Kevin Benson served in the US Army as a commander and general staff officer for 30 years. He was the Director of Plans for Third U.S. Army and the Combined Forces Land Component Command at the beginning of Operation Iraqi Freedom, from July 2002 to July 2003. His final assignment in the US Army was Director, School of Advanced Military Studies, at Fort Leavenworth, KS. He writes for professional journals and web sites ranging from Parameters, Military Review, and ARMY magazine to Strategy Bridge and the Modern War Institute. He reviews books for ARMY magazine.
"""Of all the many mistakes the United States made in invading Iraq, none was as damning as the mishandling of postwar security and reconstruction. The place to start to understand that fiasco is with Kevin Benson's Expectation of Valor. No one is better placed to do so as Benson led the U.S. Army's planning team for the invasion and its aftermath. It was their plan that was disregarded and that could have led to a far better outcome had it been followed. In these pages, Benson explains how that plan was crafted, the obstacles it faced, and how it was ultimately ignored. It is a story both fascinating and tragic, and all too important.""--Kenneth M. Pollack, former CIA Persian Gulf military analyst and author of ""Armies of Sand: The Past, Present, and Future of Arab Military Effectiveness"""