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Like many movies, there is a novelization attached to Act of Valor.  The book, Tom Clancy Presents: Act of Valor, a Penguin Premium Paperback, by Dick Couch and George Galdorisi was published in January (Penguin printed 400,000 copies, unusually high for a novelization, but anticipating that Act of Valor would “open big when it was released), six weeks before Act of Valor was released.  Tom Clancy Presents: Act of Valor has enjoyed several months on both the New York Times and Publisher’s Weekly mass market paperback best-seller lists, rising as high as #4 on both lists and moving into its second printing only six weeks after its initial publication date.  How the novelization came to pass is a unique story unto itself.

In April of 2011, co-author Dick Couch and I were invited by the principals at the Bandito Brothers film company to visit them at their Culver City studio and see a screening of their new film.  After the screening, we were sitting with one of the directors, Mike “Mouse” McCoy, composing ourselves after the event.  “Composing ourselves” isn’t an overstatement or hyperbole.  Act of Valor is an emotional film and a moving one, and we were, at once, completely riveted and blown away by what we had seen.

We talked with Mouse McCoy and Bandito Brothers COO, Max Leitman, about our impressions of the film and talked about some other initiatives related to the film, as well as about some of Bandito Brothers other projects (the day we visited they were in the middle of filming a commercial for the new BMW X6).  There was a slight lull in the conversation and I turned to Mouse McCoy and asked, “So, who’s writing the book?”

“The book?” he replied.  “No one.  We’ve been so busy making the movie we hadn’t had time to think about that.”

“Well, would you consider having Dick and I do that?” I said.  And with that, the novelization of Act of Valor was underway.

We believe the saga behind how we came to write the forthcoming Naval Institute book, The Kissing Sailor, is a story unto itself, really a “story within a story” that has enriched the experience of writing the book and also, we believe, has made this a vastly better book than it otherwise might have been.

In much the same way as the principals involved in this most famous photograph – Alfred Eisenstaedt, George Mendonsa, and Greta Zimmer Friedman – were drawn to that location, at that time, by forces in many ways outside control to make that photograph happen, the factors that brought us together to write this book were truly remarkable.

And like the links in a chain, if one of these events did not happen, there would be no book, this story might have remained forever untold, and this historical record would have remained unfinished.  Larry has been the prime mover in making this book happen during this over decade-and-a-half period so we’ll begin in his voice.