Dwight Jon Zimmerman

Dwight Jon Zimmerman is an award-winning author, radio host, and producer and is a member of the Military Writers Society of America and the Western Writers of America.

Zimmerman is a host on Veterans Radio, part of the Veterans Radio Network. The weekly program, which is devoted to military-themed topics past, present, and future, airs on Saturday morning at 9 a.m. and is available for listening on the Internet at www.veteransradio.net.

Zimmerman has two books scheduled for release in 2012. He has adapted Bill O'Reilly's bestselling Killing Lincoln history for the young adult market. It is titled Lincoln's Last Days and is scheduled for a Fall 2012 release. Also scheduled for release in Fall 2012 is his The Hammer and the Anvil, a graphic history biography of Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln with art by Wayne Vansant.

Zimmerman's most recent book is Saga of the Sioux (Henry Holt, Fall 2011), a young adult adaptation of Dee Brown's classic history of the American West, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee. It has been acclaimed by critics as "a powerful work" (School Library Journal), and "a masterful adaptation" (VOYA).

Zimmerman is the co-author, with John D. Gresham of Uncommon Valor: The Medal of Honor and the Six Warriors Who Earned It in Afghanistan and Iraq (St. Martin’s Press, September 2010), which has received the Military Writers Society of America’s most prestigious honor, the MWSA Founder’s Award for 2010.

His first book, First Command: Paths to Leadership (Vandamere Press 2005), which has a foreword by James M. McPherson, presents the pivotal challenges and events that occurred in the early careers of generals from George Washington to Colin Powell and how they overcame them. Zimmerman was the co-executive producer of the cable television miniseries based on his book. The miniseries debuted on the Military Channel in 2005 and has been regularly aired on the channel ever since. It won the 2005 Aurora Platinum Best of Show Award for Historical Programming. In 2009, the book received the Branson Stars and Flags Gold Medal Award in the Reference/Technical category. First Command is on the U.S. Army Chief of Infantry Recommended Reading List: Junior NCOs.

Zimmerman has written two acclaimed popular surveys of wars and weapons through the ages. The Book of War (Tess Press, 2008), about pivotal battles, leaders, and strategies from ancient to modern times, received the 2009 Gold Medal Award for Reference by the Military Writers Society of America. This was followed by The Book of Weapons (Tess Press, 2009), a critically acclaimed sequel about important weapons, weapon designers, and arms manufacturers and merchants throughout history.

Zimmerman wrote The Vietnam War: A Graphic History, illustrated by Wayne Vansant (Hill & Wang 2009), a ground-breaking book that for the first time recounted the entire Vietnam War in the graphic novel format. The Vietnam War: A Graphic History received the 2010 Gold Medal Award: Artistic/Graphic from the Military Writers Society of America and the 2010 Branson Stars and Flags Gold Medal Award in the photography/graphics category. Military Review, the official journal of the U.S. Army, placed it on its recommended reading list.

Zimmerman’s young adult biography, Tecumseh: Shooting Star of the Shawnee (Sterling Publishing, October 2010), received the 2010 Bronze Medal Award: Young Adult from the Military Writers Society of America and was a Western Writers of America 2010 finalist in the young adult category.

Zimmerman is the co-author, with John D. Gresham, of the critically acclaimed history of seven pivotal special operations from the Vietnam War to present day, Beyond Hell and Back (St. Martin’s Press, 2007).

Zimmerman has written numerous articles on military subjects for Faircount Media and other publishers. His article, “Maritime Mobility,” for The Shield of Freedom, an annual publication about the Coast Guard, was selected by the Naval War College for use in its curriculum. And his article about a special operations mission during the Korean War led by the theater’s surgeon general that had high-stakes diplomatic consequences, originally published in The Year in Special Operations 2009 was selected for re-publication by the Journal of Special Operations Medicine.

Zimmerman has been a guest lecturer at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and at the Naval War College.

He was a producer for the independent film, Trooper, which received the Bronze Remi Award at the 2010 Houston International Film Festival.

Zimmerman was the researcher for The New York Times Complete History of the Civil War, edited by Craig L. Symonds and Harold Holzer (Black Dog and Leventhal, November 2010).

