The Army Strategist Association is excited to host David L. Roll, as he discusses his book, "George Marshall: Defender of the Republic." Event is open to the public, so please invite friends and colleagues. A Zoom link will also be sent to attendees that cannot attend in-person and RSVP 24 hours prior to the event. Food and beverages will be provided.  Please contact Adam Nestor at anestor79@gmail.com or 703-989-5304 with questions. 

The extraordinary career of George Catlett Marshall—America’s most distinguished soldier–statesman since George Washington—whose selfless leadership and moral character influenced the course of two world wars and helped define the American century.   Winston Churchill called him World War II's "organizer of victory." Harry Truman said he was "the greatest military man that this country ever produced." Today, in our era of failed leadership, few lives are more worthy of renewed examination than Marshall and his fifty years of loyal service to the defense of his nation and its values.  Even as a young officer he was heralded as a genius, a reputation that grew when in WWI he planned and executed a nighttime movement of more than a half million troops from one battlefield to another that led to the armistice. Between the wars he helped modernize combat training and re-staffed the U.S. Army's officer corps with the men who would lead in the next decades. But as WWII loomed, it was the role of army chief of staff in which Marshall's intellect and backbone were put to the test, when his blind commitment to duty would run up against the realities of Washington politics. Long seen as a stoic, almost statuesque figure, he emerges in these pages as a man both remarkable and deeply human, thanks to newly discovered sources. Set against the backdrop of five major conflicts—two world wars, Palestine, Korea, and the Cold War—Marshall's education in military, diplomatic, and political power, replete with their nuances and ambiguities, runs parallel with America's emergence as a global superpower. The result is a defining account of one of our most consequential leaders.

"A book as necessary as it is great. At a time when Americans are struggling to define what real leadership looks like, David Roll's brilliant new portrait of George Marshall offers valuable” - General Stanley McCrystal, U.S. Army, Ret.

"A hugely significant book on an American leader to whom freedom around the world owes an enormous debt...David Roll provides a portrait of Marshall that is far more penetrating and nuanced than past biographies and establishes very clearly that George C. Marshall was an extraordinary defender of the republic at one of the most perilous times in our history” - General David Petraeus, U.S. Army, Ret.

David L. Roll is the author of The Hopkins Touch: Harry Hopkins and the Forging of the Alliance to Defeat Hitler (Oxford) and the coauthor of Louis Johnson and the Arming of America (Indiana University Press), a biography of Harry Truman’s defense secretary. Recently retired as Senior Counsel at Steptoe & Johnson LLP, a Washington DC-based international law firm, Mr. Roll now serves as a Nonresident Fellow at the German Marshall Fund, and founder of the Lex Mundi Pro Bono Foundation, a public interest organization that provides pro bono legal services to social entrepreneurs around the world.