When Mark realized that he was not going to survive this final tour of combat, he began to write a letter to his boys, so that as they grew up without him, they would know what his life-and-death story had taught him about courage and fear, challenge and comfort, words and actions, pride and humility, seriousness and humor, and a never-ending search for new ideas and inspiration.
This book is that letter. And it's not just for his sons. It's for everyone who could use the last best advice a dying hero has to offer.
Mark's letter and his stories illustrate that the greatest value of a life is to spend it for something that lives after it. That in the end you become what you are through the causes to which you attach yourself -- and that you've made your own along the way. Through his example, he teaches how to live an ordinary life in an extraordinary way.