craigtrebilcock@gmail.com

Craig Trebilcock is a writer focusing on military and legal issues. His professional articles have appeared in ARMY magazine, The Washington Times, The Army Lawyer, PRISM (a publication of the National Defense University), The Journal of Homeland Security, and through the Strategic Studies Institute.

To reach a broader audience than professional journals present, Craig relates his insights about the unseen costs of military operations in the more accessible form of novels that are closely linked to his experiences during combat deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan, peacekeeping in the Balkans, as well as multiple missions in the Congo and Kenya.

Craig’s First novel, “One Weekend A Month” was based upon his life-changing experiences in Iraq in 2003 as an Army JAG officer attached to the U.S. Marine Corps during the march up to Baghdad. The stories his characters presented revealed the human cost of the war, thereby earning Craig a first place Gold Medal from the Military Writers Society of America. This success was soon followed by his second novel “No Time for Ribbons”, one of the first novels to explore the impact of post-traumatic stress on returning veterans.

In 2011, Craig was elected to the bench in Pennsylvania, and his writing was occupied with trial and appellate opinions for the next decade. He founded a Veterans Court to assist returning military personnel who ran afoul of the law after experiencing trauma in Iraq and Afghanistan.

On retiring in 2022, he again returned to the literary arena, beginning with “An Absence of Faith: A Tale of Afghanistan”, which is being released in May 2024. The story focuses upon the role of corruption in hastening the fall of Afghanistan back under Taliban control, despite the U.S. spending two trillion dollars, thousands of lives, and twenty years to prevent that outcome. Craig’s recent short story writing has received awards from both the Chesapeake Bay Writers and the Virginia Writers Club.

During his career as a trial attorney, Craig appeared on NBC Dateline (interview with Tom Brokaw), on CNN multiple times, CBS News, Fox, NPR, and been quoted on legal issues in multiple national newspapers including the Washington Post and the NY Times. He has been interviewed for an upcoming Al Jazeera documentary concerning the fall of Afghanistan.

Craig’s writing is informed by his thirty years’ military service on active duty and in the U.S. Army Reserve and multiple operational deployments. He is a graduate of the U.S. Army War College, and a two- time recipient of the Legion of Honor, a recipient of the Bronze Star Medal, and was decorated for Valor in Iraq.