With passion and purpose, born of
personal experience and keen observation,
decorated warrior Maj. Jeff Struecker,
military brat Ronie Kendig and former
JAG officer Don Brown write thrilling
military adventures of sacrifice, heroism
and heartache. Their stories bring honor
to those in the armed forces, and provide
readers with an understanding of the
danger they face and the immense sacrifice
their families make every day.
MAJ. JEFF STRUECKER
A veteran of Operation Just Cause, Operation
Desert Storm and the ferocious Battle of
Mogadishu, portrayed in the feature film, Black
Hawk Down, Army Ranger and military chaplain
Major Jeff Struecker has penned fast-paced,
action-packed thrillers Certain Jeopardy, Blaze
of Glory and Fallen Angel with co-writer Alton
Gansky. “They are designed to help the reader
understand the incredible sacrifice that the
military makes for our country,” explains Jeff.
“The plot lines are so cutting-edge that you could
easily read about something that these books
describe weeks or months from now.”
Recently retired from active military service,
Jeff began writing novels to reach soldiers and
their families who would not otherwise be
interested in hearing a sermon or going to church.
Working as a team is second nature to a military
man, so having a cowriter has been a natural fit.
“I come up with the plot, but Al works his magic
and makes it something that is engaging to the
reader.” Their books revolve around a Special
Operations Unit led by Sgt. Major Eric Moyer, a
man devoted to the military and his young family,
a character who resonates with Jeff. “He is a guy
that is completely committed to the success of
his mission. He understands that if he fails this
mission, our way of life might be compromised or
it may set the U.S. military back many years.” J.J.
Bartley is another character Jeff enjoyed creating.
“He is a guy who loves his family, loves guns but
also loves Jesus.”
In the first two books of the series, the team
is faced with an Al Qaeda base in Venezuela,
Egyptian terrorists and Mexican drug lords,
but in Fallen Angel the battle moves into the
stratosphere. Says Jeff, “This book details a U.S.
intelligence satellite that is shot down by the
Chinese government. The U.S. sends a special
operations team to recover this satellite to make
sure it doesn’t fall into the wrong hands.” The
idea stemmed from his research into how the
next large-scale war might be fought. “It became
clear to me that the next war will have more than
a ground and air component to it. Our next war
will probably have a space component as well.”
As a soldier, pastor, father or writer, Jeff has
one motivation, “Ultimately, everything I do is
for my King, Jesus Christ.”
RONIE KENDIG
She may not have seen combat, but Ronie Kendig
has been immersed in military culture her whole
life. Her father, husband and father-in-law are all
veterans, generating in her a heart for the men
and women who heroically defend our freedoms.
“I believe my passion for writing about our heroes
comes out of being around it and seeing the toll
war and the military life take on families. I know
many good men and women who lost a part of
themselves in war.”
Nightshade, Digitalis, Wolfsbane and
Firethorn comprise Ronie’s Discarded Heroes
series, explosive military thrillers with a romantic
twist, focused on Nightshade, a tight-knit group
of former elite warriors who have teamed up to
form an ultra-secret black-ops team. Each man
on the team has survived the cruelties of war but
not escaped the psychological trauma. A church
conversation inspired Ronie to write about
wounded military warriors. “During Sunday
School one week, a young woman requested
prayer for her husband, a Navy SEAL, whose
anger and PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder)
was destroying their marriage. It wasn’t the first
time I’d seen or heard about this, having grown up
around the military, but seeing the trauma so up
close and personal struck me deeply. I realized I
could never again write about our military heroes
without showing the toll their heroism takes on
them and their families.”
In Firethorn, Griffin has experienced a lot of
trauma in his life and is deep in denial, pretending
he isn’t affected by his past. Reflecting in her
novel what she has observed in real life, Ronie
shares, “Griffin has done this so often that he has,
in a lot of ways, forgotten how to feel or how to
get close to people. Ultimately, Firethorn is about
trust—learning to trust those who’ve got your
back but also to trust God amid heart-wrenching
situations.”
Ronie hopes her novels will not only entertain
but also open dialogue. She explains, “It’s easy
to think we get it, to think we understand the
toll war takes on our military heroes. Hopefully,
this series helps people understand a little more
deeply what our men and women in uniform
experience. Our heroes need to be able to talk
about these things. They need our support. Some
give a lot, many give everything. The least we can
do is listen.”
DON BROWN
Former U.S. Navy JAG officer, Don Brown’s
Navy thrillers have garnered acclaim and not
a little notoriety. Don explains, “In Treason, a
U.S. Marine at Camp Pendleton in California
converts to radical Islam and opens fire on fellow
Marines, killing and maiming dozens. Then,
in November of 2009, there was a devastating
shooting by an army psychiatrist, who also was a
radical Islamist, wounding 31 soldiers and killing
12 at Fort Hood in Texas.” In his fourth novel,
Black Sea Affair, a shooting war erupts between
Russian, Georgian and NATO forces. Two months
after the book’s release war broke out between
Georgia and Russia. Similarly, a month prior to
publication of The Malacca Conspiracy, the Navy
of Singapore issued a series of terror warnings
about possible attacks against oil tankers in the
Malacca Straits, exactly what Don had described
in his tale.
In Don’s latest novel, Thunder in the Morning
Calm, he reaches back in time to the Korean war
and the many Americans who remain missing
in action. He shares, “Over 8000 Americans
were missing or unaccounted for at the end of
the Korean War in 1953. When the war ended,
North Korea denied that it had any live American
or South Korean prisoners. The United States
denied that any POWs were still there. But for
nearly 60 years, dozens upon dozens of reports
have surfaced of sightings of both American and
South Korean POWs still in the north.”
Don’s character, Lieutenant Commander
Gunner McCormick, is on a mission to discover
what happened to his grandfather, who went
missing at the battle of Chosin Reservoir some 60
years earlier. He is prepared to risk his personal
fortune, his military career and his life to get some
answers. Don’s heart for real MIA Americans
and their families inspired this story. “I’m very
passionate about the sacrifice of our Korean Vets,
and the missing plight of our over 8000 American
MIAs there. It’s a horrible thing that this country
has largely forgotten them, and I wrote this
novel, in part, hoping that someone would read
it, would remember them, and give some thought
to the plight of the missing Americans of Korea.”
WHAT DO YOU HOPE READERS TAKE AWAY FROM YOUR NOVEL?
JEFF STRUECKER: I hope they are inspired to
support the members of the military and military
families. I also hope they will be challenged a little
bit more about their faith in God.
RONIE KENDIG: The takeaway of every book
I write is that there is always hope … in Christ. No
matter what, there is always hope.
DON BROWN: I hope that my readers will
take time to pray about the long-forgotten
Korean MIAs, and to pray specifically that if any
are still there alive, that somehow, they would be
liberated and see the green grass of home again
before they die.