Bing West
Military author and Marine veteran
Bing West is an American author and Marine combat veteran who writes about war and the military. He is co-author of Call Sign Chaos, the memoir of General Jim Mattis.
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American Born 1940 in Boston, United States
About Bing West
Francis J. "Bing" West Jr. was born in 1940. He served in the Marine infantry in Vietnam, where he took part in major operations and went on more than a hundred combat patrols between 1966 and 1968. He later served as Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs under President Reagan. West writes about the military, warfighting and counterinsurgency. Drawing on his own combat experience and dozens of embeds with troops over the decades, he has authored twelve books on the wars in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan. Between 2003 and 2008 he traveled to Iraq on sixteen extended trips. He also wrote the Marine Corps training manual Small Unit Action in Vietnam. He co-authored the memoir of General Jim Mattis, Call Sign Chaos: Learning to Lead. West is a graduate of Georgetown and Princeton Universities, and the Department of Defense twice awarded him its Distinguished Civilian Service medal.