John Fenzel

John Fenzel (born June 17, 1962) is an American author of thriller fiction, notably for the 2009 international suspense novel, The Lazarus Covenant.
Fenzel is also a currently-serving senior Army Special Forces officer who has served on battlefields throughout Europe and the Middle East. He has served as a military assistant on the personal staff of the Secretary of Defense, as a Special Assistant to the Vice President, and as a White House Fellowduring the Clinton and Bush administrations. As the primary author of [http://www.dhs.gov/xabout/laws/gc_1214508631313.shtm#1 Homeland Security Presidential Directive 3,]he is widely regarded as the architect of the Homeland Security Advisory System, the color-coded alert system for the United States; on his website, however, Fenzel quickly acknowledges the role of many people and agencies throughout the government, and states that he "initiated the process and led the effort in developing it."
Fenzel states on his website that his novel, The Lazarus Covenant is "a fictional story designed to convey the reality of crisis resolution and war termination" and stresses that the book "conveys the need to erase the terrible scourge of hatred and religious extremism, and to work for enduring, long-term solutions to these problems."
Army Special Forces Career
Fenzel commanded the Special Forces Training Battalion at Fort Bragg (Camp Mackall), North Carolina. In the wake of the September 11th attacks, he served as Staff Director for Tom Ridge in the Homeland Security Council.
In his nearly three decades of military service, Fenzel served in numerous command and staff positions around the world.
In an interview, he stated that during his first five years in the Army, he "developed programs and means to defend our soldiers against nuclear, biological, and chemical attack on the battlefield. During those Cold War days I was also responsible for the authentication and release of nuclear weapons if the National Command Authority ordered it."
During Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm], he commanded a Special Forces "A-Team," training, equipping and advising a Kuwaiti Battalion and accompanying them during the liberation of Kuwait. He has commanded three Special Forces companies, leading the first Army deployments to Pakistan and the Baltic States. In Bosnia, he commanded the special operations teams in the U.S. and British sectors, working closely with the United Nations to secure the indictments and convictions of those responsible for war crimes in Srebrenica. He is the only active duty American military officer to testify at The Hague in support of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY).
He is a graduate of the Naval War College and the National War College. Born in Cedar Rapids, Iowa and raised outside Chicago, Fenzel lives with his wife and three children at Fort Knox, Kentucky where he commands an Army brigade.
Writing Career
International suspense novel, The Lazarus Covenant.
Fenzel began writing The Lazarus Covenant after returning home from his first deployment to Bosnia in 1997. Questions from his family and friends about the operational environments he was exposed to in Europe and the Middle East, he said, were typically left unanswered for lack of adequate or readily available description. Finally, after reading Tom Clancy's Red Storm Rising, Fenzel believed he could convey a sense of "what it was like" through a fictional venue. After a decade of research, personally visiting each setting location, Fenzel completed his novel.
Characters in Fenzel's book are often named after real people he has encountered around the world. Mark Lyons is named after a policeman from Ireland who he met on several occasions in Bosnia; however, the character represents a conglomeration of special operations personnel he personally knows and has encountered. Roman Polko is named after a Polish brigade commander who Fenzel met in Kosovo, and who impressed him immensely. Lieutenant General Lester "Butch" Sterns is fashioned after Fenzel's first battalion commander, Lieutenant Colonel Lester C. "Butch" Stearns--one of his early mentors during the height of the Cold War. Captain Dan Irons is named after one of Fenzel's good friends and Soldiers, who is now a police sergeant in Morristown, New Jersey. Al Dempsey is named after one of his Special Forces Team Sergeants. Other characters are entirely contrived through research and the use of telephone books.
Fenzel met his wife, Ciri, in Greensboro, North Carolina while he was commanding his Special Forces battalion. She asked to read his manuscript in progress, then tentatively entitled: "Covenant of Terror." She accompanied Fenzel to Bosnia in April 2005 for his final trip in researching the novel. Once they arrived in Dubrovnik, Croatia, Fenzel proposed to her on the city walls overlooking the Mediterranean. Fenzel often calls his wife his "primary researcher and marketer."
Next Novel
Fenzel says he is currently working on a novel tentatively entitled, Truth of the Father, which will be set in Chicago Lawn, Washington, D.C., Russia and the Baltic States.
Personal Life
Fenzel continues to serve as a United States Army Special Forces Colonel, commanding an Army brigade. He is married with two daughters, and a son.

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