Elliot Ackerman

Elliot Ackerman is an American author, currently based out of Istanbul. He is the son of businessman Peter Ackerman and the brother of mathematician and wrestler Nate Ackerman.

Early life
At the age of 9, his family moved to London. The family moved back to Washington, DC when he was 15.

Career
Beginning in 2003, Ackerman spent eight years in the U.S. military as both an infantry and special operations officer. He served multiple tours of duty in the Middle East and Southwest Asia. As a Marine Corps Special Operations Team Leader, he operated as 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.

Ackerman served as Chief Operating Officer of Americans Elect, a political organization founded and chaired by his father, Peter Ackerman, and continues to serve on its Board of Advisors. Americans Elect is 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. Most recently, Ackerman served as a White House Fellow in the Obama Administration. He currently lives in Istanbul with his wife and two children and writes on the Syrian Civil War.

Ackerman's fiction and essays have appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The New Republic, The New York Times Magazine, Ecotone and others. He is also a contributor to The Daily Beast, and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. He has been interviewed in The Washington Post, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal and appeared on Charlie Rose, The Colbert Report, NPR's Talk of the Nation, Meet the Press, CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, Al Jazeera and PBS NewsHour among others.

Ackerman's first novel, Green on Blue, is forthcoming from Scribner. Advance reception has been positive, with Publishers Weekly noting that the novel "is bleak and uncompromising, a powerful war story that borders on the noir." An early critical mention in the Los Angeles Review of Books describes the novel as a radical departure from veterans writing thus far due to his choice of a first person narrator, the lowly Aziz, a poor soldier in a local militia.

Education
Ackerman studied literature and history at Tufts University, graduating summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa in 2003, in a special program to earn Bachelor's and Master's degrees in 5 years, rather than the usual six. He holds a Master’s degree in International Affairs from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, and has completed many of the United States military’s most challenging special operations training courses.

Awards and honors
Ackerman is a decorated veteran, having earned a Silver Star and Purple Heart for his role leading a Rifle Platoon in the November 2004 Second Battle of Fallujah and a Bronze Star for Valor while leading a Marine Corps Special Operations Team in Afghanistan in 2008. Ackerman is also a recipient of the Major General Edwin B. Wheeler Award for Infantry Excellence.

Select Bibliography

 * "A West Point Literature Professor's Inspiring Plea for Creativity in Our Military". The New Republic Oct 27, 2014
 * "Hometown Heroes". War, Literature and the Arts October 3, 2014
 * "Pictures from My War". The New Yorker Sep 21, 2014
 * "Watching ISIS Come to Power Again". The Daily Beast Sep 7, 2014
 * "Charlie Balls". Ecotone, Volume 9, Number 1, Fall 2013, pp. 81-90
 * "Airstrikes and the U.S. Strategy to Combat ISIS ". The Daily Beast Aug 8, 2014
 * "The Islamic State's Strategy Was Years In the Making". The New Republic Aug 8, 2014
 * "Waiting Out the Afghan War". The New Yorker Aug 6, 2014
 * "Syria's War Poets". The Atlantic Jul 28, 2014
 * "Four Hundred Grand". The Daily Beast Jul 6, 2014
 * "A Black Flag and a Rainbow Flag". The New Yorker Jul 2, 2014
 * "Watching ISIS Flourish Where We Once Fought". The New Yorker Jun 17, 2014
 * "The Wounds Caused By Friendly Fire". The New Yorker Jun 12, 2014
 * "The Bored Horsemen of the Apocalypse ". The Daily Beast Jun 9, 2014
 * "I Was a Marine in Afghanistan: Bowe Bergdahl Haunted Us All". The New Republic Jun 4, 2014
 * "Extraordinary Bravery on the Streets of Fallujah". The New Republic May 25, 2014
 * "The US Marine Who Disappeared in Syria". The Daily Beast May 3, 2014
 * "A Man to Believe In". The Daily Beast Mar 5, 2014
 * "Joyce Carol Oates Goes to War". The Daily Beast Jan 30, 2014
 * "I Fought at Fallujah. Here's What I Think About When People Ask If It Was Worth It". The New Republic Jan 13, 2014
 * "The Case for Female SEALs". The Atlantic Dec 24, 2013
 * "Greg Baxter's 'The Apartment'". The Daily Beast Dec 12, 2013