Zimmerman began his career in publishing at Marvel Comics, where he held a variety of editorial positions. Among his Marvel comic book writing credits are stories for Spider-Man, The X-Men, and The Hulk, and other superheroes. In 1992, Zimmerman became executive editor of Topps Comics and was responsible for the editorial and art direction of its lines of media tie-in comics including series based on The X-Files, Mars Attacks, Jurassic Park, Zorro, Xena: Warrior Princess and other titles. In addition, Zimmerman was the writer, editor, and art director of Princess Diana the graphic novel biography of Diana, Princess of Wales published by Topps.

A native of Devils Lake, North Dakota, he presently lives in Brooklyn, New York, with his wife, Joëlle. They have two adult children.

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LCVP 18 Okinawa

Higgins and His War-winning Boats

During World War II, the United States created the largest and most powerful navy on the planet. But while its aircraft carriers, battleships, cruisers, and destroyers got the glory, there …

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Yugoslav partisans

Hitler’s Strategic Blunder World War II: 70 Years

When 1941 began, German Chancellor Adolf Hitler was reaching the peak of his authority in Europe. Only Great Britain opposed him. Because he believed that country was too weak to …

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Australians At Tobruk

The Rats of Tobruk

“The whole Empire is watching your steadfast and spirited defense of this important outpost of Egypt with gratitude and admiration.”

—British Prime Minister Winston Churchill
message to the defenders of …

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Obstacle course during World War II

“They’d Murder Me If They Ever Found Out…” Lt. Col. William M. Hoge and the Army's First Obstacle Course

When World War II started in Europe in September 1939, the United States was the 17th largest military power. Its army, containing just 190,000 troops, was effectively a constabulary force. …

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Greek soldiers work on fortifications in the Greek line at Kalamas, 1939.

A British Blunder in the East Mediterranean On the verge of victory, 58,000 British troops were transferred to a doomed Greece just as Rommel arrived in North Africa

“In view of the highly critical situation with our Italian allies, two German divisions—one light and one panzer—were to be sent to Libya to their help. I was to take …

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World War II propaganda production poster

ABC-1: Blueprint for War

In late January 1941, five British senior officers arrived in Washington, D.C. Originally the delegation was to receive an official welcome. But isolationists, furious over President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s December …

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Arsenal of Democracy: A United States M2A4 light tank provided Great Britain under the Lend-Lease Act is assembled in England. FDR Presidential Library photo

The Lend-Lease Act H.R. 1776 becomes Great Britain's savior in 1941

On Dec. 3, 1940, a month after a grueling presidential campaign that culminated in his successful re-election to a third term, President Franklin Roosevelt boarded the cruiser USS Tuscaloosa for …

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Soldiers of the Imperial Japanese Army enter Nanking (Nanjing), China, in December 1938. Bundesarchive photo

The Embargoes That Blocked Japanese Expansion and Led to War

As the Year of the Dragon (1940) gave way to the Year of the Snake (1941), the United States and Japan appeared on a collision course toward war. The Japanese …

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FDR's "fireside chats" helped Americans to grasp complex issues in simple terms, and laid the groundwork for his "Four Freedoms" speech. Library of Congress photo

A Call to Arms FDR's Four Freedoms speech resonates more than ever today

In November 1940, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt was elected to an unprecedented third term. It was a dangerous time. Nazi Germany had conquered all of Western Europe save Great Britain …

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Marines assigned to 2nd Platoon, Marine Corps Security Force Company, Rota, Spain; and soldiers from 1st Armored Division and the Joint Multinational Readiness Center based in Germany, conduct crowd control training June 14, 2006. Approximately 70 soldiers and Marines participated in a week-long, non-lethal weapons training evolution culminating in a capabilities exercise June 21.  The capabilities exercise demonstrated the various non-lethal equipment and techniques available in the European Command Theater of operations. U.S. Marine Corps Forces Europe is the designated non-lethal weapons executive agent for the European Command. DoD photo by Gunnery Sgt. Donald E. Preston.

The Joint Non-lethal Weapons Program

“Non-lethals have a crucial role on today’s battlefield and will become increasingly more relevant on future battlefields. For many reasons, non-lethal weapons offer military forces advantages as complements to lethal …

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