I'm writing a collaborative book about the active military and families affected or involved in Operation Enduring Freedom following the September 11th Attack in New York 2001. And the more people who reserve a copy, the better each one will be!

The book isn't about the Terrorist Attack, it's about the regaining of strength, pulling communities together and Enduring Freedom in their life personally and professionally.

Hello friends, Bloggers, Twitter pals, fellow veterans and the family members/supporters of military members.

The basic setup is: I was in the Navy, stationed on the USS Carl Vinson and we had left Singapore 3 days prior to September 11th, 2001...and I was now apart of this historic and tragic event.  More importantly a part of Operation Enduring Freedom.

"Operation Enduring Freedom" (OEF) is the official name used by the U.S. government for the War in Afghanistan, together with a number of smaller military actions, under the umbrella of the Global "War on Terror" (GWOT).

My hope with this project is to help build a community of veteran owned businesses and people who want to support the veteran community.  I personally want to be able to provide free resources to help veteran owned small businesses thrive.

This campaign is simple, I'm going to hand pick veteran owned business owners and professionals with an interesting and inspirational story, then take the ideas and write it out in book form.  This should cover almost all the costs involved.

...also, people are always fascinated with the interesting stories of military members and I'd like to help these veterans share their story with the world.

This will be a way for vets to share their story, get the word out about their business, and help them get their positive message of how they have overcome challenges and share their insights, strategies and ideas on becoming successful in this changing economy today.

When veteran owned businesses grow they are able to hire new people, create new jobs and help local communities.  I see several groups that support homeless veterans, however I think we can help the overall economy by supporting veteran owned business owners, when they grow they create more jobs, we need to do our part give back to them.

Being a veteran myself, I have a sincere desire to lead the way in this cause, help facilitate this project to share a positive message of veteran owned business owners...but I can’t do it on my own….that’s where you come into the picture.

Now, the goal of this project is to put a book in your hands. And the cool thing about books is that they enjoy tremendous economies of scale. So here's the opportunity: as more people reserve books, everybody's book gets better.

Goals?

If only 60 backers at $25 support this project we can fund the book and start building the community to support veteran owned business owners.

If I can get 200+ backers, suddenly we're talking better materials, more images... maybe even a physical copy to the top 2 level backers.

And more than 400...? We can include some audio/video bonus resources and we'd like to reward the veterans who contribute their story and look for was to support the business owners in the community, also veterans looking for jobs can be matched with companies looking to hire vets.

The whole process is going to be really fun, too. Any amount of support gets you behind-the-scenes access, and I'm going to share ideas, sketches, observations, and questions as I go.

So, I'm aiming for roughly 20,000 words — which is a length that's reasonable for me to write and for you to read. I'm writing this right now. My deadline for finished and edited text is October 10. I'll design the book and within two weeks after that, get it uploaded, then send it your way.