Phil Klay

Phil Klay
Klay at the 2015 PEN Literary Awards Ceremony
Birth name	Phil Klay
Born	1983 Westchester, New York, U.S.
Allegiance	United States of America
Service/branch	United States Marine Corps
Years of service	2005-2009
Rank	Captain
Battles/wars	Iraq War
Website	http://www.philklay.com

Phil Klay (/ˈklaɪ/; born 1983) is an American writer and United States Marine officer who won the National Book Award for fiction in 2014 for his first book-length publication, a collection of short stories, Redeployment. In 2014 the National Book Foundation named him a 5 under 35 honoree.

Klay grew up in Westchester, New York, the son of Marie-Therese F. Klay and William D. Klay. He attended Regis High School in New York City, graduating in 2001.

While attending Dartmouth College, where he played rugby and boxed, Klay attended Officer Candidate School in Quantico, Virginia, during the summer of 2004. He graduated from Dartmouth College in 2005 and then joined the U.S. Marines, where he was commissioned as a second lieutenant. He later explained that:

I knew we were going to war, and I joined for the reasons that many people serve. My family always had a strong respect for public service. I wanted to be part of a cause greater than myself. I was thinking of it as a historic moment, and I wanted to put myself in a position of responsibility so I could hopefully affect things for the better.

During the U.S. troop surge in Iraq, he served for thirteen months in Anbar province in Iraq from January 2007 to February 2008. He left the military in 2009 and then earned an M.F.A. in creative writing from Hunter College in 2011.

He described his time in the military as "a very mild deployment" as a Public Affairs Officer. He said that he wrote his collection of short stories based on his service and return to civilian life because: