During a nearly 40-year career in the United States Army, Hugh Shelton has been known as a straight shooter - when he speaks he means what he says. Whether serving under a Democratic president or a Republican president, whether in a war that was popular at home or not, Hugh Shelton gave all he had, and asked nothing less of the men and women who worked for him. Politically independent, Shelton told the truth - not what his superiors wanted to hear.

And now, in his unvarnished memoir, Shelton tells the incredible story that took him from a small farming community in North Carolina to the jungles of Vietnam as one of our country's first special forces soldiers, to the inner sanctum of American military and political power as a General, Commander of Special Operations Command, and then Chairman of the Joint Chiefs during 9/11. Delving into the key characters and personalities he met on the field of battle and behind the scenes at the Pentagon and White House, Shelton also covers key military operations and meetings that have not yet been explored, including:

• Details of the Camp David meeting among President Bush and his National Security Council immediately after 9/11, where internal battle lines are drawn over creating a plan to attack Iraq - NOT the Taliban and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan.
• How Donald Rumsfeld persuaded General Tommy Franks to bypass the Joint Chiefs, leading to a badly flawed Iraq war plan that failed to anticipate the devastating after-effects of the insurgency and the civil war that followed.
• Attempts to kill Osama bin Laden that were shot down by our State Department.
• The time the CIA botched a high-profile terrorist snatch in the Balkans, leaving Shelton's Special Operations teams to clean up their mess.
• And much more.

Yet it's Shelton's amazing personal story puts his military career in perspective.