Author/Journalist
Kelly Kennedy is the ghostwriter for Christine Brown's No.1 New York Times bestselling book "Sister Wife: A Memoir of Faith, Family, and Finding Freedom," as well as the best-selling author of "They Fought for Each Other: The Triumph and Tragedy of the Hardest Hit Unit in Iraq.," She co-wrote Adam Gamal's "The Unit: My Life Fighting Terrorists as One of America's Most Secret Military Operatives," Pete Lapp's "Queen of Cuba: An FBI Agent's Insider Account of the Spy Who Evaded Detention for 17 Years," and Kate Germano's "Fight Like a Girl: The Truth Behind how Female Marines are Trained."
She edits and ghostwrites books, teaches writing seminars, and is working on several projects of her own.
An award-winning journalist, Kennedy embedded in both Iraq and Afghanistan, and served as Military Reporters & Editors' first female president. She is the only American woman to have both served in combat in the U.S. military and covered U.S. combat as a civilian. She is the investigative reporter who broke the stories about the burn pits in Iraq and Afghanistan that ultimately led to the PACT Act of 2022, which greatly broadened benefits veterans are eligible for due to toxic exposure.
She is a Michael Kelly award finalist, and, in 2021, received a Robert F. Kennedy Humanitarian Journalism Award and a national Edward R. Murrow award as the managing editor of The War Horse.
She spent several years at USA TODAY covering the Affordable Care Act, as well as veterans' issues such as Gulf War Illness and the burn pits in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Kennedy's career began when she joined the Army at age 17 as a way to pay for her college education to become a journalist.
She served in Iraq, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia during Operation Desert Storm in 1991; and then in Mogadishu, Somalia, in 1992 and 1993.
After leaving the military, she spent the first half of her career covering civilian issues, such as education and crime, at newspapers that include The Oregonian and The Salt Lake Tribune.
In grad school at the University of Colorado, she focused her studies on military policy and history, as well as Middle Eastern politics. Since then, her work often focuses on the military and veterans' issues.
