Craig Trebilcock

The Army has an opioid drug problem that is not going away under current personnel policies and medical practices. The survey results recorded here indicate that senior officers attending the U. S. Army War College (USAWC) recognize that the opioid problem is distinct in nature and origin from those of recreational drug abuse. Yet, these officers are saddled with a legacy drug enforcement structure and outdated procedures that do not track opioid usage across the force and do not address the root cause of the issue. They are commanding units under a regulatory structure that belatedly responds to opioid-related misuse with the same misconduct-focused disciplinary policies as those for recreational drug use, rather than with a proactive medical and personnel approach crafted for this unique problem set that emphasizes prevention and rehabilitation. The USAWC officer survey responses reflect the fact that the majority of these future Army leaders see misuse originating out of prescribing practices...

Inspired by real-world events, AN ABSENCE OF FAITH: A Tale of Afghanistan is a novel of the collapse of Afghanistan, seen through the eyes of two protagonists, Daniyal, an Afghan army private, and Colonel Trevanathan, a U. S. Army officer, assigned the Sisyphean task of ending Afghan government corruption. Daniyal is a university student in Kabul, who is forced into the Afghan army by a military press gang. He is starved, beaten, and watches his friends die from incompetent leadership. When he is made the Headquarters clerk for the heartless Command Sergeant Major Mahmood, he learns his army's leaders are getting rich from selling their soldiers' food and medical supplies. Daniyal is torn between the privilege and safety his headquarters' job provides versus his complicity in the widespread corruption. The second parallel story is the arrival in Kabul of U. S. Army Colonel William Trevanathan, who is to be the Counter Corruption Director for the NATO command in Afghanistan. It is November 2015. Trevanathan learns that multiple NATO countries plan to pull out of the war from their frustration with Afghan embezzlement of NATO military aid. The domino effect of departing Western allies will likely lose the war against the Taliban, as the Afghan military is incapable of fighting on its own. Trevanathan's job is to prevent that NATO pullout by ensuring the corrupt Afghan government players are prosecuted, despite no Afghan politician or senior military commander having been charged in the past fifteen years. The challenge is great enough, before Colonel Trevanathan learns his efforts are being undermined by The U. S. Embassy. Both Daniyal and Trevanathan embark on a Kafka-esque adventure across the breadth of Afghanistan to save the Afghan people and themselves, as they fight to cling to their humanity and beliefs in a war where allies are enemies and yes almost always means no. For anyone who has ever wanted clarity why the U. S. was unable to defeat the Taliban despite spending $2 trillion, investing twenty years into building the Afghan National Army, and suffering tens of thousands of U. S. casualties, this is the book you've been waiting for.

One Weekend A Month is an irreverent look at the first modern American war to extensively rely upon Reservists as combatants. Through the eyes of an eight-man civil affairs squad, Team Jaguar, the Iraq War is stripped of its righteous veneer and revealed to be fear, suffering, and chaos. Major Trevanthan, the Jaguar Team leader and small town attorney from Pennsylvania, becomes disillusioned with the ill-planned and poorly executed US mission to impose democracy upon a society that does not value the concept. Searching for meaning in his environment, Trevanathan resolves to save a critically ill Iraqi orphan. As his well intentioned efforts are repeatedly frustrated, the increasingly cynical officer learns that in war, the enemy is not only the opposing military force; sometimes it is the self-interest of your own superiors and the indifference of the society you are trying to help. This is a tale of sacrifice, loss of faith, and redemption set in the land of diminishing returns - Iraq. "Craig Trebilcock has written an incisive, biting, unflinchingly honest tale that illuminates the real stories of our misadventure in Iraq." - Bernard Edelman, Editor of Dear America: Letters Home from Viet Nam. The author is a veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom, where he was decorated for valor. As a JAG and Civil Affairs officer during the invasion and subsequent occupation of Iraq, then Lieutenant Colonel Trebilcock coordinated reconstruction of the Iraqi legal system in Southern Iraq. His purpose in writing this book is to reveal the side of the Iraq War that neither the general Press nor the White House show the American people.