Winner of the 2021 IndieReader Discovery Award for Memoir Finalist in the 2021 National Indie Excellence Awards for New Nonfiction Finalist in the 2021 Wishing Shelf Book Awards for Best Cover Design and Adult Nonfiction Finalist in the 2021 Independent Authors Network Book Awards for Autobiography/Biography Finalist in the 2021 N.N. Light Book Awards for Memoir Finalist in the 2021 Book Excellence Awards for Memoir As an only child isolated within a troubled family, Dana found solace in fantasy and imagination, until a fateful day led to the discovery of his father’s Korean War field jacket hidden in a closet. What began as innocent emulation and approval, eventually spiraled into the calamitous loss of everything he had built as an adult. Faced with a grievous divorce, post-traumatic stress, homelessness, substance abuse, and the failure of everything he had willed himself to believe was truth, one night communing with a loaded pistol became the mechanism for self-clarity. Visceral, with breathtaking candor, Playing Soldier: A Chronicle of Spiritual Awakening powerfully captures the unlearning of expectation, the celebration of individuality, and the nourishing of self-acceptance once buried by cultural stamps of approval and societal convention. Braided with humor, courage, fear, despair, and hope, F. Scott Service's unflinching, evocative story of passage into adulthood, the Iraq War, and beyond, speaks to anyone who has confronted adversity from without and grappled for their dreams from within. " Playing Soldier is a gripping memoir of life, war, loss, and recovery that effectively conveys the fear and horror of a shell-shocked veteran who had once romanticized the idea of being a soldier." - IndieReader "Vividly written, honest, and often deeply disturbing, readers on finishing this book will be asking if war is ever truly worth it. A Wishing Shelf recommended read!" - The Wishing Shelf " Playing Soldier is truly a book for everyone. There are pages that will never let go of you. What real writing is supposed to do." - Baron Wormser, author of Tom o'Vietnam "...strikingly profound." - N.N. Light's Book Heaven "Rarely does a memoir feel this raw and immediate, as though some part of the author never left the far-flung places that changed his life forever." - Self-Publishing Review Having lived his life as a self-described, "confused, whimsical adventurer and drifter with a gift for being hopelessly lost within my own imagination," Scott has settled into a life-long dream of being a full-time author. His books, Lines in the Sand: An American Soldier's Personal Journey in Iraq and Playing Soldier: A Chronicle of Spiritual Awakening , have won numerous awards, including a Bronze Medal for Adult Nonfiction in the Wishing Shelf Book Awards and the IndieReader Discovery Award for Memoir. His third book, The Book of Jack: An Asylum Tap Dance , a tribute to the lifetime he spent with his best friend who committed suicide, was completed in September 2024.   When not attempting to be original and take himself too seriously while grappling with the continuing repercussions of war or scratching out his thoughts on a page, he enjoys gardening, tending to his Bonsai trees, and cooking as well as playing baritone ukulele and taking long walks.   He lives in New England.