Elliot Ackerman Explains How War and Humor Shaped Sheepdogs

Fletcher alumnus Elliot Ackerman has lived many lives: Silver Star–decorated Marine, CIA officer, journalist and bestselling author. His new novel, Sheepdogs, tells a globe-trotting buddy-comedy adventure story. Ackerman sat down with Fletcher to talk about war, writing and why sometimes the hardest truths are best told with humor.

The Fletcher School: Tell us about your new book, Sheepdogs.

Elliot Ackerman: Sheepdogs is the story of a former CIA officer and a former Afghan pilot. After the fall of Kabul, they are living in the United States, down on their luck. They become international repo men, and they steal a private jet from an airfield in Africa for a guy named Sheepdog. Very quickly, they realize that not everything on the jet is as it seems. A heist story ensues.

You yourself were deployed as a Marine in Afghanistan and worked in the intelligence world. How does having personal experience of these subjects help you when writing fiction?

It gives me an understanding of who my characters are and the world they live in. For instance, the American CIA officer in the novel is named Skwerl because, like a squirrel, he's a guy who can get anything. But he spells his name S-K-W-E-R-L. Why? Well, because Marines are known for winning wars not spelling bees. When he got his nickname, that's how everyone spelled it.

The other main character is an Afghan, a guy named Cheese. He was Afghanistan's answer to Maverick from Top Gun, the greatest pilot his country ever produced. People called him “the Big Cheese Aziz.”

These characters aren't necessarily a one-for-one with people I know, but the tone and granularity of their world is the world that I know. 

Will people you served with read the novel and say, I think I might be Skwerl or Cheese?

Since the book came out, I've heard from a lot of those guys. I think there are a lot of Easter eggs in the book for those I served with. There are certainly inside jokes in there. It definitely points and nods to experiences that we had.

You've been an advocate for Afghans who worked with the United States during the war. One of your recent books, The Fifth Act, recounts efforts to help Afghans who were stranded after the U.S. withdrawal in 2021. Was it important to include an Afghan character as one of the lead characters in the novel?

Absolutely. It was essential. Sheepdogs is a story that can't be told without that perspective, because the Afghan experience and the American experience are so tightly interwound during that period. The friendship between Skwerl and Cheese is very similar to the types of friendships that I had with many Afghans I served alongside. I hope an Afghan reader or an American reader who was involved in the war will recognize the dynamic between the novel’s two protagonists.

You’ve written non-fiction works like The Fifth Act alongside novels like Sheepdogs. What do you find are the major differences in your process for fiction vs. nonfiction?

I’ve found less difference than people might think. Obviously, when writing nonfiction, everything must be true. In fiction, I have the benefit of creating a plot point or character out of whole cloth. But fundamentally. I’m telling a story in both fiction and nonfiction. I’m deciding where to begin, where to focus and what imagery to include.

The book takes readers to lots of locations. Are these places you visited while writing?

It’s a jet-setting caper. It travels from Uganda to the south of France, the Colorado Rockies and Ukraine. It was important to depict my characters in many locales, showing how large a footprint and how tangled a web they find themselves in.

I've been to many of these places before, but not necessarily because I was researching the book. They're places I was familiar with from my life and experiences, which I’ve been able to draw from while writing.

Critics and readers have compared Sheepdogs to the works of Quentin Tarantino, Elmore Leonard and Ian Fleming. It's quite a disparate group of authors. Did you have any key creative influences that guided you as you wrote your first comic novel?

The book is fundamentally a buddy comedy. But it's also an action story and a heist story. Books by Elmore Leonard and Joseph Heller guided me, but also great films like Lethal Weapon or 48 Hours.

Those are all cultural touchstones for me. And they're all books or films that are a lot of fun.

In your recent New York Times interview, you said that war is too serious to take seriously all the time. Some of the most resonant depictions of war in fiction are humorous or satirical: Duck Soup, Dr. Strangelove, Catch 22, M*A*S*H*. Were you able to tap into truths about conflict that were harder to expose without humor?

A comedic story is simply a story in a different tone, right? But telling a story in this tone is true to war. The reality is, when I meet up with old friends who I shared wartime experiences with, we often tell funny stories. That material hadn’t appeared much in my other books, and I felt I was leaving something out. I really wanted to include it in this new series.

When starting a project, I make artistic choices. I think about the story, but also the tone that best serves that story. There are certainly stories best told with an elegiac tone. There are other stories that require humor and absurdity to convey the truth. 

War is often very absurd. That's what I wanted to explore with Sheepdogs.

Are there lessons for readers of Sheepdogs to learn about conflict, security or global affairs? 

There certainly are. I'm hesitant to say that the book will teach readers, because it sounds like a plate of vegetables. Sheepdogs is a fun meal. But there are certainly moments in the book that meditate on the nature of conflict and the economies of conflict. 

The book’s epigraph is a famous quote by Major General Smedley Butler: “War is a racket… it is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many.”

Was that something that struck you while serving, the business and economy of war?

Absolutely. I fought in a 20-year war—America's longest. Coming out of that experience, it is impossible to avoid asking: How and why did we fight a 20-year war? This question leads to an examination of the various interests at play in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, how the United States chose to structure those wars and how we paid for them in both resources and manpower.

When you were studying at The Fletcher School, was this where you saw your career going? Or are you surprised by the direction that your life and career has taken?

I absolutely did not think this was where my career would go when I was at Fletcher. Life offers us many blessings and opportunities that we cannot foresee. Our job is to be open-minded, to say yes. 

I graduated from Fletcher when I was 23. I was a double Jumbo, earning a bachelor's from Tufts and a master's from Fletcher in five years.

Right after Fletcher, I went into the U.S. Marines Corps. I thought I would be there for the rest of my life. But after eight years between the Marines and the CIA, I decided to change paths and took up writing. It's important to be open-minded to all the directions that your life and career can take.

You're one of a few prominent writers that have come out of Fletcher, including Killers of the Flower Moon author David Grann and House of Cards creator Michael Dobbs. Is there anything about Fletcher's approach to education that helps people develop these creative instincts?

Something I really value about Fletcher is its interdisciplinary approach. I was always encouraged to reach outside of my comfort zone and my area of concentration. As a writer, I'm constantly being pushed to draw from experiences and subjects that are not necessarily my area of expertise. A book like Sheepdogs, for example, is totally different from anything I've ever done before. Just as Fletcher encouraged me to reach outside my comfort zone, as a writer I try to create stories that are new and fresh each time.

How does Fletcher continue to impact your life today?

Fletcher is deeply embedded in my life. One of the things that makes Fletcher so special is the community that we inherit for all the years after we graduate. I've been very grateful for that.

One of my major projects is a series of books I co-write with Admiral James Stavridis, a fellow alumnus who served as Dean of the Fletcher School. The first in the series was a book called 2034, which imagined a war between the U.S. and China. The second book, 2054, came out last year. The final book in the trilogy, 2084, depicts an environmental war. It will release in 2026. So next year, I'll be on the road with Admiral Stavridis.

We were excited to hear that Tom Hanks and Apple Studios are planning a series based on Sheepdogs. Is this the first film or television adaptation of one of your works? 

It's very exciting, and it will be the first. I can't wait to see Skwerl and Cheese’s antics up on the screen. We're in the process of developing it, and we’re building something that people will really enjoy watching.