Christopher L. Izant holds a bachelor’s degree from Boston College, where he received the Frank J. Bailey Sr. award for academic excellence in Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies. He served in the U.S. Marine Corps as an infantry officer from 2010-2014, which included the deployment to Afghanistan described in Final Engagement. After receiving a medical separation and honorable discharge, Chris completed a joint degree program at Harvard Law School and the Kennedy School of Government. During his graduate studies, Chris’s writing was published in the Harvard Journal of Law and Technology and the Harvard National Security Journal. He also served as an Editor-in Chief of the Harvard National Security Journal and as a co-director for the Harvard Veterans Organization. In 2018, Chris graduated with honors and received the Harvard Law School Stephen L. Werner writing prize for best paper on criminal law. Since then, he has worked as an FBI Special Agent in Maryland, where he lives with his family.