Lt. Col. (ret.) Les Carroll grew up in South Carolina, served in the Air Force and Air National Guard for twenty-eight years, and retired in 2013. He served two tours in Afghanistan and completed a four-month assignment to the Air Force Mortuary Affairs Operations Center at Dover Air Force Base. His novel, This Troubled Ground, was created out of those experiences. He is an award-winning military and civilian journalist and acclaimed documentary filmmaker. Early in his career, Les competed in the worldwide Air Force media contest and was named 1988 Air Force Journalist of the Year. His documentary film Bringing the Fallen Home, also based on his service at Dover, aired nationally in 2014. He wrote and published three books in the mid-1990s.

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