<= span style=3D'font-family:Garamond'>341 Lexington Street · Newton, Massachusetts 0246= 6

Tel: 617-630-= 9286 · Fax: 617-630-1695

E-mail: vict or@booktours.com&= nbsp; · Website: http://www.booktours.com<= /o:p>

FOR IMMEDIA= TE RELEASE = = &= nbsp; PRESS RELEASE

Contact:     Victor Gulotta, 617-630-9286, victor@booktours.com

It’s a Jungle Out There: An Inspiring Year =

In the Life of a Charlie Ranger

Some people are born optimists. For Joe Dunn—newly married, = just out of school—the next three hundred and sixty five days would prove = to be a mixture of sunshine and rain. His job was to find the sunny route. It wouldn’t be easy. Dunn was going where one wrong move might find you impaled on spikes of bamboo, covered with leeches, or being hunted by strangers whose job was to kill you. Welcome to the deadly jungles of t= he Central Highlands of South Vietnam, the “green hell” that serve= s as the setting for Of Their Own Accord [The Writers’ Collective, Cloth, $24.95; Paper, $16.95], Gary Dolan’s riveting new novel about = life and death in the elite “Charlie Rangers” of the 75^th Infantry.

For anyone unfamiliar with these extraordi= nary men, Charlie Rangers are the best of the best, the infantry equivalent of N= avy SEAL’s, and the Green Berets, the guys who wrote the book on special operations. These are soldier= s of nearly super-human dedication, responsible for the most missions, the most productive missions, and the most widespread insertions of the entire war i= n Southeast Asia.&nb= sp; That Mr. Dolan was one of them—Lieutenant Gary Dolan, Platoon Leader 2^nd

Platoon Company C (Airborne), 75th Infantry (Rangers)—underscores the

verisimilitude = of this novelized depiction of a year in the life of an Airborne Ranger during the height of America’s longest and most controversial war.

It’s 1970 and Lieutenant John Dunn&#= 8212;a stand-in for Dolan--finds himself “in country,” ready and eager= to put to use the skills for which West Point trained him. Defying conventi= onal army doctrine, the young officer makes the decision to lead by example inst= ead of privilege of rank, refusing to send his men into the horror that awaits = them without sharing the unimaginable peril.&nb= sp; Like Apocalypse Now, Of Their Own Accord makes immediate an experience of war impossible to imagine unless you’ve been through it. And like Band of Broth= ers, it brings home the unqualified heroism and fierce devotion of a unique brotherhood of warriors.

          = Dolan does a masterful job of revealing the truism only combat veterans understand—that, as another former Ranger says in his introduction, “it is not patriotism that inspires young men to such bravery, but th= eir love and devotion to their comrades.” It’s a surprise, in a way, t= hat a story about death and destruction would evoke in the reader such feelings of tenderness. At its heart, = Of Their Own Accord is not just a war story, but a love story; a vivid portrait of the love and loyalty between men who depend on each other for t= heir survival. To the extent that = these Charlie Rangers are the progenitors of today’s Special Ops forces deployed in Afghanistan and Iraq, <= i>Of Their Own Accord takes on a spine-tingling immediacy. Here are men whose courage, intelligence, honor, and integrity you’re glad to have working on your side—which enables the reader to experience an emotion not often associated with the war in Vietnam: pride. Of Their Own Accord= ,

(which is also the Rangers’ motto referring to the fact that Rangers volunteer for these assignments) serves = as a needed tonic for the thousands of disenfranchised veterans who were never accorded the recognition and appreciation they earned during America’s most divisive war.= In Of Their Own Accord, Dol= an makes palpable the understanding that valor and honor were every bit as pre= sent in this war as they had been in every way before it.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Gary E. Dolan
80 Yoakum Street, Farmingdale, New York 11735-1947
ph: (516) 249-4496; email: gdolan@optonline.net

B= iographical Information

As a child, Gary Dolan= lived abroad during his formative years since his father was in the Army and stationed in Europe for more than seven years. = Gary developed a passion for travel and visited all the countries on the Mediterranean and throughout Europe. Later he included visits to 48 of = the 50 US states, the Far Eas= t, Asia and throughout South America plus numerous islands.

Gary Dolan received a = B.S in Civil Engineering from the United States Military Academy in 1969 and a J.D. from N= ew York Law = School in 1977. Dolan is now an active attorney, licensed in the State of New York, a publ= ic accountant and a Certified Trade Broker.&n= bsp; Dolan's distinguished 5-year military career after graduation from W= est Point includes a one-year tour of duty in <= st1:place w:st=3D"on">Vietnam in 1970 with Company = C (Ranger), 75th Infantry (Airborne). Whi= le on active service, Dolan was awarded the Airborne, Ranger, Jungle Warfare Expe= rt and Combat Infantryman Badges as well as ten Combat Air Medals, the Bronze = Star and numerous other achievement medals.&nbs= p; He retired as an LTC from the Army Reserves. He served as President of Company E (Long Range Patrol), 20th Infantry (Airborne) and Company C (Ranger), 75th Infantry (Airborne) Association, Inc. He authored the book, Of Their Own Accord, to be published March 200= 5, which relates the heroics of the Rangers in Viet Nam. His book has garner= ed many five-star reviews, and his publisher has enlisted a PR firm to arrange national media and author presentations.

In 1996, Gary Dolan fo= unded and served as CEO of eBarter, the world's first online, interactive barter exchange and predecessor to BigVine, Inc., of which he is the Founder. Bigvine was the premier online bar= ter exchange and was funded with $60 Million by the world's leading investors, including Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, the partners of Kohlberg Kr= avis Roberts & Co., American Express (which purchased a 40% interest), NBC and Sanford Robertson (founder of Robertson Stephens & Co., LLC.). =

Prior to starting eBarter, Dolan owned a law and an accounting practice and taught courses throughout New York on how to start and run a profitable small business. From 1978 to 1990, Dol= an practiced general law as managing partner of Alonge & Dolan. In additio= n, Dolan served as consultant to the United States Small Business Administrati= on's (SBA) Small Business Developmen= t Center at the State University of New York at Farmingdale.   He also served there as an a= djunct professor for 14 years, teaching business law and accounting. Dolan currently works as an attorn= ey in his own practice serving select clientele and conducts seminars on elite leadership in the US= and abroad to corporate executives. In 2004, Dolan was selected as the keyn= ote speaker to address the senior managers at BP Petroleum's Global Convention = at Manchester, England. The topic was US Army Ranger Leade= rship applied to business. As a dir= ect result of that presentation, Dolan was invited to extend his stay and addre= ss elements of British Prime Minister Tony Blair's cabinet in London. Thereafter, in November of 2004, Dolan conducted a full day's semina= r on the same subject for the leaders of the major industries, including Coca-Co= la, AIG and numerous banks, in Buc= harest, Romania.<= /span>

In h= is spare time, Dolan enjoys traveling, skiing and has been a = New York high school baseball umpire f= or many years. He and his wife, Linda, live in Farmingdale, New York. They have three grown children