Ron Martz is an educator and writer who spent nearly 40 years in the newspaper business covering national and international security issues, including the initial invasion of Iraq in 2003 as an embedded reporter with U.S. Army forces; the incarceration of Taliban and al-Qaida prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in February 2002; the arrival of U.S. troops in Croatia and Bosnia in the winter of 1995-96; the Persian Gulf War in Saudi Arabia and Iraq in 1990-91; the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan in 1988; the international drug trade in Burma, Thailand, and South America in 1987-88; and the Contra-Sandinista war in Central America in 1984. He is a veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps and co-author of four books on military history. He has just finished a fifth book on national disaster preparedness with retired Army Lt. Gen. Russel Honoré which will be published in early 2009. He is a journalism instructor at North Georgia College & State University and is studying for a master’s degree in military history from Austin Peay State University.