Goodreads asked Ryan Smithson:

Where did you get the idea for your most recent book?

Ryan Smithson The idea for the biography I'm currently working on is what a New Ager might call "stars aligning." I started working as a proposal writer for a technology company, and a fellow employee began telling me about his brother-in-law, an army lieutenant who was killed in Afghanistan in 2008. When his funeral announcement appeared in the paper, his family watched as people vilified the soldier on Internet message boards because he was Muslim. I knew I needed to help share his story and perspective, perhaps one of the most important in this new age of polarity and extremism.

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