Books
Books By Ray Deptula
One Man’s War, A Nation’s Reckoning
After 24 years in the U.S. Navy as a Naval Aviator and Political-Military Officer serving in Europe, the Middle East, Africa and the Caribbean, Ray Deptula has witnessed firsthand how political dysfunction and certain aspects of human nature repeat themselves across eras. His debut historical novel, A Dog Before A Soldier, brings that insight to life through the story of a young man forced into the military and ensuing war out of desperation during the American Revolution.
The first two books in this series are now available to order
About the Book
A Dog Before a Soldier
In A Dog Before A Soldier, the battlefield is only half the story. As gunpowder fills the air and empires clash, Jack Halliday wages his own internal war—against power, identity, and the meaning of freedom. Through him, the chaos of revolution becomes personal, revealing the high cost of both obedience and rebellion in a world desperate to redefine itself.
Available 5-26-26 | Pre-Order
Can’t Find My Way Home
The second book, Can’t Find My Way Home, will reveal Jack’s shared experience with Custis in the Continental Army as together they endure a brutal winter at the American encampment at Morristown, New Jersey, and the violent civil war in South Carolina, each fighting for a different version of freedom and survival.
The American Revolution is often remembered through its ideals. Former U.S. Naval Officer Ray Deptula wants readers to experience it through its uncertainty, exhaustion and human cost — the same way they would any other conflict.
“Ironically, the British experience in the American Revolution was strikingly similar to our own in Vietnam and even more recently in Afghanistan, where a superpower took on a woefully inferior foe and where expectation and actions of the government, the military and the people were not necessarily aligned,” Deptula said.
In Can’t Find My Way Home, the second installment in his Those Damned Yankees series, Deptula combines meticulous historical research with emotionally charged storytelling to recreate the Revolutionary War as it was lived by ordinary people caught inside extraordinary events.
Rather than using history as a backdrop, Deptula immerses readers in the actual sequence of Revolutionary War battles, troop movements and political upheaval that shaped America’s founding, all the while tracing the story of a common soldier embroiled in, and at the mercy of, a chaos that challenges his ability to survive.
A Dog Before A Soldier is the first book in Deptula’s Those Damn Yankees series. Book two, Can’t Find My Way Home, is scheduled for release in July 2026.
