Searching for True Community

When I told my wife I wanted to write a book on national security, she said, “Dave, that’s boring! Can’t you find something more interesting to write about?”

It wasn’t the response I was expecting, but it turns out that she did me a big favor. Because we’re missing something that’s widening the gap between those West Point grads and the rest of us.

We’re missing the simple fact that national security is about you. You are the customer. If those West Point grads want your support, it’s up to them to come to you, not the other way around.

The reason national security feels boring is because the ‘experts’ don’t know how to make it connect with you. And when I realized all that … my mission became clear!

I didn’t write a self-help book to make you the next Secretary of State or a consultant to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, but to give you this simple idea that you are not just a part of the strategy to peace, you are the strategy. The goal of that strategy is to raise you up so you can chase your dreams, be your own best advocate, and define the problems that need to be solved.

I saw self-help as the model for change because we turn to it every day for independence and understanding, to take ownership of our future, to ask better questions and get better results.  We turn to self-help for healthier relationships.

And it's a model that can work for national security, as well.

National security is in the news every day and it really does touch our lives in so many ways.

Like playing six degrees of Kevin Bacon, it’s easy connect any topic to national security. Healthcare, childhood obesity, education, supply chains, Tik Tok, the list goes on and on. Wars. Defense Budgets. Foreign Aid. NATO. Taiwan. Iran. The South China Sea. It’s all around us.

It should be easy to talk about, but it’s not.

That’s because national security is certainly about our defense, international relations, and all that jazz. That’s one part of the story. But the other part is about our entrepreneurs, our artists, and our authors. It’s about the goals and ambitions you have for yourself and your children. It’s what you value and how we secure those values that matter. It's a story about you.

And like oil and water, those two parts compete.

You want to feel secure so you can create, innovate and pursue your dreams, but often feel your leaders aren’t interested in what you want for yourself. And that’s unsettling when handing over a $1 trillion military budget each year. Ironically, the more resources we put towards our security, the less secure we feel. 

As the first self-help book on national security, Searching for True Community is an entertaining introduction written for you, broadening your perspective on what national security is, and how it impacts your life. 

By encouraging us to be well-informed and proactive, this book aims to demystify national security, making it more accessible and fostering better conversations that can lead to collective vigilance and understanding. Self-help doesn’t replace the experts, but it does improve our relationship with them by acknowledging the simple fact that you – not them - are your own best advocate.

With over twenty years of executive experience, Dave's mission is always to foster cultures of excellence and innovation. From his military service to the professional services space, that mission has opened the door to many transformative and challenging opportunities demanding a focus on strategic planning, improved communications, and innovative thinking. His leadership philosophy is grounded in promoting a healthy collaboration that rewards initiative and encourages participation as the best way to problem solve.

As an author, he's extended that philosophy - with an expertise in national security law - into the literary world, pioneering a unique self-help approach to national security. This endeavor reflects his commitment to empowering individuals through awareness and understanding, intertwining out of the box thinking and creative writing with a passion for fostering accessible and proactive conversations on complex topics so we can all achieve better outcomes for ourselves and our communities.

Dave is a veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan, he led several transformational initiatives, and spearheaded strategic programs such as ‘Afghan First’, a startup program to create a market for local goods and services in Afghanistan. He was hand selected as subject matter expert in optimizing a 26,000-personnel logistics organization and led a $3.2B program to conduct a logistically and fiscally responsible logistics drawdown from Afghanistan.

He received his law degree and later a Master of Laws degree in National Security Law, from Georgetown University. As the author of the first self-help book on national security, his goal is to make a complex topic more relatable to all of us, so we can ask better questions and get better results.