"At the high point of a soaring career in the U.S. Army, Lt. Col. Mark Weber was tapped by General David Petraeus to serve in a high profile job within the Afghan Parliament as a military advisor. Within weeks, a routine physical revealed stage IV intestinal cancer in the thirty-eight-year-old father of three ... When [he] 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"--Dust jacket flap.