Friedman began his career as an infantry officer in the U.S. Army's
101st Airborne Division. In March 2002, he led a rifle platoon into Afghanistan's Shah-e-Kot Valley to engage
Taliban and
al Qaeda fighters as part of
Operation Anaconda—a battle later written about by journalist
Sean Naylor in
Not a Good Day to Die. A year later, Friedman commanded a platoon during the invasion of Iraq. He led troops during combat and counterinsurgency operations in
Hillah,
Baghdad, and
Tal Afar. Friedman left active duty in 2004 after spending the latter portion of his Iraq tour as a rifle company executive officer. He was awarded two
Bronze Stars for his service in Afghanistan and Iraq. From 2007 to 2009, Friedman was a vice chairman and spokesperson for
VoteVets.org, a
political action committee and non-profit
501(c)(4) with a mission of getting veterans elected to public office. In 2007 he wrote
The War I Always Wanted, a non-fiction memoir of his experiences in combat in Afghanistan and Iraq. It was named by the
Army Times in 2010 as one of their best military books of the decade.
Publishers Weekly called the book "cynical but appealing". The
Baltimore Sun stated, "You'll want to read parts aloud." In 2009, Friedman accepted a role as the first director of digital media at the
United States Department of Veterans Affairs in Washington, D.C. According to
Stars and Stripes, his job was to "revolutionize how the VA interacts with veterans on the Internet." In 2011, AOL Government noted that VA was "becoming a model for other agencies" in the area of social media communication. After leaving VA in 2012, Friedman joined the global public relations firm
FleishmanHillard as a vice president. In March 2014, Friedman was appointed by the Obama administration as the deputy assistant secretary for public affairs at the
United States Department of Housing and Urban Development. Friedman left HUD in July 2015 and launched the McPherson Square Group, a public relations firm. ==References==