Former U.S. Naval Officer Ray Deptula explores timeless topics like human nature, desperation and survival.
MERRITT ISLAND, Fla., Jan. 18 — 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.
“I wanted to call attention to the parallels between the American Revolution and the present day,” Deptula said. “Not just in political-military terms, but in the personal story of a young man who enters the military because he sees no other way to survive. That’s something I can personally relate to, and I think many Americans can, too.”
Set against the volatile backdrop of colonial America, A Dog Before a Soldier follows teenage Jack Halliday, who — fresh off three harrowing years on a slave ship — joins the British Army in 1774 out of sheer necessity. Sent to Boston as part of the growing security force to help suppress a growing rebellion, Jack understands little of the political turmoil as he fights in key battles including Lexington and Concord, Bunker Hill, Long Island and the capture of Philadelphia before deserting the British Army and seeking refuge in Annapolis, Maryland.
“There is political dysfunction in every era,” Deptula said. “It’s part and parcel of the human experience as well as our American experience. Circumstances change, but human nature doesn’t. We can’t seem to help from making the same mistakes, yet there are always good people who push through them.”
After deserting, Jack finds his way to Annapolis, where he is fortuitously taken in by a wealthy landowner who ultimately asks him to act as his surrogate in the Continental Army alongside an enslaved man named Custis. In return, Jack is welcomed into the family and promised the landowner’s daughter’s hand in marriage.
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.
At its core, A Dog Before a Soldier is not only a meticulously researched account of the American Revolution, but a deeply human story about belonging, resilience and moral choice.
“The entire premise of my book is that those who fight their nation’s wars are typically those least able to avoid it,” Deptula said. “The ‘who it is that actually shows up to do the fighting’ seems to me timeless — it was true then, was true long before then and is still true today. Jack is an everyman — someone with a moral compass and leadership qualities that he does not even realize he has — trying to survive in an uncaring world that too often devours the weak, slow or dimwitted.”
Both entertaining and educational, A Dog Before a Soldier explores how competing interests, political tension and personal sacrifice shaped the founding of the United States, and how those same forces continue to shape this country and the rest of the world today.
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.
A Dog Before A Soldier
Publisher: Speaking Volumes
Release Date: February 2026
Available from: Amazon.com