John Fenzel

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The Lazarus Covenant: A Thriller By John Fenzel 

About the Author

John Fenzel is a senior Army Special Forces officer who has served on our nation’s battlefields throughout Europe and the Middle East. He has served as a military assistant on the personal staff of the Secretary of Defense, as a Special Assistant to the Vice President, and as a White House Fellow during the Clinton and Bush administrations.

He commanded the Special Forces Training Battalion at Fort Bragg, North Carolina and an Army brigade at Fort Knox, Kentucky.  In the wake of the September 11th attacks, he served as Staff Director for Tom Ridge in the Homeland Security Council. He was the principal architect of The Homeland Security Advisory System, our nation’s color-coded alert system. 

In his 25 years of military service, John has served in numerous command and staff positions around the world.  During Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm, he commanded a Special Forces “A-Team,” training, equipping and advising a Kuwaiti Battalion and accompanying them during the liberation of Kuwait. He has commanded three Special Forces companies, leading the first Army deployments to Pakistan and the Baltic States. In Bosnia, he commanded the special operations teams in the U.S. and British sectors, working closely with the United Nations to secure the indictments and convictions of those responsible for war crimes in Srebrenica.   He is the only active duty American military officer to testify at The Hague in support of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY).

John is a graduate of the Naval War College and the National War College. Born in Iowa and raised outside Chicago, John lives with his wife and three children in Washington, D.C. The Lazarus Covenant is his first novel.

Book Signing: Barnes & Noble, Fayetteville, NC. Friday, 27 November 2009

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Operation Cobra Gold

                                                                                                                                                                 

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SSG Siriporn Brushwood, conducts an eye exam on a Thai woman so she can get a pair of glasses in Huey Geung, Thailand, in support of a Medical Capabilities exercise during Exercise Cobra Gold ‘05 on April 25, 2005. Brushwood is deployed to Thailand for the joint-combined exercise from the 351st Civil Affairs Command. DoD photo by Staff Sgt. Aaron Allmon, (L) U.S. Air Force.

CSM (Retired) William H. Brushwood

William H. Brushwood

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Command Sergeant Major (Retired) William H. Brushwood Died October 12, 2008, in Fayetteville, North Carolina.

CSM Brushwood enlisted 1951 with the 11th Airborne Division, Fort Campbell, Kentucky, and then served in the following units: 89th AFA Battalion as an airborne artilleryman; 508th ARCT as an infantryman; Pathfinder Platoon as a pathfinder; and 188th AIR as an infantryman. He was an instructor in the division Jump School from 1954 to 1955. He gyroscoped to Germany with the division in 1956 and then deployed with the 1st ABO, 187th Infantry Regiment to Lebanon during the 1958 crisis. In 1959 he gyroscoped back to the 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg, North Carolina.

Brushwood was the 3rd Army Rifle and Pistol Match individual rifle champion in 1960. He was assigned to USAMU in 1962 as a Service Rifle Shooter and Instructor and was a shooting member of the 1962 winning Infantry Trophy Team at the National Matches. He also earned the U.S. Army Distinguished Rifleman Badge in 1962.

In 1966, Brushwood was reassigned to Special Forces and served three years at various camps in II Corps, RVN. Assignments included the 5th SFGA as Intelligence and Operations Sergeant and the 46th SFCA in Thailand as Operations Sergeant. He returned to 5th SFGA, Fort Bragg, North Carolina, in 1973 and served as Operations Sergeant and Command Sergeant Major. He retired in 1981 with 30 years of airborne service.

His awards include the Bronze Star Medal, Meritorious Service Medal, two Army Commendation medals, nine Good Conduct medals, National Defense Service Medal, Vietnam Service Medal with 9 campaign stars, Vietnamese Gallantry Cross with palm, Combat Infantryman Badge, Expert Infantryman Badge, U.S. Army Distinguished Rifleman Badge, Master Thai, Vietnamese, and Iranian Parachutist badges, Pathfinder Badge, Special Forces Tab and Ranger Tab.

Ft. Hood, PFC. Kham Xiong

 

 

 

 

Xiong, 23, a married father of three children ages 4, 2 and 10 months, had moved to Texas from St. Paul, Minnesota in July.

He was one of 11 siblings whose family came to the U.S. from Laos when he was just a toddler. His family had a history of military service. Xiong’s father, Chor Xiong, is a native of Laos who fought the Viet Cong alongside the CIA in 1972; Chor’s father, Kham’s grandfather, also fought with the CIA; and Kham’s brother, Nelson, is a Marine serving in Afghanistan.

“I very mad,” Xiong’s father said Friday. Through sniffles and tears, he said his son died for “no reason” and he has a hard time believing Kham is gone.

Kham Xiong was preparing to deploy to Afghanistan, and his sister Mee Xiong said the family would be able to understand if he would have died in battle. “He didn’t get to go overseas and do what he’s supposed to do, and he’s dead … killed by our own people,” Mee Xiong said.

Ft. Hood, Lt. Col. Juanita Warman

 

 

Ft. Hood, PVT. Francheska Velez

 

 

 

 

 Velez, 21, of Chicago, had just returned from a tour of duty in Iraq. She was three months pregnant and due home by December for the start of maternity leave.

A friend of Velez’s, Sasha Ramos, described her as a fun-loving person who wrote poetry and loved dancing. “She was like my sister,” Ramos, 21, said. “She was the most fun and happy person you could know. She never did anything wrong to anybody.”

“She was a very happy girl and sweet,” said her father, Juan Guillermo Velez, his eyes red from crying. “She had the spirit of a child.”

You Are Not Forgotten.

Ft. Hood, CPT. Russell Seager

 

 

 

 

Ft. Hood, PFC. Michael Pearson

 

 

 

 

Ft. Hood, PFC. Aaron Thomas Nemelka

 

 

 

 

Nemelka, 19, of the Salt Lake City suburb of West Jordan, Utah, chose to join the Army instead of going on a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, his uncle Christopher Nemelka said. “As a person, Aaron was as soft and kind and as gentle as they come, a sweetheart,” his uncle said. “What I loved about the kid was his independence of thought.”

The youngest of four children, he was scheduled to be deployed to Afghanistan in January, his family said in a statement. He had enlisted in the Army in October 2008.

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