Kevin E. Lake is a 2013 Yahoo Content of the Year Award Winner. Out of millions of articles per year contributed to Yahoo by more than 600,000 writers, five articles are chosen for this illustrious award, and Lake's short story "You've Come a Long Way, Soldier" which highlights the role of female soldiers in combat was one of the five chosen. His novel "From the Graves of Babes" spent six months as Amazon's #1 rated ghost novel in customer satisfaction shortly after its release. Lake grew up in the Mountains of West Virginia. He was a sports writer for both his high school and college newspapers. He was a state champion miler in high school (1991 A-AA West Virginia State Champion with a time of 4:33.95) and he ran track at the NCAA II level in college, where he also wrote poetry and short stories for several publications.Lake is a 1998 graduate of Fairmont State University in northern West Virginia. After college, he spent nearly ten years as a stock broker in Charlottesville, Virginia before leaving Wall Street to enlist in the Army National Guard where he became an Airborne Infantryman in his mid thirties.Lake served honorably during a tour in Iraq as a machine gunner for a convoy security team in Mosul, Al Qaeda in Iraq's last urban stronghold. During his tour, Lake was awarded ten different distinguishable medals by the Army including the Army Commendation Medal and the Army Achievement Medal for his actions in a combat zone. He also received the Combat Action Badge, awarded to soldiers who take and/or return fire from or onto enemy forces. On Christmas day, 2008, Lake and his Company survived the largest rocket/mortar attack on the FOB (forward operating base) in Mosul in the history of the war in Iraq. Lake is currently working on several novels as well as several short story collections. His favorite authors include Stephen King, Michael Crichton, and Mark Twain. He currently resides in the Philippine Islands with his wife and their son.Read more about this authorRead less about this author