We love the troops here at Victory Girls.  We send them care packages, we write them letters, we volunteer with the wounded, and we just straight up believe that they deserve every possible care and comfort we can give them, as small thanks for the incredible work and sacrifice that they do every day.

But what about the thousands of civilian contractors, doing the same jobs, fighting the same enemies, and bleeding the same color?  You may think you know all about them—but you don’t.  And as always, VG is here to fix that.  In our never-ending quest to bring our readers awesome things to read (see what I did there?), I decided to do a interview-review of the new book by terrorism and security expert Kerry Patton, called Contracted: America’s Secret Warriors.  It’s one of those books that comes under the heading of “Would be Classified if Not a Novel.”  In short, it’s not former-insurance-guy-turned-military-writer stuff (coughTomClancycough).  Kerry Patton’s “novel” is the real deal, and it will take you inside the world not often talked about—covert intelligence operations.  It’s also a ridiculously entertaining read, managing to keep readers interested while simultaneously highlighting some very real issues that contractors and their families face just like the military—and with none of the support.