Ryan McDermott

Ryan McDermott is an Iraq War veteran, West Point graduate, former infantry officer, and author of Downriver: Memoir of a Warrior Poet, an award-winning military memoir about combat leadership, PTSD, fatherhood, faith, Wall Street, and the long road home after war. Commissioned as an Infantry Officer in 2000, he earned the Ranger Tab and led a hybrid infantry-armor platoon during the opening phase of Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003, receiving the Bronze Star Medal.

After returning home from Iraq, McDermott faced the quieter battles of PTSD, marriage, fatherhood, and reintegration before entering another high-pressure world: Wall Street. As a Lehman Brothers associate during the 2008 financial crisis, he witnessed the collapse of an American institution from the inside.

Downriver has been widely recognized as a multiple award-winning Iraq War memoir, earning Gold in the Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Awards, the Military Writers Society of America Gold Medal, the Illumination Book Awards Gold Medal, first-place honors from the Chanticleer International Book Awards, finalist recognition from the Feathered Quill Book Awards, and a 9.5/10 critics score in the BookLife Prize Contest.

McDermott writes and speaks about combat leadership, moral injury, resilience, faith, and the difficult work of rebuilding after war.