Through emails turned into chapters, author David Meek recounts an attack on his unit in Afghanistan that killed 13 coalition personnel and reflects on the trauma and survivor’s guilt that followed.
As a 37-year-old high school principal, Meek advised students who rejected the idea of college after graduation to consider the military and even wrote letters for some who applied to military academies.
Supporting their patriotism, he battled being their mentor knowing he hadn’t yet answered the call to serve himself.
Little did Meek know, he would find his first nearly four decades of life had long prepared him to lead as he chose to take on the challenge of a military career.
In Meek’s latest book, “SOLDIER ON,” he details leadership, loss, and the long road home from a 2011 deployment as part of the California National Guard, during which they experienced one of the deadliest single ground attacks against the U.S.-led coalition since the war began in Afghanistan.
“That is when my life changed dramatically,” he said. ”That’s when I changed as an officer. Not just at the moment, not just the day, but it began to shake me in a way that I couldn’t have read about. I couldn’t prepare for that.”
On Oct. 29, 2011, a suicide bomber struck a coalition convoy in Kabul, Afghanistan. Thirteen coalition personnel were killed.
Among the U.S. Army personnel lost were Lt. Col. David E. Cabrera, Staff Sgt. Christopher R. Newman, Sgt. James M. Darrough and Sgt. Carlo F. Eugenio.
“Carlo was one of our own,” Meek said.
All the training and life experience up to that point came back to Meek in that instant, as his mission from that morning became a recovery operation.
“We say in education that everything you need to learn in life is taught in kindergarten, and I still believe that,” he said. “I also feel that about my basic training. It sounds crazy, but it’s those fundamentals. The mental aspect and what I learned in endurance races came in handy. Even my childhood, growing up the way I did, it served me well at those moments, but not always in a healthy way.”
Meek retired from the military in June 2025 after about 20 years of service. He constructed his book from his original deployment emails sent back home to his several hundred supporters — using photographs, military records and memories all from his deployment to Afghanistan between 2011 and 2012.
He said his goal in releasing the book is to get the message out, to remember those lost, and to say ‘thank you’ to those soldiers he partnered with to help him get through the trauma and survivor’s guilt of the 2011 attack, and the mental-health struggles that followed.
“After that mission, after that attack we had to continue missions for another eight to 10 months and we accomplished a great deal,” he said. “We changed the mission, we created a safer mission, we were able to really do things where others would have thought, ‘There’s no way they’re going to get through this,’ and we did. But I think we forgot about it. And I wanted to bring attention to that. I want Sgt. Garcia, who survived, to be able to begin to look back and begin healing.”
During that deployment, Meek sent emails to his family and friends detailing what his unit was doing, where they were and some of the rationale he thought up as to frame his state of mind. He called these messages home “First Lieutenant’s Weekly Update,” and when he promoted, “Captain’s Weekly Update,” then “Major’s.”
He said “thankfully,” his now ex-wife put the email updates into an album because it gave him the foundation to thread together the information to put the book together.
Long before the deployment, Meek faced a childhood fundamental in developing his fortitude to face hard things in his adult life. The son of a Vietnam veteran who returned from war “different” and born to a 17-year-old mother who struggled with heroin addiction and worked as a prostitute, Meek emancipated at 15, and attended continuation school – an alternative high school designed for students at risk of not graduating – after he threw a hockey stick at a teacher.
As a senior, he said he had a reading and math level of a third grader. He took the ASVAB multiple times, but couldn’t pass. He attended junior college on a $200 gift from a teacher towards his courses.
By the time he joined the military at 37, he said he’d earned three master’s degrees and various other credentials in education.
Through “SOLDIER ON,” Meek aimed to help his fellow veterans he served alongside in the sand work to heal. He also wanted to show what the unit accomplished after the attack.
“We need to be standing and going, ‘I’m going to live my life for those who didn’t get to live their life, and I’m going to live it the best I can, and I’m going to keep sharing their story,’” he said. “That’s really the premise of the book.”
“SOLDIER ON” was released in September and is available for purchase on Amazon. Follow @david_meek70 for Meek’s upcoming book projects on Instagram.