy,” a lifestyle and nutritional venture to improve the health of veterans.

A former President of his local Rotary club, Dr. Brooks currently serves on the board of the Redmond Police Foundation and Hobizbo Inc. He has been featured in Backbone, a documentary on chiropractic medicine and the military, as well as the Science Channel’s Black Files Declassified. He appeared in Smithsonian Air and Space magazine regarding Operating Red Wings.
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Darsie Rogers
LTG U.S. Army Retired
LTG(R) Darsie Rogers offers more than 20+ years of senior executive experience leading adaptable and high-performing teams in solving challenging problems in uncertain environments. He has directed complex organizations ranging from small, specialized tactical units to leading more than 24,000 people.
LTG(R) Rogers’ has an extensive background spearheading and transforming elite organizations; including US Army Special Forces and Navy SEALs. His military service saw combat through the dynamic and ambiguous environments of the Gulf War, Operations Iraqi Freedom and New Dawn and numerous other contingency operations. As the Special Operations Command Central Commander, LTG(R) Rogers led US Special Operations in the Middle East where he routinely engaged with US Ambassadors and Government Agencies, regional partner nations, and senior foreign government dignitaries and officials. He also served in the Pentagon and in leadership positions around the world which led him to the rank of three-star general as the Deputy Director of the Defense Threat Reduction Agency.
In this position as Deputy Director, LTG(R) Rogers managed a 2000+ organization tasked with countering threats posed by weapons of mass destruction and improvised threat networks. This included oversight over extensive research, development and testing/evaluation of critical programs and hard-target defeat. In addition to overseeing daily operations, he also led organizational change, eliminating excessive bureaucracy by fostering interconnection outside of normal lines of authority and creating liaison networks to eliminate silos, synchronize and measure production, and increase collaboration; resulting in a workforce united around a single compelling vision to solve even the most complex challenges.
LTG(R) Rogers retired from the Army in August of 2020 and joined the University of Maryland faculty as a professor of practice advising the Defense Department, other government agencies, and commercial industry in the development of leading-edge information and influence operations activities in both offensive and defensive initiatives. He advises a number of non-profit, defense, and private-sector organizations across a range of topics that include special operations forces and technology, intelligence operations, cyber security, foreign internal defense, countering weapons of mass destruction and counter-proliferation of hazardous or military grade materials. LTG(R) Rogers has hands-on experience in the design and implementation of organizational change to achieve full-spectrum capability and improved efficiency to meet global customer requirements.
LTG(R) Rogers earned a Bachelor of Arts from Auburn University, a Master of Arts from Louisiana State University and a Master of Science in Strategic Studies from the US Air Force War College. He also has a US Government Top Secret Security Clearance (SCI).
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