“This journal was once a gift to our young sons. It is now a gift to anyone who cares to read it.”

When Major Mark Hertling deployed to Iraq in 1990 as the operations officer of an armored cavalry squadron, his unit was told they would likely sustain 50 percent of casualties. To him, that meant he might not return home, and perhaps never see his family again. To prepare for that potential outcome, he began keeping a journal, hoping that one day, if he didn’t return, his stories and wisdom would be passed to his young sons.

In an army-issued green notebook, Mark began recording his thoughts and hopes for his boys. He wrote of character, leadership, camaraderie, battles, cultural differences, religion, love, fear, and those things he wanted his boys to know about him and his experiences. In unfiltered, handwritten entries, Hertling captured the reality of combat in Operation Desert Storm: the waiting and missions, the chaos and courage, the brotherhood and grief, and the lessons of duty and humanity forged in war. What began as a father’s private messages became a rare chronicle of leadership and life in preparation for the crucible of battle.
He survived, returned home, and watched his boys grow. Decades later, after both his sons became combat veterans themselves, one of them typed those original pages as a gift to his dad, to preserve the legacy for the family’s next generation. In revisiting them, Hertling—promoted, serving in various positions and returning to the battlefields of Iraq over the next two decades—added reflections drawn from a soldier’s life. Reflecting on various military assignments, then those post-retirement jobs as a cable news analyst, a healthcare executive, and a professor of leadership, these journal entries now provide lessons on character, leadership, and service.
Part battlefield memoir, part father’s journal, part meditation on the challenges of leadership, If I Don’t Return is the story of a soldier who faced death, returned home, and continued to live a life of service.