Kate Germano was an officer in the United States Marine Corps for twenty years, retiring in July 2016. After being relieved from command of the only all female unit in the entire Department of Defense, she gained notoriety for taking a stand against the Marine Corps for gender bias and lowered standards and expectations for female recruits and Marines. Her writing has been published in national media outlets including the New York Times, Time magazine, U.S. News and World Report, and the Washington Post. She has also been featured on NPR, Vice News Tonight, CSPAN, and the PBS NewsHour.

Kelly Kennedy served in the U.S. Army from 1987 to 1993, including tours in the Middle East during Desert Storm, and in Mogadishu, Somalia. She works as a plain-language writer for The So Company, worked as a health policy reporter for USA TODAY, spent five years covering military health at Military Times, and is the author of “They Fought for Each Other: The Triumph and Tragedy of the Hardest Hit Unit in Iraq.” She is working with Marine Lt. Col. Kate Germano on a book to be published by Prometheus Books. In 2010, she received an Honorary Mention John B. Oakes environmental journalism award for her reporting on burn pits in Iraq and Afghanistan. In 2008, she was named one of four finalists for Atlantic Media’s Michael Kelly Award for a series, “Blood Brothers,” about a unit she embedded with in Iraq. She is also a 2008 Ochberg Fellow, sponsored by the Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma; and a 2008 Rosalynn Carter Mental Health Journalism Foundation Fellow.