Random Home creator/journalist Wesley Morgan has gained this yr’s William E. Colby Award for his ebook, THE HARDEST PLACE: The American Navy Adrift in Afghanistan’s Pech Valley. Norwich College in Northfield, Vermont, yearly presents this award, now in its twenty third yr, to a primary solo work of fiction or nonfiction that has made a serious contribution to the understanding of army historical past, intelligence operations or worldwide affairs. The Colby Award was named for the late ambassador and former CIA director William E. Colby. Award winners obtain a $5,000 creator honorarium supplied by the Pritzker Navy Basis.
“Wesley Morgan’s THE HARDEST PLACE is an excellent and vital story of recent conflict, deserving of the very best reward. It’s precisely the form of work that the Colby Award is meant to focus on and have a good time,” commented Alex Kershaw, Colby Award choice committee chairman, historian and bestselling creator.
“I’m excited to obtain this award for army and intelligence protection, since utilizing the lens of Kunar province’s Pech valley for example how these two topics blended collectively at key factors through the twenty-year U.S. conflict within the Afghan east was considered one of my targets with THE HARDEST PLACE,” Morgan mentioned. “It’s additionally an honor to affix the corporate of previous award recipients, together with an Army Ranger who served in Kunar, Paul Scharre; a Marine Harrier pilot who flew missions over the Pech, Michael Franzak; Bing West, who lined the conflict within the Pech and the Korengal; and Karl Marlantes, whose Vietnam novel Matterhorn I learn simply earlier than my first journey to the Pech and was reminded of when the battalion commander within the valley turned out to be studying it as effectively.”
Our congratulations to Mr. Morgan, his editor, Molly Turpin, and everybody at Random Home.
THE HARDEST PLACE is the story of one of many twenty-first century’s most unforgiving battlefields and a portrait of the American army that fought there. Morgan first visited the Pech in 2010, whereas he was nonetheless a school pupil embedding with army models as a freelancer. By then, the Pech and its notorious tributary the Korengal had turn into emblematic of the conflict, however Morgan discovered that few of the troops combating there may clarify why their distant outposts had been constructed. In THE HARDEST PLACE, he unravels the historical past these troops didn’t know, captures the tradition and actuality of the conflict by way of each American and Afghan eyes, and experiences on the snowballing American missteps that made every unit’s job tougher than the final as storied outfits like Marines, paratroopers, Rangers, Inexperienced Berets, and SEALs all took their flip.
