On the homefront
‘Outlaw Platoon’ author funds service dogs for veterans
Four hundred and 85 days of heavy fighting with the Army in Afghanistan earned Sean Parnell two Bronze Stars — one for valor. A horrific head injury got him a Purple Heart and ultimately a medical discharge from the military.
Mr. Parnell, 37, grew up in Oakland and Murrysville and now lives in Cranberry with his wife and three children. Although he left Afghanistan in 2007 and the Army in 2010, “the war is always with me,” he said in a telephone interview.
He chooses to channel his experiences and memories in positive ways, including writing two books and co-founding the American Warrior Initiative to help men and women who served in the military. Dogs are an important part of the nonprofit foundation.
The American Warrior Initiative, founded in 2013, has teamed 40 highly trained service dogs with veterans dealing with traumatic brain injury and/or post traumatic stress.
Partnering with Fairway Mortgage and the company’s 6,000 employees, AWI has also awarded 30 mortgage-free homes, sent families on dream vacations and given thousands of dollars in emergency family grants.
On Sept. 11, Mr. Parnell’s fast-paced action novel, “Man of War,” was published by William Morrow, an imprint of HarperCollins.
The book’s hero, Eric Steele, was raised in Pennsylvania and was a Special Forces soldier who served in Afghanistan. He’s now a top secret agent who operates outside the military, answering directly to the U.S. president as he fights to save his country from a rogue agent who is trying to destroy it.
The book rates a favorable dust-jacket blurb from Lee Child, author of the hugely popular Jack Reacher books. Mr. Child says “Man of War” is “fast, hard and effortlessly authentic.”
Mr. Parnell graduated from Duquesne University, where he took the ROTC path that enabled him to enter the Army as a second lieutenant. He was an Army Ranger and at 24 was named commander of the 10th Mountain Division, which became known as the Outlaw Platoon.
The Outlaws killed more than 350 enemy fighters. Although 85 percent of Mr. Parnell’s men were awarded Purple Hearts for wounds incurred in battle, only one was killed. Suicide has taken a bigger toll. Outlaw Platoon has lost three men to suicide, and that’s one of the factors that drives Mr. Parnell to write and speak on behalf of veterans.
Mr. Parnell, who was a captain when he was medically discharged, is too modest to model his book’s lead character after himself — although he could have. Eric Steele, he says, is inspired by a colonel he served with in Afghanistan. At 6 foot 5 and 275 pounds, the real Col. Steele was so big that Mr. Parnell wondered how he could fit in a Humvee.
In 2010 another very large man was assigned to Mr. Parnell’s unit — Army Ranger Alejandro Villanueva, now an offensive lineman for the Pittsburgh Steelers.
Mr. Parnell’s first book, “Outlaw Platoon,” written with John R. Bruning, was a New York Times bestseller in 2012. Descriptions of battles near the Afghanistan-Pakistan border are heart-stoppingly vivid. Details about the effects of war on U.S. soldiers and Afghan civilians are heartbreaking, including the child who died in Mr. Parnell’s arms on his first day in Afghanistan.
I read both books and thought they were well-written and hard to put down. Afghanistan changed every man in the platoon, Mr. Parnell wrote in his memoir.
“We’re all rebuilding. We started over. Some of us have done OK. Some of us have really struggled.”
After leaving the Army, Mr. Parnell earned a master’s degree in clinical psychology at Duquesne University. He has just finished his third book, another Eric Steele novel. He works as CEO of Branding Freedom, which he says is a marketing company that helps young authors. He travels frequently to raise money for the American Warrior Initiative. A regular commentator on Fox News, he said time with his family is a priority.
Working to fund service dogs is almost magical, Mr. Parnell said. “Once you pair a veteran with a dog, you see see the healing effect.” Some applicants spend as long as 10 years on waiting lists for service dogs at many organizations.
American Warrior Initiative donates between $10,000 and $15,000 for each of the dogs. The dogs are trained by other nonprofits, including Soldier’s Best Friend in Arizona, which finds most of its dogs at shelters.
Even though the war is always with Mr. Parnell, he said it does not define him.
“The war makes me what I am. It drives me to be successful.”