The soldier and author reveals his role models.

Question: Who are your heroes?

Jason Christopher Hartley: Well, that’s a… Now that ‘s a very loaded question in a lot of ways. First off, soldiers hate the word hero, but in this context I’d be using it kind of completely differently. Who are my heroes? Gosh, I’d really have to think about that. Henry Miller kind of comes to mind first just because of the way that he writes. He was one of the first writers that I ever read who as, you know, kind of a young teenager I went -- I had no idea you could like write stuff like this and get away with it. I felt like I discovered this world of like, oh wow, you can kind of do whatever you want as long as it’s on the page because no one is really paying attention to it so much as other things.

This is going to sound kind of random as hell, but Jeff Buckley. If I could think of one person who I wish there were a way that I could model myself after them, if I could be like him, it would be the musician Jeff Buckley. He just seems like a nice guy, you know. I want to be a nice guy. How can I do that? So yeah, Jeff Buckley. He’s dead, which bums me the hell out, but he would definitely be a hero.