Julian Michael Olejniczak is a career infantry officer who served combat tours in Vietnam with Special Forces and the Vietnamese Rangers and two unaccompanied tours with an infantry division in South Korea. Stateside, he taught literature and philosophy at West Point and offensive tactics at the Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. In the interior of Alaska, he commanded an arctic light infantry battalion and later advised a National Guard brigade in New York. He earned a master of arts degree in literature from the University of Wisconsin and a joint MBA and law degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. After practicing corporate law in Nashville, he returned to West Point as vice president for alumni publications. His military decorations include the Silver Star and the Purple Heart. He also is the author of To Be a Soldier: A Selective American Military History.