Frank Demith's Of Vital Interest, a Literary Icon of Change in the Americas

Icons of Change™

Icons of Change Literary Awards 2026  Of Vital Interest By Frank Demith  Award Category: Outstanding Literary Work for Social Impact, Military Service & Cross-Cultural Understanding  Author: Frank Demith Author of the Award-Winning Novels Of Vital Interest and Defending The Eagle  Former Senior Management Analyst, Cherokee Nation Businesses Former Vice President, Government Business Development, Sygnetics, Inc. Former Vice President, Language and Culture, Veritiss, LLC Former Senior Military Analyst, Davis Paige Management Former Associate, Booz Allen Hamilton Former Deputy Director, L-3 Communications Former Deputy Chief of Staff, Mobilization Branch, U.S. Army  Literary & Impact Focus: Literary Storytelling | Cross-Cultural Understanding | Military Service | Identity | Sacrifice | Courage | Human Resilience  Icons of Change Literary Impact & Transformation Standard (I.LTS) Focus: Reading Engagement | Narrative Literacy | Cultural Understanding | Social-Impact Storytelling | Perspective-Taking | Critical Reflection | Public Awareness  A Novel Where Language, Identity and Duty Intersect  Of Vital Interest by Frank Demith is a fast-paced military novel that brings together language, cultural identity, family, citizenship, duty and conflicting loyalties through the intertwined experiences of two soldiers deployed to Iraq.  At the centre of the story are Sergeant Abdullah and Specialist Al Khafaji, two men whose linguistic abilities and personal histories place them in uniquely complex positions within the U.S. military.  Sergeant Abdullah is a trained linguist, soldier and mechanic who grew up in Iraq before moving to the United States with his parents through a military visa programme. Preparing for his fourth deployment to Iraq, he remains committed to serving the country that provided his family with a new life.  Specialist Al Khafaji enters the U.S. military through a special recruiting programme that ultimately leads to American citizenship and military service. Yet questions surrounding his motivations emerge as he prepares for deployment to Iraq, where members of his family continue to live.  Their stories eventually converge in Iraq as military teams work to dismantle a terrorist militant cell operating near a village.  The result is a narrative shaped by questions of duty, identity, trust and the difficult choices that emerge when personal history intersects with national service.  Literary Storytelling With Social Relevance  At its foundation, Of Vital Interest demonstrates the ability of literature to transform complex social questions into compelling human stories.  A powerful novel does more than present a sequence of events. It invites readers to interpret motives, understand different perspectives, examine decisions and consider circumstances beyond their own experience.

Transcript

00:00Hello, everyone. Frank DeMuth here from the state of West Virginia in the United States of America.

00:07I just wanted to let everybody know that I received notification that my book of vital interest has been named

00:15the winner of the Icons of Change Literary Award for 2026.

00:22I'm greatly honored to receive this award, and it was something that I had not expected, but it's a very

00:30pleasant surprise.

00:32A Vital Interest was the first book in my series and is based on a program that I helped develop

00:40and manage while I was still serving on active duty in the Pentagon in the Army.

00:45We were recruiting green card holders who spoke Dari, Pashto, Parsi, or Arabic to serve as uniformed interpreter translators in

01:00support of forces overseas in the global war on terror.

01:05My book is historical fiction, and as I said, it's based on a program that I helped create and manage.

01:12In this book, there are several main characters, and they are interpreters.

01:22One of them is in the program that I helped develop, and the four other ones were recruited into the

01:30Army using a different program called the Military Accessions Vital to National Interest.

01:40As the story goes on, we find that the hero is now performing duties as a mechanic because the program

01:53that I developed was curtailed, so they had to find additional jobs for the other people to do.

01:58And the other four that were brought in are serving in different types of specialties, but their main job was

02:09interpreter translators.

02:11So the story follows, and there was an individual who had ulterior motives when they joined the military.

02:22And the action in the book follows the protagonist and the antagonist as they continued to serve in Iraq.

02:34And they were both from Iraq, so it probably would be a little difficult for them to do that, but

02:41they signed up to be soldiers and they did their jobs.

02:44And in the main portion of the book, there's several scenes that are very difficult to write for me because

02:58there's loss of life and there's other things that happen.

03:03But in the end, the antagonist is put to rest, and the protagonist is still moving forward.

03:14The book has so many different twists and turns.

03:18It's been called a fast-paced action thriller, and it's won several awards.

03:25It was named as the winner of the International Impact Book Awards, Military Book of 2023, and it was also

03:36a finalist in the Book Excellence Awards.

03:40And it received very positive reviews by Kirkus and other reviewing agencies.

03:47So I just wanted to say thank you so much for the icons of change, and I'm very honored to

03:55receive this award, and I wish you all the best.

03:58Have a great day.

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